IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10999.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Social Multiplier of Pension Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Emre Oral
  • Simon Rabaté
  • Arthur Seibold

Abstract

We study the influence of family members, neighbors and coworkers on retirement behavior. To estimate causal retirement spillovers between individuals, we exploit a pension reform in the Netherlands that creates exogenous variation in peers’ retirement ages, and we use administrative data on the full Dutch population. We find large spillovers in couples, primarily due to women reacting to their husband’s retirement choices. Consistent with homophily in social interactions, the influence of the average sibling, neighbor and coworker is modest, but sizable spillovers emerge between similar individuals in these groups. Additional evidence suggests both leisure complementarities and the transmission of social norms as mechanisms behind retirement spillovers. Our findings imply that pension reforms have a large social multiplier, amplifying their overall impact on retirement behavior by 40%.

Suggested Citation

  • Emre Oral & Simon Rabaté & Arthur Seibold, 2024. "The Social Multiplier of Pension Reform," CESifo Working Paper Series 10999, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10999
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10999.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Rafael Lalive & Arvind Magesan & Stefan Staubli, 2023. "How Social Security Reform Affects Retirement and Pension Claiming," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 115-150, August.
    3. Day Manoli & Andrea Weber, 2016. "Nonparametric Evidence on the Effects of Financial Incentives on Retirement Decisions," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 160-182, November.
    4. Håkan Selin, 2017. "What happens to the husband’s retirement decision when the wife’s retirement incentives change?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 432-458, June.
    5. Dolls, Mathias & Krolage, Carla, 2023. "‘Earned, not given’? The effect of lowering the full retirement age on retirement decisions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    6. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00772844 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sona Badalyan, 2025. "Peer Effects in Old-Age Employment Among Women," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp800, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

    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. Glenzer, Franca & Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Staubli, Stefan, 2025. "Frames, incentives, and education: Effectiveness of interventions to delay public pension claiming," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    2. Sauré, Philip & Seibold, Arthur & Smorodenkova, Elizaveta & Zoabi, Hosny, 2025. "Occupations and retirement across countries," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    3. Sona Badalyan, 2025. "Peer Effects in Old-Age Employment Among Women," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp800, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    4. Todd Morris & Benoit Dostie, 2023. "Graying and staying on the job: The welfare implications of employment protection for older workers," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 15, Institut sur la retraite et l'épargne / Retirement and Savings Institute.
    5. Giesecke, Matthias & Jäger, Philipp, 2021. "Pension incentives and labor supply: Evidence from the introduction of universal old-age assistance in the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    6. Johannes Hagen, 2018. "The effects of increasing the normal retirement age on health care utilization and mortality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 193-234, January.
    7. Gruber, Jonathan & Kanninen, Ohto & Ravaska, Terhi, 2022. "Relabeling, retirement and regret," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    8. Johnsen, Julian V. & Willén, Alexander, 2022. "The effect of negative income shocks on pensioners," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Håkan Selin, 2017. "What happens to the husband’s retirement decision when the wife’s retirement incentives change?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 432-458, June.
    10. Arthur Seibold, 2019. "Reference Points for Retirement Behavior: Evidence from German Pension Discontinuities," CESifo Working Paper Series 7799, CESifo.
    11. Antoine Bozio & Simon Rabaté & Maxime Tô & Julie Tréguier, 2023. "Financial Incentives and Labor Force Participation of Older Workers: Evidence from France," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Effects of Reforms on Retirement Behavior, pages 125-163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Andrew E Clark & Rong Zhu, 2024. "Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(660), pages 1465-1493.
    13. Hagen, Johannes, 2016. "What are the Health effects of postponing retirement? An instrumental variable approach," Working Paper Series 2016:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    14. Itay Saporta-Eksten & Ity Shurtz & Sarit Weisburd, 2021. "Social Security, Labor Supply, and Health of Older Workers: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Large Reform [Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 2168-2208.
    15. Khanna, Gaurav & Lay, Margaret J. & Lee, Stephanie & Thompson, Benjamin, 2025. "Female labor supply and rural pension eligibility in Brazil," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    16. Staubli, Stefan & Lalive, Rafael & Magesan, Arvind, 2020. "The Impact of Social Security on Pension Claiming and Retirement: Active vs. Passive Decisions," CEPR Discussion Papers 15120, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Atav, Tilbe & Jongen, Egbert L. W. & Rabat, Simon, 2021. "Increasing the Effective Retirement Age: Key Factors and Interaction Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 14150, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. García-Miralles, Esteban & Leganza, Jonathan M., 2024. "Joint retirement of couples: Evidence from discontinuities in Denmark," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    19. Daniel Reck & Arthur Seibold, 2022. "The Welfare Economics of Reference Dependence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9999, CESifo.
    20. Kanabar, Ricky & Nivalainen, Satu & Järnefelt, Noora, 2023. "‘Relabelling’ of individual retirement pension in Finland: application and behavioural responses using Finnish register data," ISER Working Paper Series 2023-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    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:ces:ceswps:_10999. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.