The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets
Abstract
The generosity of public pensions may depress private savings and provide incentives to retire early. While there is plenty of evidence supporting the latter effect, there remains considerable controversy as whether or not public pensions crowd out private savings. This paper uses international micro-datasets collected over recent years to investigate whether public pensions displace private savings. The identification strategy relies on differences in the progressivity or non-linearity of pension formulas across countries. We also make use of large heterogeneity in earnings across education group and country. The evidence we present is consistent with previous studies using cross-sectional and time-series variation in savings and pensions. We estimate that an extra dollar of pension wealth depresses accumulated financial assets at the time of retirement by 23 to 44 cents and that an extra ten thousand dollars in pension wealth reduces the average retirement age by roughly 1 month.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Article provided by Institute for Fiscal Studies in its journal Fiscal Studies.
Volume (Year): 33 (2012)
Issue (Month): 1 (03)
Pages: 107-128
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Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Michael Hurd & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Susann Rohwedder, 2009. "The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets," Working Papers wp212, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
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Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Blau, David M., 2011. "Pensions, Household Saving, and Welfare: A Dynamic Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 5554, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
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