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Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?

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  • Andersen, Torben M.
  • Bhattacharya, Joydeep

Abstract

Many countries, in an effort to address the problem that too many retirees have too little saved up, impose mandatory contributions into retirement accounts, that too, in an age-independent manner. This is puzzling because such funded pension schemes effectively mandate the young, who wish to borrow, to save for retirement. Further, if agents are present-biased, they disagree with the intent of such schemes and attempt to undo them by reducing their own saving or even borrowing against retirement wealth. We establish a welfare case for mandating the middle-aged and the young to contribute to their retirement accounts, even with age-independent contribution rates. We find, somewhat counter-intuitively, that pitted against laissez faire, mandatory pensions succeed by incentivizing the young to borrow more and the middle-aged to save nothing on their own, in effect, rendering the latter's present-biasedness inconsequential.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2021. "Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?," ISU General Staff Papers 202102010800001016, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:202102010800001016
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    1. Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2017-02-22 03:27:57

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    Cited by:

    1. Sulka, Tomasz, 2022. "Planning and saving for retirement," DICE Discussion Papers 384, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    2. Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Mann, Katja, 2022. "Pension reform and wealth inequality: evidence from Denmark," Working Paper Series 411, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    3. Torben M. Andersen, 2023. "Pensions and the Nordic Welfare Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 10321, CESifo.
    4. Kyle Hyndman & Alberto Bisin, 2022. "Procrastination, self-imposed deadlines and other commitment devices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 871-897, October.
    5. Paul Calcott & Vladimir Petkov, 2022. "Excessive consumption and present bias," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(1), pages 113-134, July.
    6. Rafael Azevedo & Luis Bettoni & Marcelo Santos, 2024. "Severance savings accounts and life-cycle savings," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(4), pages 1275-1331, December.
    7. Joydeep Bhattacharya & Monisankar Bishnu & Min Wang, 2023. "Credit Markets with time-inconsistent agents and strategic loan default," Discussion Papers 23-01, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    8. Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Mann, Katja, 2024. "Pension reform and wealth inequality: Theory and evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).

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    • H - Public Economics
    • D - Microeconomics
    • D - Microeconomics
    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

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