IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13932.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pension Policies, Retirement and Human Capital Depreciation in Late Adulthood

Author

Listed:
  • Nikolov, Plamen

    (Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science)

  • Adelman, Alan

    (State University of New York)

Abstract

Economists have mainly focused on human capital accumulation and considerably less on the causes and consequences of human capital depreciation in late adulthood. Studying human capital depreciation over the life cycle has powerful economic consequences for decision-making in old age. Using data from China, we examine how a new retirement program affects cognitive performance. We find large negative effects of pension benefits on cognitive functioning among the elderly. We detect the most substantial impact of the program on delayed recall, a significant predictor of the onset of dementia. We show suggestive evidence that the program leads to larger negative impacts among women. We demonstrate that retirement and access to a retirement pension plan plays a significant role in explaining cognitive decline at older ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2020. "Pension Policies, Retirement and Human Capital Depreciation in Late Adulthood," IZA Discussion Papers 13932, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13932.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martyn Andrews & Thorsten Schank & Richard Upward, 2006. "Practical fixed-effects estimation methods for the three-way error-components model," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(4), pages 461-481, December.
    2. James Heckman, 2011. "Policies to foster human capital," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 73-137.
    3. 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).
    4. Bonsang, Eric & Adam, Stéphane & Perelman, Sergio, 2012. "Does retirement affect cognitive functioning?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 490-501.
    5. Bingley, Paul & Martinello, Alessandro, 2013. "Mental retirement and schooling," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 292-298.
    6. David H. Autor, 2003. "Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-42, January.
    7. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the Effect of Retirement on Health: Mechanisms and Heterogeneity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43, pages 1-12.
    8. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    9. Andreas Olden & Jarle Møen, 2022. "The triple difference estimator [Semiparametric difference-in-differences estimators]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(3), pages 531-553.
    10. James Banks & Zoe Oldfield, 2007. "Understanding Pensions: Cognitive Function, Numerical Ability and Retirement Saving," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 143-170, June.
    11. Xiaoyan Lei & Chuanchuan Zhang & Yaohui Zhao, 2013. "Incentive Problems in China’s New Rural Pension Program," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 181-201, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Fang Cai & John Giles & Philip O'Keefe & Dewen Wang, 2012. "The Elderly and Old Age Support in Rural China : Challenges and Prospects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2249, December.
    13. repec:wbk:wbpubs:6007 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. de Grip, Andries & Dupuy, Arnaud & Jolles, Jelle & van Boxtel, Martin, 2015. "Retirement and cognitive development in the Netherlands: Are the retired really inactive?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 157-169.
    15. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do Pension Benefits Accelerate Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Rural China," IZA Discussion Papers 12524, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nikolov, Plamen & Hossain, Md Shahadath, 2023. "Do pension benefits accelerate cognitive decline in late adulthood? Evidence from rural China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 594-617.
    3. Nikolov Plamen & Adelman Alan, 2018. "Short-Run Health Consequences of Retirement and Pension Benefits: Evidence from China," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 1-27, December.
    4. Plamen Nikolov & Md Shahadath Hossain, 2020. "Do Pension Benefits Accelerate Cognitive Decline in Late Adulthood? Evidence from Rural China," Papers 2007.05884, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    5. 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).
    6. Lei, Xiaoyan & Liu, Hong, 2018. "Gender difference in the impact of retirement on cognitive abilities: Evidence from urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1425-1446.
    7. Eibich, Peter & Goldzahl, Léontine, 2021. "Does retirement affect secondary preventive care use? Evidence from breast cancer screening," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    8. Patrick Kline & Enrico Moretti, 2014. "People, Places, and Public Policy: Some Simple Welfare Economics of Local Economic Development Programs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 629-662, August.
    9. Nikolov, Plamen & Bonci, Matthew, 2020. "Do public program benefits crowd out private transfers in developing countries? A critical review of recent evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Yoshinori Nishimura & Masato Oikawa & Hiroyuki Motegi, 2018. "What Explains The Difference In The Effect Of Retirement On Health? Evidence From Global Aging Data," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 792-847, July.
    11. Pedron, Sara & Maier, Werner & Peters, Annette & Linkohr, Birgit & Meisinger, Christine & Rathmann, Wolfgang & Eibich, Peter & Schwettmann, Lars, 2020. "The effect of retirement on biomedical and behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic disease," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    12. Antoine Bozio & Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2021. "Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1178-1199, May.
    13. Hiroyuki Motegi & Yoshinori Nishimura & Kazuyuki Terada, 2016. "Does Retirement Change Lifestyle Habits?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 169-191, June.
    14. Jiayi Wen, 2018. "Occupational Retirement and Social Security Reform: the Roles of Physical and Cognitive Health," Working Papers 2018-12-04, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    15. Apouey, Bénédicte H. & Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia, 2019. "Retirement and Unexpected Health Shocks," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 116-123.
    16. Martina Celidoni & Chiara Dal Bianco & Vincenzo Rebba & Guglielmo Weber, 2020. "Retirement and Healthy Eating," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 199-219, March.
    17. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Jorge Enrique Ramos-Forero & Pedro Oswaldo Hernández-Santamaría, 2017. "La educación superior en Colombia: situación actual y análisis de eficiencia," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 78, February.
    18. Pierre-Jean Messe & François-Charles Wolff, 2019. "Healthier when retiring earlier? Evidence from France," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(47), pages 5122-5143, October.
    19. Yingying Zhang & Steve Bradley & Robert Crouchley, 2023. "Gender Differences in the Effect of Retirement Duration on Cognitive Functioning," Working Papers 379420912, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    20. Clément Carbonnier & Simon Fredon & Benoît Gauthier & Clément Malgouyres & Thierry Mayer & Loriane Py & Gwenaële Rot & Camille Urvoy, 2016. "Evaluation interdisciplinaire des impacts du CICE en matière de compétitivité internationale, d'investissement, d'emploi, de résultat net des entreprises et de salaires," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/4v8c8tnfgu8, Sciences Po.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    middle-income countries; mental retirement; health; aging; cognition; cognitive functioning; life cycle; LMICs; developing countries; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp13932. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.