Financial Literacy, Riester Pensions, and Other Private Old Age Provision in Germany

Tabea Bucher-Koenen ()
Additional contact information
Tabea Bucher-Koenen: Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Postal: Amalienstr. 33, D-80799 Munich

No 11250, MEA discussion paper series from Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy

Abstract: Financial knowledge is not wide spread in Germany. In that respect we confi rm results found for other countries, like the United States and the Netherlands. Women, those with low education and low income, as well as households in east Germany are at risk of having low fi nancial literacy. In 2001 a state subsidized private pension scheme (Riester pensions) was introduced in Germany. The central question is, Are Riester pensions successful at encouraging individuals with low fi nancial literacy to save privately for old age? Our results indicate that financial literacy is positively related to privately saving for retirement independent of state subsidies. Levels of private coverage are particularly low among individuals in the lowest income quartile, who would profi t most from the state subsidies. At the same time they show the lowest levels of financial literacy.

JEL-codes: D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://mea.mpisoc.mpg.de/uploads/user_mea_discussionpapers/1245_250-11.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:mea:meawpa:11250

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MEA discussion paper series from Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Amalienstraße 33, 80799 München, Germany.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henning Frankenberger ().