The effect of old-age insurance on male retirement: evidence from historical cross-country data

Richard L. Johnson

No RWP 00-09, Research Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Abstract: I examine the effect of Old-Age Insurance systems on the labour supply of older men. Male retirement ages are crucial to the solvency of OAI systems. Historical data on participation rates and OAI rules in thirteen developed countries show rapid falls in participation among men aged 60-4 after pensions were extended to them. I estimate participation elasticities of -0.06 with respect to replacement rates and 0.19 to the net-of-tax wage. It does not appear that endogenous OAI changes bias the regression coefficients. The growth of OAI explains about 11 percent of the reduction in participation of men aged 60-4 since 1920; greater wealth probably explains most of the remainder.

Keywords: Insurance; Social security; Retirement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/5420/pdf-RWP00-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:fip:fedkrw:rwp00-09

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
research.library@kc.frb.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Zach Kastens (zachary.kastens@kc.frb.org).