IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11636.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Perception and Salience of Social Security Contribution Incentives: Evidence from Voluntary Contributions

Author

Listed:
  • Ander Iraizoz

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate how individuals perceive the implicit contribution incentives provided by public pension systems. I use the unique setting of the Spanish public pension system, where self-employed workers are allowed to voluntarily determine the level of their Social Security contributions. Using quasi-experimental variations from three pension reforms, I find that most self-employed workers fail to take advantage of the extraordinary contribution incentives available in Spain, and often make suboptimal contribution choices. These results point to substantial challenges in perceiving implicit contribution incentives, which could lead to inefficiencies in raising Social Security contributions. Furthermore, my findings highlight the critical role of salience in improving the perception of contribution incentives, and thereby promoting greater economic efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Ander Iraizoz, 2025. "Perception and Salience of Social Security Contribution Incentives: Evidence from Voluntary Contributions," CESifo Working Paper Series 11636, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11636
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11636.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Donovan Fitzpatrick, 2015. "How Much Are Public School Teachers Willing to Pay for Their Retirement Benefits?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 165-188, November.
    2. 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.
    3. Shlomo Benartzi & Alessandro Previtero & Richard H. Thaler, 2011. "Annuitization Puzzles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 143-164, Fall.
    4. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Annette Vissing-Jørgensen, 2002. "The Returns to Entrepreneurial Investment: A Private Equity Premium Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 745-778, September.
    5. Dolls, Mathias & Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Stichnoth, Holger, 2018. "Do retirement savings increase in response to information about retirement and expected pensions?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 168-179.
    6. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Andrew A. Samwick, 2018. "The Welfare Cost of Perceived Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from Social Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 275-307, February.
    7. Thomas Davidoff & Jeffrey R. Brown & Peter A. Diamond, 2005. "Annuities and Individual Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1573-1590, December.
    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. Ander Iraizoz-Olaetxea, 2025. "Perception and Salience of Social Security Contribution Incentives: Evidence from Voluntary Contributions," Economics Series Working Papers 1067, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Bockweg, Christian & Ponds, Eduard & Steenbeek, Onno & Vonken, Joyce, 2018. "Framing and the annuitization decision – Experimental evidence from a Dutch pension fund," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 385-417, July.
    3. Erin Cottle Hunt & Frank N. Caliendo, 2022. "Social security and risk sharing: A survey of four decades of economic analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1591-1609, December.
    4. Johannes Hagen & Daniel Hallberg & Gabriella Sjögren, 2022. "A Nudge to Quit? The Effect of a Change in Pension Information on Annuitisation, Labour Supply and Retirement Choices Among Older Workers," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 1060-1094.
    5. Wei-Ting Pan, 2016. "The Impact of Mandatory Savings on Life Cycle Consumption and Portfolio Choice," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 2-2016, January-A.
    6. Wei-Ting Pan, 2016. "The Impact of Mandatory Savings on Life Cycle Consumption and Portfolio Choice," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 32, July-Dece.
    7. Hazel Bateman & Christine Eckert & Fedor Iskhakov & Jordan Louviere & Stephen Satchell & Susan Thorp, 2017. "Default and naive diversification heuristics in annuity choice," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(1), pages 32-57, February.
    8. Johannes Hagen, 2015. "The determinants of annuitization: evidence from Sweden," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(4), pages 549-578, August.
    9. Torben M. Andersen & Marias H. Gestsson, 2021. "Annuitization and aggregate mortality risk," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 79-99, March.
    10. David Blake & Marco Morales & Enrico Biffis & Yijia Lin & Andreas Milidonis, 2017. "Special Edition: Longevity 10 – The Tenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(S1), pages 515-532, April.
    11. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    12. d’Albis, Hippolyte & Attanasi, Giuseppe & Thibault, Emmanuel, 2020. "An experimental test of the under-annuitization puzzle with smooth ambiguity and charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 694-717.
    13. Boyer, M. Martin & Box-Couillard, Sébastien & Michaud, Pierre-Carl, 2020. "Demand for annuities: Price sensitivity, risk perceptions, and knowledge," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 883-902.
    14. Pascal Büsing & Henning Cordes & Thomas Langer, 2023. "How the provision of inflation information affects pension contributions: A field experiment," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(3), pages 633-666, September.
    15. Amitabh Chandra & Courtney Coile & Corina Mommaerts, 2023. "What Can Economics Say about Alzheimer's Disease?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 428-470, June.
    16. Enrico Rubaltelli & Lorella Lotto, 2021. "Nudging freelance professionals to increase their retirement pension fund contributions," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(2), pages 551-565, March.
    17. Torben M. Andersen, 2024. "Hedging mortality risk over the life‐cycle—The role of information and borrowing constraints," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(4), pages 1449-1466, October.
    18. Hui Li & Seth Neumuller & Casey Rothschild, 2021. "Optimal annuitization with imperfect information about insolvency risk," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 101-130, March.
    19. Hippolyte d’Albis & Emmanuel Thibault, 2018. "Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 303-319, October.
    20. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    contribution-benefit linkage; public pension; social security; salience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:_11636. 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.