IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/series/v10y2019i3d10.1007_s13209-019-0195-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of the introduction of tax incentives on retirement saving

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Ayuso

    (Banco de España)

  • Juan F. Jimeno

    (Banco de España
    CEPR
    IZA)

  • Ernesto Villanueva

    (Banco de España)

Abstract

We examine the incidence on household consumption of the introduction of tax incentives to retirement saving. First, using data from a panel of tax returns we document that most contributions to pension funds are by older/high-income individuals. Then we use panel data from a consumption survey spanning the period 1985 and 1991 to find that there is substantial heterogeneity in the response of household saving to tax incentives. While the overall amount of new saving we estimate is limited (at most 19 cents per euro contributed on average), saving responses differ substantially across age groups: among the group of households between 56 and 65 years of age, the group that most actively contributed to the plan, there are very small consumption changes; among the group of households between 46 and 55 years of age, the decrease in (mostly durable) consumption expenditures is much larger.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Ayuso & Juan F. Jimeno & Ernesto Villanueva, 2019. "The effects of the introduction of tax incentives on retirement saving," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 211-249, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:10:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s13209-019-0195-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-019-0195-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13209-019-0195-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13209-019-0195-7?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Browning & M. Dolores Collado, 2001. "The Response of Expenditures to Anticipated Income Changes: Panel Data Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 681-692, June.
    2. Michael R. Veall, 2001. "Did tax flattening affect RRSP contributions?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(1), pages 120-131, February.
    3. Gruber, Jon & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The elasticity of taxable income: evidence and implications," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-32, April.
    4. Gale, William G & Scholz, John Karl, 1994. "IRAs and Household Saving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1233-1260, December.
    5. John Beshears & James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2017. "Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings? Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions," NBER Chapters, in: Personal Income Taxation and Household Behavior (TAPES), National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Esther Duflo & William Gale & Jeffrey Liebman & Peter Orszag & Emmanuel Saez, 2006. "Saving Incentives for Low- and Middle-Income Families: Evidence from a Field Experiment with H&R Block," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(4), pages 1311-1346.
    7. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2019. "The elasticity of taxable income in Spain: 1999–2014," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 281-320, November.
    8. Richard Blundell & Carl Emmerson & Matthew Wakefield, 2006. "The importance of incentives in influencing private retirement saving: known knowns and known unknowns," IFS Working Papers W06/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Amromin, Gene & Huang, Jennifer & Sialm, Clemens, 2007. "The tradeoff between mortgage prepayments and tax-deferred retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(10), pages 2014-2040, November.
    10. Raquel Carrasco & José M. Labeaga & J. David López-Salido, 2005. "Consumption and Habits: Evidence from Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 144-165, January.
    11. Lopez Murphy, Pablo & Musalem, Alberto R., 2004. "Pension funds and national saving," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3410, The World Bank.
    12. M. Dolores Collado & Martin Browning, 2007. "Habits and heterogeneity in demands: a panel data analysis," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 625-640.
    13. 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, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1141-1219.
    14. Orazio P. Attanasio & Thomas DeLeire, 2002. "The Effect Of Individual Retirement Accounts On Household Consumption And National Saving," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(6), pages 504-538, July.
    15. R. Glenn Hubbard & Jonathan S. Skinner, 1996. "Assessing the Effectiveness of Saving Incentives," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 53540, September.
    16. Kevin Milligan, 2002. "Tax-preferred savings accounts and marginal tax rates: evidence on RRSP participation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(3), pages 436-456, August.
    17. Poterba, James M. & Venti, Steven F. & Wise, David A., 1995. "Do 401(k) contributions crowd out other personal saving?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-32, September.
    18. Olympia Bover, 2005. "Wealth effects on consumption: microeconometric estimates from the Spanish survey of household finances," Working Papers 0522, Banco de España.
    19. Richard Blundell & Ian Preston, 1998. "Consumption Inequality and Income Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(2), pages 603-640.
    20. Bernheim, B. Douglas, 2002. "Taxation and saving," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1173-1249, Elsevier.
    21. Engelhardt, Gary V. & Kumar, Anil, 2007. "Employer matching and 401(k) saving: Evidence from the health and retirement study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(10), pages 1920-1943, November.
    22. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    23. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    24. Antón, José-Ignacio & De Bustillo, Rafael Muñoz & Fernández-Macías, Enrique, 2014. "Supplementary private pensions and saving: evidence from Spain," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 367-388, October.
    25. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1996. "How Retirement Saving Programs Increase Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 91-112, Fall.
    26. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2003. "Tax incentives and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1779-1799, August.
    27. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1990. "The Effect of Age at School Entry on Educational Attainment: An Application of Instrumental Variables with Moments from Two Samples," NBER Working Papers 3571, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. B. Douglas Bernheim & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Weinberg, 2001. "What Accounts for the Variation in Retirement Wealth among U.S. Households?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 832-857, September.
    29. Alexander M. Gelber, 2011. "How Do 401(k)s Affect Saving? Evidence from Changes in 401(k) Eligibility," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 103-122, November.
    30. 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.
    31. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    32. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale & John Karl Scholz, 1996. "The Illusory Effects of Saving Incentives on Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 113-138, Fall.
    33. Orazio Attanasio & James Banks & Matthew Wakefield, 2004. "Effectiveness of tax incentives to boost (retirement) saving: theoretical motivation and empirical evidence," IFS Working Papers W04/33, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    34. Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2004. "The Effects of 401(K) Participation on the Wealth Distribution: An Instrumental Quantile Regression Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 735-751, August.
    35. R. Glenn Hubbard & Jonathan S. Skinner, 1996. "Assessing the Effectiveness of Saving Incentives," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 73-90, Fall.
    36. Woojin Chung & Richard Disney & Carl Emmerson & Matthew Wakefield, 2006. "Public policy and retirement saving incentives in the UK," Discussion Papers 06/03, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    37. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale, 2000. "The Effects of 401(k) Plans on Household Wealth: Differences Across Earnings Groups," NBER Working Papers 8032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    39. Richard H. Thaler, 2016. "Behavioral Economics: Past, Present, and Future," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1577-1600, July.
    40. María José Luengo‐Prado & Almudena Sevilla, 2013. "Time to Cook: Expenditure at Retirement in Spain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123, pages 764-789, June.
    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. Natalia B. Boldyreva & Liudmila G. Reshetnikova & Elena A. Tarkhanova & Zhanna V. Pisarenko & Svetlana A. Kalayda, 2020. "The Impact of Tax Preferences on the Investment Attractiveness of Bonds for Retail Investors: The Case of Russia," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-11, April.
    2. Littlewood, Michael, 2014. "Ageing populations, retirement incomes and public policy: what really matters," MPRA Paper 56232, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Maravall, A. & del Rio, A., 2007. "Temporal aggregation, systematic sampling, and the Hodrick-Prescott filter," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 975-998, October.
    4. Esteban García-Miralles & Nezih Guner & Roberto Ramos, 2019. "The Spanish personal income tax: facts and parametric estimates," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 439-477, November.
    5. Aitor Erce, 2008. "A structural model of sovereign debt issuance: assessing the role of financial factors," Working Papers 0809, Banco de España.
    6. International Monetary Fund, 2016. "New Zealand: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2016/040, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Athiphat Muthitacharoen & Trongwut Burong, 2022. "How do taxpayers respond to tax subsidy for long-term savings? Evidence from Thailand’s tax return data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(3), pages 726-750, June.
    8. Robert P. Hagemann, 2012. "Fiscal Consolidation: Part 6. What Are the Best Policy Instruments for Fiscal Consolidation?," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 937, OECD Publishing.
    9. Isabel Argimón & Pablo Hernández de Cos, 2008. "The determinants of budget balances of the regional (Autonomous) governments," Working Papers 0803, Banco de España.
    10. Ludmila Fadejeva & Olegs Tkacevs, 2021. "Are Tax-Favoured Savings Plans Effective in Raising Private Savings?," Discussion Papers 2021/01, Latvijas Banka.
    11. Artur Rutkowski, 2019. "Evaluating an old-age voluntary saving scheme under incomplete rationality," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 55-94.

    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. Andersen, Henrik Yde, 2018. "Do tax incentives for saving in pension accounts cause debt accumulation? Evidence from Danish register data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 35-53.
    2. Andersen, Henrik Yde, 2021. "Pension taxation, household debt and the real economy," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2021(1), pages 1-14.
    3. Athiphat Muthitacharoen & Trongwut Burong, 2022. "How do taxpayers respond to tax subsidy for long-term savings? Evidence from Thailand’s tax return data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(3), pages 726-750, June.
    4. Derek Messacar, 2018. "The Effects of Vesting and Locking in Pension Assets on Participation in Employer-Sponsored Pension Plans," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 178-200, June.
    5. Axel Börsch-Supan & Tabea Bucher-Koenen & Michela Coppola & Bettina Lamla, 2015. "Savings In Times Of Demographic Change: Lessons From The German Experience," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 807-829, September.
    6. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya, 2021. "Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 115-149, February.
    7. Burgherr, David, 2022. "Behavioral Responses to a Pension Savings Mandate : Quasi-experimental Evidence from Swiss Tax Data," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 645, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    8. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do private household transfers to the elderly respond to public pension benefits? Evidence from rural China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    9. Arun Advani & Hannah Tarrant, 2021. "Behavioural responses to a wealth tax," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3-4), pages 509-537, September.
    10. Adam M. Lavecchia, 2019. ""Back-Loaded" Tax Subsidies for Saving, Asset Location and Crowd-Out: Evidence from Tax-Free Savings Accounts," Department of Economics Working Papers 2019-04, McMaster University.
    11. Adam M. Lavecchia, 2018. "Do "Catch-Up Limits" Raise Retirement Saving? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 71(1), pages 121-154, March.
    12. Ludmila Fadejeva & Olegs Tkacevs, 2021. "Are Tax-Favoured Savings Plans Effective in Raising Private Savings?," Discussion Papers 2021/01, Latvijas Banka.
    13. Jennifer Ma, 2003. "Education Saving Incentives and Household Saving: Evidence from the 2000 TIAA-CREF Survey of Participant Finances," NBER Working Papers 9505, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Chan, Marc K. & Morris, Todd & Polidano, Cain & Vu, Ha, 2022. "Income and saving responses to tax incentives for private retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    15. Anne-Marie Brook, 2014. "Options to Narrow New Zealand’s Saving – Investment Imbalance," Treasury Working Paper Series 14/17, New Zealand Treasury.
    16. Laurence O'Brien, 2023. "The effect of tax incentives on private pension saving," IFS Working Papers W23/10, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    17. Gary V. Engelhardt & Anil Kumar, 2007. "Employer Matching and 401(k) Saving: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," NBER Chapters, in: Public Policy and Retirement, Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar (TAPES), pages 1920-1943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. 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, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1141-1219.
    19. Alexander M. Gelber, 2011. "How Do 401(k)s Affect Saving? Evidence from Changes in 401(k) Eligibility," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 103-122, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pension funds; Tax incentives; Saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:spr:series:v:10:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s13209-019-0195-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.