The Effect of Pension Subsidies on the Retirement Timing of Older Women

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ye, Han
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvab051
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1048-1094
• 关键词: unemployment benefits; financial incentives; social-security; kink; AGE; income; generosity; EMPLOYMENT; bandwidth; responses

摘要

I estimate the effect of additional pension benefits on women's retirement decisions by examining a German pension subsidy program. The subsidies have a kinked relationship with the recipients' past pension contributions, creating a sharply different slope of benefits for similar women on either side of the kink point. I find that a 100 euro increase in the monthly benefit induces female recipients to claim their pensions six months earlier. Recipients also adjust their labor supply by using unemployment insurance as a stepping stone to retirement and by reducing the time spent in marginal employment. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the ratio of behavioral to mechanical costs for this subsidy program is 0.25, which is smaller than that of many other income support programs. (JEL: H55, J18, J21, J26)