IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/223.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pension Risk, Retirement Saving and Insurance

Author

Abstract

Using a representative sample of Italian investors, we estimate the risk associated with pension benefits by eliciting for each individual the subjective distribution of the replacement rate as a summary indicator of social security wealth. We find substantial heterogeneity of pension risk and show that it is consistently related to observable features in the pension system that have different effects on individuals with different characteristics. We then relate subjective pension risk to individuals’ financial decisions. We find that people try to attenuate the adverse consequences of pension wealth uncertainty by increasing demand for targeted retirement saving and for insurance. Individuals facing more pension wealth risk tend to enroll more often in private pension funds, invest more in life insurance and buy more private health insurance. These effects are consistent with people becoming more risk-averse when pension wealth becomes less predictable, leading them to search for greater financial security.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2009. "Pension Risk, Retirement Saving and Insurance," CSEF Working Papers 223, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp223.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2003. "Tax incentives and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1779-1799, August.
    2. Bottazzi, Renata & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2006. "Retirement expectations, pension reforms, and their impact on private wealth accumulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2187-2212, December.
    3. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2004. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Micro-Estimation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub04-1, March.
    4. Orazio P. Attanasio & Susann Rohwedder, 2003. "Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1499-1521, December.
    5. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    6. Richard Disney & Tanner, Tanner, 1999. "What can we learn from retirement expectations data?," IFS Working Papers W99/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Gollier, Christian & Pratt, John W, 1996. "Risk Vulnerability and the Tempering Effect of Background Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1109-1123, September.
    8. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys," Working Papers WR-589, RAND Corporation.
    9. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys," Working Papers 589, RAND Corporation.
    10. Jeff Dominitz & Charles F. Manski, 2006. "Measuring Pension‐benefit Expectations Probabilistically," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(2), pages 201-236, June.
    11. Feldstein, Martin & Pellechio, Anthony, 1979. "Social Security and Household Wealth Accumulation: New Microeconometric Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(3), pages 361-368, August.
    12. Feldstein, Martin S, 1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 905-926, Sept./Oct.
    13. 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.
    14. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    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. van Santen, Peter & Alessie, Rob & Kalwij, Adriaan, 2012. "Probabilistic survey questions and incorrect answers: Retirement income replacement rates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 267-280.
    2. Maria De Paola & Francesca Gioia & Fabio Piluso, 2020. "Does Reminding of Behavioural Biases Increase Returns from Financial Trading? A Field Experiment," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(2), pages 1-1, February.
    3. Luigi Ventura & Charles Yuji Horioka, 2020. "The wealth decumulation behavior of the retired elderly in Italy: the importance of bequest motives and precautionary saving," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 575-597, September.
    4. Ben Etheridge, 2015. "Precautionary Saving for Consecutive Income Risk," 2015 Meeting Papers 1202, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Junya Hamaaki, 2013. "The Pension System and Household Consumption and Saving Behavior," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 9(4), pages 687-716, September.
    6. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2011. "Individuals' uncertainty about future social security benefits and portfolio choice," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 498-519, April.
    7. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2011. "Individuals' uncertainty about future social security benefits and portfolio choice," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 498-519, April.

    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. Bissonnette, L. & van Soest, A.H.O., 2010. "Retirement Expectations, Preferences, and Decisions," Other publications TiSEM 45e93b08-cc1d-47c6-ba06-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Bottazzi, Renata & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2006. "Retirement expectations, pension reforms, and their impact on private wealth accumulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2187-2212, December.
    3. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2013. "Pension Wealth Uncertainty," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 80(4), pages 1057-1085, December.
    4. Renata Bottazzi & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2009. "The Portfolio Effect of Pension Reforms," Working Papers 2009_17, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    5. van Santen, Peter & Alessie, Rob & Kalwij, Adriaan, 2012. "Probabilistic survey questions and incorrect answers: Retirement income replacement rates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 267-280.
    6. van Santen, Peter, 2016. "Uncertain pension income and household saving," Working Paper Series 330, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    7. Ashok Thomas & Luca Spataro, 2013. "Pension funds and Market Efficiency: A review," Discussion Papers 2013/164, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    8. Marta Lachowska & Michał Myck, 2018. "The Effect of Public Pension Wealth on Saving and Expenditure," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 284-308, August.
    9. Lindeboom, Maarten & Montizaan, Raymond, 2020. "Disentangling retirement and savings responses," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    10. Andreas Thiemann, 2016. "How Does Maternal Pension Wealth Affect Family Old-Age Savings in Germany?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1560, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario & Bottazzi, Renata, 2005. "Retirement Expectations, Pension Reforms and Their Effect on Private Wealth Accumulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4882, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Mathieu Lefebvre & Sergio Perelman, 2016. "Social security wealth and household asset holdings: new evidence from Belgium," Working Papers of BETA 2016-38, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    13. Dillingh, Rik, 2016. "Empirical essays on behavioral economics and lifecycle decisions," Other publications TiSEM 0e2143e3-bd86-4302-90eb-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. 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).
    15. Ashok Thomas & Luca Spataro, 2016. "The Effects Of Pension Funds On Markets Performance: A Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 1-33, February.
    16. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Individuals’ Responses to Social Security Reform," Working Papers wp182, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    17. 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).
    18. Alessie, Rob & Angelini, Viola & van Santen, Peter, 2013. "Pension wealth and household savings in Europe: Evidence from SHARELIFE," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 308-328.
    19. José Luis Iparraguirre, 2020. "Economics and Ageing," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-29019-1, November.
    20. Junya Hamaaki, 2013. "The Pension System and Household Consumption and Saving Behavior," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 9(4), pages 687-716, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pension Risk; Retirement Saving; Insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    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:sef:csefwp:223. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.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.