In this study, we gauge the impact of social interactions on individual retirement preferences. A survey including self-assessments and vignette questions shows that individual preferences are affected by preferences and actual retirement behavior of the social environment. Retirement from...

This study argues that Dutch policy regarding the labour market for elderly is at a crossroads. Previous reforms in the Netherlands have encouraged labour supply and are expected to boost labour-market participation of individuals aged 55 to 64 to 60% in 2020. Further stimulus of supply is...

In light of the ageing of the Dutch society, policy measures aim at increasing the participation rate of elderly workers, particularly in the age-group between 55 and 64. This paper develops a stylized numerical simulation model. This model describes consumption, savings and labour supply...

In this study, we investigate the anatomy of older workers’ wages. The central question is whether the wage cushion—i.e., the difference between actual wages and collectively agreed-upon (maximum) contractual wages—contributes to the fact that wages continue increasing at...

This paper studies the effect of firm closures for prime-age and older workers. Administrative data on the Dutch labour force are used to follow a sample of Dutch workers who lost their jobs due to firm closures in the period 2000 - 2009. Applying difference-in-difference techniques and using a...

This study contains several tests to show that individuals overreact to negative wealth changes, relative to positive wealth changes. This asymmetry, that is found using micro data, suggests that economists should not treat symmetrically the relation between economic variables (consumption for...

Flexible retirement - that is, the opportunity to choose one’s own personal retirement age - serves as a hedge against pension risk and provides insurance to workers facing health or productivity shocks. This paper discusses three conditions to provide insurance through flexible...

Early retirement schemes and disability insurance in the Netherlands have both been reformed during the past decades. The reforms have increased incentives to continue working and have decreased the substitution between early retirement and disability. This study investigates the impact of the...

In the policy debate on increasing the statutory retirement age, the issue has been raised to make an exception for workers with demanding occupations, since health considerations may make it unreasonable to expect them to work longer. <span style="color: #000000;">We use unique Dutch survey data to analyze the general...</span>

This paper first confronts the observed aggregate retirement pattern in the Netherlands with predictions of traditional economic models of retirement. The retirement peaks observed in the data cannot entirely be reconciled with models putting financial incentives central to individual...