The Incidence of Workplace Pensions: Evidence from the UK's Automatic Enrollment Mandate

Rachel Scarfe, Daniel Schäfer and Thomas Sulka
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Daniel Schäfer

No 2024-02, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: We examine who bears the costs of mandated workplace pension programs, exploiting the quasi-experimental rollout of automatic enrollment in the UK. Total compensation (take-home pay plus employer contributions) increases, driven by employer contributions, while the amount of take-home pay decreases. These effects differ by employer size, with take-home pay declining to an extent in the largest firms that we can rule out a pass-through to employees of more than 47%, significantly less than in smaller firms. Our findings provide the first evidence that large employers shift the cost of mandated automatic enrollment onto employees.

Keywords: Employer-sponsored retirement savings; Incentive design; Mandated benefits; Staggered difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 H22 J32 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-ure
Note: English
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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Working Paper: The Incidence of Workplace Pensions: Evidence from the UK's Automatic Enrollment Mandate (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jku:econwp:2024-02

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