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Frames, Incentives, and Education: Effectiveness of Interventions to Delay Public Pension Claiming

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  • Franca Glenzer
  • Pierre-Carl Michaud
  • Stefan Staubli

Abstract

In many retirement income systems, people forgo a higher stream of public pension income by claiming early. We provide both survey-experimental and quasi-experimental evidence that the timing of public pension claiming is relatively inelastic to changes in financial incentives. Using the survey experiment, we evaluate the effect of two different educational interventions and different ways of framing the decision on the present value of participants' expected pension payments. While all three types of interventions induce delays, these interventions have heterogeneous financial consequences. Educating participants leads to claiming ages with higher pension wealth. In contrast, framing and financial incentives do not improve, and even worsen, financial outcomes. Understanding the impact of various policy tools on expected pension wealth is essential for designing policies to delay claiming.

Suggested Citation

  • Franca Glenzer & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Stefan Staubli, 2023. "Frames, Incentives, and Education: Effectiveness of Interventions to Delay Public Pension Claiming," NBER Working Papers 30938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30938
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G53 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Financial Literacy
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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