IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/umnees/0818.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Standard Deviation of Life-Length, Retirement Incentives, and Optimal Pension Design

Author

Listed:
  • Aronsson, Thomas

    (Department of Economics, Umeå University)

  • Blomquist, Sören

    (Department of Economics, Uppsala University)

Abstract

In this paper, we consider how the retirement age as well as a tax financed pension system ought to respond to a change in the standard deviation of the length of life. In a first best framework, where a benevolent government exercises perfect control over the individuals’ labor supply and retirement-decisions, the results show that a decrease in the standard deviation of life-length leads to an increase in the optimal retirement age and vice versa, if the preferences for “the number of years spent in retirement” are characterized by constant or decreasing absolute risk aversion. A similar result follows in a second best setting, where the government raises revenue via a proportional tax (or pension fee) to finance a lump-sum benefit per year spent in retirement. We consider two versions of this model, one with a mandatory retirement age decided upon by the government and the other where the retirement age is a private decision-variable.

Suggested Citation

  • Aronsson, Thomas & Blomquist, Sören, 2010. "The Standard Deviation of Life-Length, Retirement Incentives, and Optimal Pension Design," Umeå Economic Studies 818, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:umnees:0818
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.umu.se/DownloadAsset.action?contentId=140678&languageId=3&assetKey=ues818
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Introduction to "Social Security and Retirement around the World"," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security and Retirement around the World, pages 1-35, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Cremer, Helmuth & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie & Pestieau, Pierre, 2004. "Social security, retirement age and optimal income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2259-2281, September.
    3. Courtney Coile & Jonathan Gruber, 2007. "Future Social Security Entitlements and the Retirement Decision," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 234-246, May.
    4. Juan Lacomba & Francisco Lagos, 2006. "Population aging and legal retirement age," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 507-519, July.
    5. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1, March.
    6. Diamond Peter A & Orszag Peter R, 2005. "Saving Social Security: The Diamond-Orszag Plan," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-9, April.
    7. Ryan D. Edwards & Shripad Tuljapurkar, 2005. "Inequality in Life Spans and a New Perspective on Mortality Convergence Across Industrialized Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 31(4), pages 645-674, December.
    8. Peter A. Diamond & Peter R. Orszag, 2005. "Saving Social Security," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 11-32, Spring.
    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. Aronsson, Thomas & Blomquist, Sören, 2018. "Uncertain Length of Life, Retirement Age, and Optimal Pension Design," Umeå Economic Studies 957, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    2. Walter Fisher & Christian Keuschnigg, 2010. "Pension reform and labor market incentives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 769-803, March.
    3. Christian Keuschnigg & Mirela Keuschnigg & Christian Jaag, 2011. "Aging and the Financing of Social Security in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(II), pages 181-231, June.
    4. Keuschnigg, Christian & Fisher, Walter, 2011. "Life-Cycle Unemployment, Retirement and Parametric Pension Reform," Economics Working Paper Series 1119, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    5. Staubli, Stefan & Zweimüller, Josef, 2011. "Does Raising the Retirement Age Increase Employment of Older Workers?," IZA Discussion Papers 5863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Ga?ecka-Burdziak, Ewa & Góra, Marek, 2017. "How Do Unemployed Workers Behave Prior to Retirement? A Multi-State Multiple-Spell Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 10680, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Helmuth Cremer & Jean‐Marie Lozachmeur & Pierre Pestieau, 2008. "Social Security And Retirement Decision: A Positive And Normative Approach," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 213-233, April.
    8. Niels Vermeer & Maarten Rooij & Daniel Vuuren, 2019. "Retirement Age Preferences: The Role of Social Interactions and Anchoring at the Statutory Retirement Age," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 307-345, December.
    9. Alfonso Sánchez-Martin & J. García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2014. "Delaying the Normal and Early Retirement Ages in Spain: Behavioural and Welfare Consequences for Employed and Unemployed Workers," De Economist, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 341-375, December.
    10. Cremer Helmuth & Lozachmeur Jean-Marie & Pestieau Pierre, 2007. "Disability Testing and Retirement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, February.
    11. Jacobs, Bas & Schindler, Dirk, 2012. "On the desirability of taxing capital income in optimal social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 853-868.
    12. Aguila, Emma, 2014. "Male labor force participation and social security in Mexico," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 145-171, April.
    13. Marc Fleurbaey & Marie‐Louise Leroux & Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2016. "Fair Retirement Under Risky Lifetime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 177-210, February.
    14. Cremer Helmuth & Pestieau Pierre & Lozachmeur Jean-Marie, 2008. "Social Desirability of Earnings Tests," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 114-134, May.
    15. Christian Jaag & Christian Keuschnigg & Mirela Keuschnigg, 2010. "Pension reform, retirement, and life-cycle unemployment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(5), pages 556-585, October.
    16. Andries de Grip & Didier Fouarge & Raymond Montizaan, 2013. "How Sensitive are Individual Retirement Expectations to Raising the Retirement Age?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 225-251, September.
    17. Frank van Erp & Niels Vermeer & Daniel van Vuuren, 2013. "Non-financial determinants of retirement," CPB Discussion Paper 243.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Frank Erp & Niels Vermeer & Daniel Vuuren, 2014. "Non-financial Determinants of Retirement: A Literature Review," De Economist, Springer, vol. 162(2), pages 167-191, June.
    19. Antoine d'Autume, 2003. "Ageing and retirement age. What can we learn from the Overlapping Generations Model ?," Post-Print halshs-00452561, HAL.
    20. Philippe Choné & Guy Laroque, 2018. "On the redistributive power of pensions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(3), pages 519-546, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Uncertain lifetime; retirement; pension system;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • 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:hhs:umnees:0818. 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: David Skog (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inumuse.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.