IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v53y2025i1p62-93.html

Optimal Social Security with Loss Aversion

Author

Listed:
  • Brandon Lehr

Abstract

This article characterizes optimal social security in economies with agents who exhibit loss aversion. Two forms of loss aversion are explored. In the first, workers have a fixed retirement age and are loss averse over private savings. This motivates a more generous social security program. In the second, workers do no private savings but can choose their retirement age, exhibiting loss aversion over the foregone leisure time from delayed retirement. Social security benefits consequently rise steeper with retirement age and an earlier normal retirement age is optimal. In both cases, optimal policy is highly sensitive to the introduction of loss averse preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Brandon Lehr, 2025. "Optimal Social Security with Loss Aversion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 53(1), pages 62-93, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:53:y:2025:i:1:p:62-93
    DOI: 10.1177/10911421241261745
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10911421241261745
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10911421241261745?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2004. "Save More Tomorrow (TM): Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 164-187, February.
    2. Tanjim Hossain & John A. List, 2012. "The Behavioralist Visits the Factory: Increasing Productivity Using Simple Framing Manipulations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(12), pages 2151-2167, December.
    3. Gabrielle Demange & Guy Laroque, 2000. "Social Security, Optimality, and Equilibria in a Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 2(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & William J. Congdon, 2012. "A Reduced-Form Approach to Behavioral Public Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 511-540, July.
    5. Diamond, Peter, 2006. "Optimal tax treatment of private contributions for public goods with and without warm glow preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 897-919, May.
    6. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00772844 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Roland G. Fryer, Jr & Steven D. Levitt & John List & Sally Sadoff, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 18237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Yew, Siew Ling & Zhang, Jie, 2009. "Optimal social security in a dynastic model with human capital externalities, fertility and endogenous growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 605-619, April.
    9. Tatiana A. Homonoff, 2018. "Can Small Incentives Have Large Effects? The Impact of Taxes versus Bonuses on Disposable Bag Use," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 177-210, November.
    10. Luc Behaghel & David M. Blau, 2012. "Framing Social Security Reform: Behavioral Responses to Changes in the Full Retirement Age," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 41-67, November.
    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. Syon P. Bhanot & Christina A. Roberto & Anjali Chainani & Charles Williamson & Mehra den Braven, 2019. "Testing effects of loss framing and checklists: evidence from a field experiment on wellness program participation in Philadelphia," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(2), pages 210-222, December.
    2. Raj Chetty, 2015. "Behavioral Economics and Public Policy: A Pragmatic Perspective," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 1-33, May.
    3. Daniel Reck & Arthur Seibold, 2022. "The Welfare Economics of Reference Dependence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9999, CESifo.
    4. Nicholas C. Barberis, 2013. "Thirty Years of Prospect Theory in Economics: A Review and Assessment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 173-196, Winter.
    5. Daniel Reck & Arthur Seibold, 2023. "The Welfare Economics of Reference Dependence," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_450, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    6. Damgaard, Mette Trier & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2018. "Nudging in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 313-342.
    7. Englmaier, Florian & Grimm, Stefan & Schindler, David & Schudy, Simeon, 2018. "The Effect of Incentives in Non-Routine Analytical Team Tasks – Evidence from a Field Experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168286, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    9. List, John A. & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2015. "The behavioralist as nutritionist: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 135-146.
    10. repec:aen:eeepjl:eeep5-1-ida is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    12. Elbæk, Christian T. & Lystbæk, Martin Nørhede & Mitkidis, Panagiotis, 2022. "On the psychology of bonuses: The effects of loss aversion and Yerkes-Dodson law on performance in cognitively and mechanically demanding tasks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    13. Martinsson, Peter & Medhin, Haileselassie & Persson, Emil, 2016. "Framing and Minimum Levels in Public Good Provision," Working Papers in Economics 656, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    14. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2015. "Framing Of Incentives And Effort Provision," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 917-938, August.
    15. Ahrens, Steffen & Bitter, Lea & Bosch-Rosa, Ciril, 2023. "Coordination under loss contracts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 270-293.
    16. Mujcic, Redzo & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2022. "How Do Humans Respond to Huge Financial Losses?," IZA Discussion Papers 15536, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Bendoly, Elliot & van Wezel, Wout & Bachrach, Daniel G. (ed.), 2015. "The Handbook of Behavioral Operations Management: Social and Psychological Dynamics in Production and Service Settings," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199357222.
    18. Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC), 2025. "Study on behavioural economics for efficient regulation and supervision," Colección Estudios de Mercado E/CNMC/002/23_ENG, Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC).
    19. Jie, Yun, 2018. "Prepayment effect: Prepayment with clawback increases task participation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 210-218.
    20. Gurney, Nikolos & Miller, John H. & Pynadath, David V., 2025. "Exploring the choice landscape: Anchoring and framing effects on search behavior in complex choices," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    21. Santosh Anagol & Vimal Balasubramaniam & Tarun Ramadorai, 2018. "Endowment Effects in the Field: Evidence from India’s IPO Lotteries," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 1971-2004.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:pubfin:v:53:y:2025:i:1:p:62-93. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.