Imperial chancellor Bismarck’s system of social insurance (with its three pillars health, accident and pension insurance) was an important role model for social security systems across Europe and in the US. How the introduction of the German system changed economic expectations and decisions of the German workforce has not been researched, though. This article closes this gap by analyzing the development of Prussian savings banks’ deposits in the late 19th century with the help of a difference-in-difference-like approach. We show that, in the Prussian case, social security crowded out private savings considerably. As counterfactual voluntary savings would have been far from sufficient, however, Bismarck’s social insurance system was still needed to fight the misery workers and their families potentially faced in old age or times of sickness.

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社会保障会挤出私人储蓄吗？Bi斯麦的社会保险制度案例

帝国总理Bi斯麦的社会保险体系（包括健康，事故和养老保险三大支柱）是整个欧洲和美国社会保障体系的重要榜样。但是，尚未研究德国制度的引入如何改变经济期望和德国劳动力的决定。本文通过一种类似差异的方法，分析了19世纪后期普鲁士储蓄银行的存款发展，从而弥合了这一差距。我们证明，在普鲁士的案例中，社会保障极大地挤出了私人储蓄。但是，由于反事实的自愿储蓄远远不够，因此，仍需要Bi斯麦的社会保险制度来与可能在老年或患病时期面临的苦难工人及其家人作斗争。