Why Forcing People to Save for Retirement May Backfire

Monika Bütler (), Olivia Huguenin () and Federica Teppa

University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2005 from Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen

Abstract: Early retirement is predominantly considered to be the result of incentives set by social security and the tax system. But the Swiss example demonstrates that the incidence of early retirement has dramatically increased even in the absence of institutional changes. We argue that an actuarially fair, but mandatory funded system may also distort optimal individual allocation. If individuals are credit constraint (or just reluctant to borrow), a higher than desired retirement capital induces people to retire earlier than they would have in the absence of such a scheme. Individuals thus retire as soon as the retirement income is deemed sufficient the pension plan avails withdrawal of benefits. We provide evidence using individual data from a selection of Swiss pension funds, allowing us to perfectly control for pension scheme details. Our findings suggest that affordability is indeed a key determinant in the retirement decisions. The fact that early retirement has become much more prevalent in the last 15 years is a strong indicator for the importance of affordability as the maturing the Swiss mandatory funded pension system over that period has led to an increase in the already high effective replacement rates. Moreover, even after controlling for the time trend, the higher the accumulated pension capital, the earlier men, and - to a smaller extent - women, tend to leave the work force.

JEL-codes: D91 H31 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2005-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Why Forcing People to Save for Retirement may Backfire (2005)
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