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Do Government Benefits for High Income Retirees Encourage Saving?

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Abstract

The Australian Commonwealth government provides a set of benefits to high income older people, which are intended to promote saving for retirement. It has not been established whether this unusual policy is effective. Using illustrative models, it is shown that these benefits may induce some people to save and work more, but they may have the opposite effect on other, more affluent, people. It is unclear which effect dominates. These benefits are likely to have increased Commonwealth government expenditure on affluent older people, accompanied by a reduction in state government expenditure on people with slightly lower incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Siminski, Peter, 2008. "Do Government Benefits for High Income Retirees Encourage Saving?," Economics Working Papers wp08-15, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:uow:depec1:wp08-15
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    Cited by:

    1. Todd Morris, 2022. "The unequal burden of retirement reform: Evidence from Australia," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 592-619, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    retirement; saving; incentives; Australia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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