IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cor/louvco/2008038.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Habit formation and labor supply

Author

Listed:
  • CREMER, Helmuth
  • DE DONDER, Philippe
  • MALDONADO, Dario
  • PESTIEAU, Pierre

    (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE))

Abstract

This paper shows that the combination of habit formation – present consumption creating additional consumption needs in the future – and myopia may explain why some retirees are forced to "unretire", i.e., unexpectedly return to work. It also shows that when myopia about habit formation leads to unretirement there is a case for government's intervention. In a first-best setting the optimal solution can be decentralized by a simple "Pigouvian" (paternalistic) consumption tax (along with suitable lump-sum taxes). In a second-best setting, when personalized lump-sum transfers are not available, consumption taxes may have conflicting paternalistic and redistributive effects. We study the design of consumption taxes in such a setting when myopic individuals differ in productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • CREMER, Helmuth & DE DONDER, Philippe & MALDONADO, Dario & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2008. "Habit formation and labor supply," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2008038, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2008038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2008.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean‐Marie Lozachmeur, 2006. "Optimal Age‐Specific Income Taxation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(4), pages 697-711, October.
    2. Nicole Maestas, 2007. "Back to Work: Expectations and Realizations of Work after Retirement," Working Papers 196.2, RAND Corporation.
    3. Fehr, Ernst & Zych, Peter K., 2008. "Intertemporal Choice under Habit Formation," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 98, pages 923-928, Elsevier.
    4. Hammond, Peter & Myles, Gareth (ed.), 2000. "Incentives, Organization, and Public Economics: Papers in Honour of Sir James Mirrlees," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199242290.
    5. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1, July.
    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. Helmuth Cremer & Philippe De Donder & Dario Maldonado & Pierre Pestieau, 2009. "Forced Saving, Redistribution, and Nonlinear Social Security Schemes," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(1), pages 86-98, July.
    2. Matti Tuomala & Sanna Tenhunen, 2013. "On the design of an optimal non-linear tax/pension system with habit formation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(3), pages 485-512, June.
    3. Ricky Kanabar, 2012. "Unretirement in England: An empirical perspective," Discussion Papers 12/31, Department of Economics, University of York.

    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. Cremer Helmuth & De Donder Philippe & Maldonado Dario & Pestieau Pierre, 2010. "Commodity Taxation under Habit Formation and Myopia," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, September.
    2. Dedry, Antoine & Onder, Harun & Pestieau, Pierre, 2017. "Aging, social security design, and capital accumulation," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 145-155.
    3. CREMER, Helmuth & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2016. "Taxing Pensions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2016006, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Jean-Marie Lozachmeur, 2006. "Disability insurance and optimal income taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(6), pages 717-732, November.
    5. Gopi Shah Goda, 2007. "Implicit Social Security Tax Rates over the Life Cycle," Discussion Papers 06-021, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    6. Laitner, John & Silverman, Dan, 2012. "Consumption, retirement and social security: Evaluating the efficiency of reform that encourages longer careers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 615-634.
    7. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324, Elsevier.
    8. Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2012. "Ageing, government budgets, retirement, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 97-115.
    9. Jeffrey R. Brown & Julia Lynn Coronado & Don Fullerton, 2009. "Is Social Security Part of the Social Safety Net?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 23, pages 37-72, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Maria Casanova-Rivas, 2008. "Dynamic Complementarities: A Computational and Empirical Analysis of Couples' Retirement Decisions," 2008 Meeting Papers 1073, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Allais, Olivier & Leroy, Pascal & Mink, Julia, 2020. "Changes in food purchases at retirement in France," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2003. "The Double Dividend of Postponing Retirement," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(4), pages 419-434, August.
    13. Mario Schnalzenberger & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Martina Zweimüller, 2014. "Job Quality and Employment of Older People in Europe," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(2), pages 141-162, June.
    14. Pilar García-Gómez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Judit Vall Castelló, 2014. "Financial Incentives, Health, and Retirement in Spain," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Disability Insurance Programs and Retirement, pages 455-495, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, 2007. "The determinants of male retirement in urban Brazil," Nova Economia, Economics Department, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), vol. 17(1), pages 11-36, January-A.
    16. Pfister, Mona & Lorenz, Svenja & Zwick, Thomas, 2018. "Calculation of pension entitlements in the sample of integrated labour market biographies (SIAB)," FDZ Methodenreport 201801_en, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    17. Begley, Jaclene & Chan, Sewin, 2018. "The effect of housing wealth shocks on work and retirement decisions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 180-195.
    18. Matthew Embrey & Friederike Mengel & Ronald Peeters, 2019. "Strategy revision opportunities and collusion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 834-856, December.
    19. Richard L. Johnson, 2000. "The effect of old-age insurance on male retirement : evidence from historical cross-country data," Research Working Paper RWP 00-09, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    20. Staubli, Stefan & Zweimüller, Josef, 2011. "Does Raising the Retirement Age Increase Employment of Older Workers?," IZA Discussion Papers 5863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    habit formation; myopia; unretiring;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • 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:cor:louvco:2008038. 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: Alain GILLIS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/coreebe.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.