Distributional Effects of Subsidizing Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Germany

Giacomo Corneo, Johannes König and Carsten Schröder

FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 2018, vol. 74, issue 4, 415-445

Abstract: We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38 % of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the income distribution, but only 7.3 % to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme is almost distributionally neutral in terms of standard inequality measures. Two effects offset each other: a progressive one stemming from the subsidy schedule and a regressive one due to voluntary participation. Participation is associated not only with high income but also with high household wealth.

Keywords: saving subsidies; retirement plans; income distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D31 H55 I38 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/distributio ... y-101628fa-2018-0017 (text/html)
Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.

Related works:
Working Paper: Distributional effects of subsidizing retirement savings accounts: Evidence from Germany (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mhr:finarc:urn:sici:0015-2218(201812)74:4_415:deosrs_2.0.tx_2-t

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, P.O.Box 2040, 72010 Tübingen, Germany

DOI: 10.1628/fa-2018-0017

Access Statistics for this article

FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis is currently edited by Alfons Weichenrieder, Ronnie Schöb and Jean-François Tremblay

More articles in FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis from Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Wolpert ().