The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets

Michael Hurd (), Pierre-Carl Michaud and Susann Rohwedder

Working Papers from University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center

Abstract: The generosity of public pensions may depress private savings and provide incentives to retire early. While there is plenty of evidence supporting the latter effect, there remains considerable controversy as whether or not public pensions crowd out private savings. This paper uses international micro-datasets collected over recent years to investigate whether public pensions displace private savings. The identification strategy relies on differences in the progressivity or non-linearity of pension formulas across countries. We also make use of large heterogeneity in earnings across education group and country. The evidence we present is consistent with previous studies using cross-sectional and time-series variation in savings and pensions. We estimate that an extra dollar of pension wealth depresses accumulated financial assets at the time of retirement by 23 to 44 cents and that an extra ten thousand dollars in pension wealth reduces the average retirement age by roughly 1 month.

Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2009-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets (2012)
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