IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v65y2019i4p908-929.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncertain Pension Income and Household Saving

Author

Listed:
  • Peter van Santen

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between household saving and pensions, and estimates both the displacement effect of pensions on private saving and the precautionary saving effect due to uncertainty in pension income. I estimate the savings equation implied by a simple life‐cycle model featuring income uncertainty using survey data for Dutch households, with subjective expectations on pension benefits and uncertainty. Exploiting exogenous variation due to pension fund performance, I find that households save significantly more due to uncertainty in pension income. Not controlling for uncertainty biases the estimated displacement effect of pensions on private savings towards zero.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter van Santen, 2019. "Uncertain Pension Income and Household Saving," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 908-929, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:65:y:2019:i:4:p:908-929
    DOI: 10.1111/roiw.12383
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12383
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/roiw.12383?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kapteyn, Arie & Alessie, Rob & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2005. "Explaining the wealth holdings of different cohorts: Productivity growth and Social Security," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1361-1391, July.
    2. Bottazzi, Renata & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2006. "Retirement expectations, pension reforms, and their impact on private wealth accumulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2187-2212, December.
    3. William G. Gale, 1998. "The Effects of Pensions on Household Wealth: A Reevaluation of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 706-723, August.
    4. Steven J. Davis & John C. Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1998. "Job Creation and Destruction," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262540932, December.
    5. Bodie, Zvi, 1990. "Pensions as Retirement Income Insurance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 28-49, March.
    6. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio & Terlizzese, Daniele, 1996. "Income Risk, Borrowing Constraints, and Portfolio Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 158-172, March.
    7. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    8. Orazio P. Attanasio & Susann Rohwedder, 2003. "Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1499-1521, December.
    9. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 1999. "Effects of pensions on savings: analysis with data from the health and retirement study," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 271-324, June.
    10. Alessie, Rob & Angelini, Viola & van Santen, Peter, 2013. "Pension wealth and household savings in Europe: Evidence from SHARELIFE," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 308-328.
    11. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Rob Alessie, 2011. "Did you really save so little for your retirement? An analysis of retirement savings and unconventional retirement accounts," CPB Discussion Paper 200, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. de Bresser, Jochem & van Soest, Arthur, 2013. "Survey response in probabilistic questions and its impact on inference," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 65-84.
    13. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2011. "Individuals' uncertainty about future social security benefits and portfolio choice," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 498-519, April.
    14. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Søren Leth-Petersen & Torben Heien Nielsen & Tore Olsen, 2014. "Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowd-Out in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1141-1219.
    15. van Santen, Peter & Alessie, Rob & Kalwij, Adriaan, 2012. "Probabilistic survey questions and incorrect answers: Retirement income replacement rates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 267-280.
    16. David M. Blau, 2016. "Pensions, household saving, and welfare: A dynamic analysis of crowd out," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(1), pages 193-224, March.
    17. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2013. "Pension Wealth Uncertainty," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 80(4), pages 1057-1085, December.
    18. Federica Teppa & Corrie Vis, 2012. "The CentERpanel and the DNB Household Survey: Methodological Aspects," DNB Occasional Studies 1004, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    19. Gary V. Engelhardt & Anil Kumar, 2011. "Pensions and Household Wealth Accumulation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(1), pages 203-236.
    20. Feldstein, Martin S, 1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 905-926, Sept./Oct.
    21. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tullio Jappelli & Immacolata Marino & Mario Padula, 2021. "Social Security Uncertainty and Demand for Retirement Saving," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(4), pages 810-834, December.
    2. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Yue Li & Rik Dillingh, 2022. "The displacement effect of compulsory pension savings on private savings. Evidence from the Netherlands, using pension funds supervisory data," Working Papers 747, DNB.
    3. Francesco Caloia & Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Irene Simonetti, 2023. "Shocks to Occupational Pensions and Household Savings," Working Papers 775, DNB.
    4. Laura D. Quinby & Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, 2021. "Do Public Sector Workers Increase Their Outside Savings in Response to Pension Cuts?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1023, Boston College Department of Economics.
    5. Wang, Dong & Zhang, Qiqi & Yang, Jingya, 2022. "Higher education expansion and national savings level: Evidence from macro data," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 92-103.
    6. Wei Yang & Peng Yang & Huaiwang Shi & Weizeng Sun, 2022. "Mobile Payment Application and Rural Household Consumption—Evidence from China Household Finance Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-18, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Santen, Peter, 2016. "Uncertain pension income and household saving," Working Paper Series 330, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    2. Dillingh, Rik, 2016. "Empirical essays on behavioral economics and lifecycle decisions," Other publications TiSEM 0e2143e3-bd86-4302-90eb-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Lindeboom, Maarten & Montizaan, Raymond, 2020. "Disentangling retirement and savings responses," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    4. Blau, David M., 2011. "Pensions, Household Saving, and Welfare: A Dynamic Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 5554, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Marta Lachowska & Michał Myck, 2018. "The Effect of Public Pension Wealth on Saving and Expenditure," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 284-308, August.
    6. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Yue Li & Rik Dillingh, 2022. "The displacement effect of compulsory pension savings on private savings. Evidence from the Netherlands, using pension funds supervisory data," Working Papers 747, DNB.
    7. Anna d’Addio & Muriel Roger & Frédérique Savignac, 2019. "Pensions and Household Savings: Cross-Country Heterogeneity in Europe," Working papers 738, Banque de France.
    8. Alessie, Rob & Angelini, Viola & van Santen, Peter, 2013. "Pension wealth and household savings in Europe: Evidence from SHARELIFE," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 308-328.
    9. José Luis Iparraguirre, 2020. "Economics and Ageing," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-29019-1, September.
    10. Marcela Parada-Contzen, 2020. "Crowding-out in savings decisions, portfolio default adoption and home ownership: evidence from the Chilean retirement system," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 543-569, June.
    11. Andreas Thiemann, 2016. "How Does Maternal Pension Wealth Affect Family Old-Age Savings in Germany?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1560, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Mathieu Lefebvre & Sergio Perelman, 2016. "Social security wealth and household asset holdings: new evidence from Belgium," Working Papers of BETA 2016-38, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    13. Alessie, R.J.M. & Angelini, V. & van Santen, P.C., 2012. "Pension wealth and household savings in Europe," Research Report 12012-EEF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    14. repec:dgr:rugsom:12012-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Tzu-Ting Yang, 2016. "The Effect of Workplace Pensions on Household Saving: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 16-A013, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    16. Sita Slavov & Devon Gorry & Aspen Gorry & Frank N. Caliendo, 2019. "Social Security and Saving: An Update," Public Finance Review, , vol. 47(2), pages 312-348, March.
    17. Esteban Garcia-Miralles & Jonathan M. Leganza, 2021. "Public Pensions and Private Savings," CEBI working paper series 21-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    18. Dolores Moreno-Herrero & Manuel Salas-Velasco & José Sánchez-Campillo, 2017. "Individual Pension Plans in Spain: How Expected Change in Future Income and Liquidity Constraints Shape the Behavior of Households," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 596-613, December.
    19. Junya Hamaaki, 2013. "The Pension System and Household Consumption and Saving Behavior," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 9(4), pages 687-716, September.
    20. Belloni, Michele & Brugiavini, Agar & Buia, Raluca E. & Carrino, Ludovico & Cavapozzi, Danilo & Orso, Cristina E. & Pasini, Giacomo, 2020. "What do we learn about redistribution effects of pension systems from internationally comparable measures of Social Security wealth?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 548-566, October.
    21. Feng, Jin & He, Lixin & Sato, Hiroshi, 2009. "Public pension and household saving : evidence from China," BOFIT Discussion Papers 2/2009, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:65:y:2019:i:4:p:908-929. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iariwea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.