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The effects of the introduction of tax incentives on retirement savings

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Author Info
Juan Ayuso () (Banco de España)
Juan F. Jimeno () (Banco de España)
Ernesto Villanueva () (Banco de España)

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Abstract

This paper uses a Spanish panel of tax returns and another on household expenditure during the period 1985-1991 to examine the incidence of the introduction in 1988 of tax incentives to retirement savings on contributions to pension funds and on savings. We first identify the population cohorts who most used these incentives. Then we use data on the evolution of consumption of these cohorts to find that there is substantial heterogeneity in the response of household saving to tax incentives. Most contributions to pension funds are by older/high income individuals. While the overall amount of new saving we estimate is limited (at most 25 cents per euro contributed on average), saving responses differ substantially across age groups. In particular, we document very small consumption drops among the group of households between 56 and 65 years of age, the group that most actively contributed to the plan, while we find instead a larger decrease in consumption expenditures of the group of households between 46 and 55 years of age.

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File URL: http://www.bde.es/informes/be/docs/dt0724e.pdf
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File Function: First version, July 2007
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Banco de España in its series Banco de España Working Papers with number 0724.

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Length: 49 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2007
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Handle: RePEc:bde:wpaper:0724

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Related research
Keywords: pension funds tax incentives savings

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - 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

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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  11. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Esther Duflo & William Gale & Jeffrey Liebman & Peter Orszag & Emmanuel Saez, 2005. "Saving Incentives for Low- and Middle-Income Families: Evidence from a Field Experiment with H&R Block," NBER Working Papers 11680, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Agustín Maravall & Ana del Río, 2007. "Temporal aggregation, systematic sampling, and the Hodrick-Prescott filter," Banco de España Working Papers 0728, Banco de España. [Downloadable!]
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