Can governments boost voluntary retirement savings via tax incentives and subsidies? A German case study for low-income households

Giacomo Corneo, Matthias Keese and Carsten Schröder

No 2008-18, Economics Working Papers from Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics

Abstract: Since 2002 the German government has promoted private retirement saving plans by means of special subsidies and tax incentives (Riester scheme). This policy mainly targets low-income households. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we scrutinize the impact of the Riester scheme on private savings. Our empirical strategy consists of treating the introduction of the Riester scheme as a natural experiment. The estimation results cast some doubts on the effectiveness of the Riester scheme in raising private savings and call for enhanced systematic efforts to evaluate that policy.

Keywords: retirement saving; Riester scheme; tax incentives; subsidy incentives; pensions; treatment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D14 H24 H31 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cauewp:7413

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