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Projecting Behavioral Responses to the Next Generation of Retirement Policies

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Author Info
Alan Gustman (Dartmouth College and NBER)
Thomas Steinmeier (Texas Tech University)
Abstract

This paper examines retirement and related behavioral responses to policies that on average are actuarially neutral. Many conventional models predict that actuarially neutral policies will not affect retirement behavior. In contrast, our model allows those with high time preference rates to find that the promise of an actuarially fair increase in future rewards does not balance the loss from foregone current benefits. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we find that from age 62 through full retirement age, the earnings test reduces full-time work by married men by about four percentage points, or by about ten percent of married men at full-time work. Abolishing the requirements on many jobs that an individual work full-time or not at all, what we term a minimum hours constraint on employment, would induce more than twice as many people to enter partial retirement as would leave full-time work, so that total full-time equivalent (FTE) employment would increase, although by a modest amount. If all benefits from personal accounts could be taken as a lump sum, the fraction not retired at age 62 would fall by about 5 percentage points compared to a system where there is mandatory annuitization of benefits.

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Paper provided by University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center in its series Working Papers with number wp153.

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Length: 71 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:mrr:papers:wp153

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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.:
  1. William Even & David Macpherson, 2004. "Do Pensions Impede Phased Retirement?," Labor and Demography 0407001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Coile, Courtney & Diamond, Peter & Gruber, Jonathan & Jousten, Alain, 2002. "Delays in claiming social security benefits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 357-385, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1983. "Minimum Hours Constraints and Retirement Behavior," NBER Working Papers 0940, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Michael D. Hurd, 1993. "The Effect of Labor Market Rigidities on the Labor Force Behavior of Older Workers," NBER Working Papers 4462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Samwick, Andrew A., 1998. "Discount rate heterogeneity and social security reform," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 117-146, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Leora Friedberg, 2000. "The Labor Supply Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 48-63, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Burtless, Gary & Moffitt, Robert A, 1985. "The Joint Choice of Retirement Age and Postretirement Hours of Work," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(2), pages 209-36, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Leora Friedberg & Anthony Webb, 2003. "Retirement and the Evolution of Pension Structure," NBER Working Papers 9999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Pakes, Ariel & Pollard, David, 1989. "Simulation and the Asymptotics of Optimization Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 1027-57, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Donna B. Gilleskie & David M. Blau, 2006. "Health insurance and retirement of married couples," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(7), pages 935-953. [Downloadable!]
  11. Martin Feldstein & Andrew Samwick, 1992. "Social Security Rules and Marginal Tax Rates," NBER Working Papers 3962, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Alicia H. Munnell & Steven A. Sass, 2007. "The Labor Supply of Older Americans," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2007-12, Center for Retirement Research, revised Jun 2007. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Calvo, Esteban & Haverstick, Kelly & Sass, Steven, 2007. "What Makes Retirees Happier: A Gradual or 'Cold Turkey' Retirement?," MPRA Paper 5607, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Esteban Calvo & Kelly Haverstick & Steven A. Sass, 2007. "A Gradual Exit May Not Make for a Happier Retirement," Issues in Brief ib2007-7-16, Center for Retirement Research, revised Oct 2007. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas Steinmeier, 2008. "How Changes in Social Security Affect Recent Retirement Trends," NBER Working Papers 14105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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