IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8787.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Effects of Changes in Pensions on the Age of First Benefit Receipt: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Repatriated Ethnic Germans

Author

Listed:
  • Puhani, Patrick A.

    (Leibniz University of Hannover)

  • Tabbert, Falko

    (Leibniz University of Hannover)

Abstract

To estimate the effects of large cuts in pensions on the age of first benefit receipt, we exploit two natural experiments in which such cuts affect a group of repatriated ethnic German workers. The pensions were cut by about 12%, yet, according to our regression discontinuity estimates based on administrative pension data, there was no significant delay in the age of first pension receipt. Based on additional data sources, we find (i) that almost all pension recipients of our study population had left the labor force and (ii) that repatriated ethnic Germans hold similar jobs and exhibit similar retirement behavior as low-skilled Germans. The results are consistent with low-skilled workers in Germany being frozen in a corner-solution equilibrium in which the optimal choice is to retire as early as possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Puhani, Patrick A. & Tabbert, Falko, 2015. "Effects of Changes in Pensions on the Age of First Benefit Receipt: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Repatriated Ethnic Germans," IZA Discussion Papers 8787, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8787.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barbara Berkel & Axel Börsch-Supan, 2004. "Pension Reform in Germany: The Impact on Retirement Decisions," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 60(3), pages 393-421, September.
    2. David Card & Raj Chetty & Andrea Weber, 2007. "Cash-on-Hand and Competing Models of Intertemporal Behavior: New Evidence from the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1511-1560.
    3. Liebman, Jeffrey B. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P. & Seif, David G., 2009. "Labor supply responses to marginal Social Security benefits: Evidence from discontinuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1208-1223, December.
    4. Alexander M. Danzer, 2013. "Benefit Generosity and the Income Effect on Labour Supply: Quasi‐Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123, pages 1059-1084, September.
    5. Arnds, Pascal & Bonin, Holger, 2002. "Frühverrentung in Deutschland: Ökonomische Anreize und institutionelle Strukturen," IZA Discussion Papers 666, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Krueger, Alan B & Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1992. "The Effect of Social Security on Labor Supply: A Cohort Analysis of the Notch Generation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 412-437, October.
    7. Mastrobuoni, Giovanni, 2009. "Labor supply effects of the recent social security benefit cuts: Empirical estimates using cohort discontinuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1224-1233, December.
    8. Bauer, Thomas & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1997. "Unemployment and wages of ethnic Germans," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(Supplemen), pages 361-377.
    9. Stephen E. Snyder & William N. Evans, 2006. "The Effect of Income on Mortality: Evidence from the Social Security Notch," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 482-495, August.
    10. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    11. Dietz, Barbara, 1999. "Ethnic German Immigration from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to Germany: the Effects of Migrant Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 68, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Berkel, Barbara & Börsch-Supan, Axel, 2004. "Pension Reform in Germany:," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 04-62, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    13. Regina Riphahn, 1997. "Disability retirement and unemployment - substitute pathways for labour force exit? An empirical test for the case of Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5), pages 551-561.
    14. Monika Queisser & Edward Whitehouse, 2006. "Neutral or Fair?: Actuarial Concepts and Pension-System Design," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 40, OECD Publishing.
    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. Puhani, Patrick A. & Tabbert, Falko, 2016. "The effects of pension changes on age of first benefit receipt: Regression discontinuity evidence from repatriated ethnic Germans," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 12-23.

    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. Puhani, Patrick A. & Tabbert, Falko, 2016. "The effects of pension changes on age of first benefit receipt: Regression discontinuity evidence from repatriated ethnic Germans," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 12-23.
    2. Barbara Engels & Johannes Geyer & Peter Haan, 2016. "Pension Incentives and Early Retirement," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1617, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. 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).
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Lorenz, Svenja & Zwick, Thomas & Bruns, Mona, 2022. "Beware of the employer: Financial incentives for employees may fail to prolong old-age employment," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    7. Victor Lyashok, 2019. "The Effect Of Pension Growth On The Labor Force Participation Of Pensioners In Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 22/PSP/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Esteban Garcia-Miralles & Jonathan M. Leganza, 2021. "Public Pensions and Private Savings," CEBI working paper series 21-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    9. Courtney C. Coile, 2015. "Economic Determinants Of Workers’ Retirement Decisions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 830-853, September.
    10. Jäger, Philipp & Giesecke, Matthias, 2019. "Pension Incentives and Labor Force Participation: Evidence from the Introduction of Universal Old-Age Assistance in the UK," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203498, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Fehr, Hans & Jokisch, Sabine & Kallweit, Manuel & Kindermann, Fabian & Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2013. "Generational Policy and Aging in Closed and Open Dynamic General Equilibrium Models," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1719-1800, Elsevier.
    12. Todd Morris, 2022. "The unequal burden of retirement reform: Evidence from Australia," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 592-619, April.
    13. Etgeton, Stefan & Fischer, Björn & Ye, Han, 2023. "The effect of increasing retirement age on households’ savings and consumption expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    14. Zweimüller, Josef & Staubli, Stefan, 2011. "Does Raising the Retirement Age Increase Employment of Older Workers?," CEPR Discussion Papers 8510, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Matthias Giesecke, 2018. "The Effect of Benefit Reductions on the Retirement Age: The Heterogeneous Response of Manual and Non‐Manual Workers," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(1), pages 213-238, March.
    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. Hanel, Barbara, 2010. "Financial incentives to postpone retirement and further effects on employment -- Evidence from a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 474-486, June.
    18. Hirono, Makoto & Mino, Kazuo, 2019. "Pension, Retirement, and Growth in the Presence Heterogeneous Elderly," MPRA Paper 98096, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Olga Grigoriev & Gabriele Doblhammer, 2022. "Does the Mortality of Individuals with Severe Disabilities Contribute to the Persistent East–West Mortality Gap Among German Men?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 247-271, May.
    20. Welteke, Clara & Geyer, Johannes & Haan, Peter, 2016. "Early retirement eligibility and employment behavior: evidence from a cohort based pension reform," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145783, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    policy; evaluation; pension reform; labor supply; retirement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • 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:iza:izadps:dp8787. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.