In this paper, we assess the impact of firms introducing part-time work schemes for gradual labour market exit of elderly workers on their employees’ labour market outcomes. The analysis is based on unique linked employer-employee data that combine high-quality survey and administrative data....

This paper explores how extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits targeted to older workers affect early retirement and social welfare. We argue that the analysis of UI's tradeoff between consumption smoothing and moral hazard needs to consider the entire early retirement system, which often...

This paper investigates the effects of retirement on various health outcomes. Data stem from the first three waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). With this informative data, non-parametric matching methods can be applied to identify causal effects. It is found that...

Disability insurance (DI) beneficiaries lose some of their benefits if their earnings exceed certain thresholds (“cash-cliffs”). When this reduction is too high, this implicit taxation of earnings is considered to be one of the prime reasons for the low outflow from DI. This paper analyzes a...

Abstract I take seriously the hypothesis that the wealthy lack time to consume to explain empirical evidence on old age asset decumulation and rich savings rates. Basic life-cycle theory predicts that households run down their assets toward the end of their life but evidence shows they do it at...

This paper investigates the consequences of pension reform for life-cycle unemployment and retirement. We find that (i) improving actuarial fairness in pension assessment not only boosts old age participation but also reduces unemployment among prime age workers and raises welfare; (ii)...

We analyze the effect of means-tested benefits on annuitization decisions. Most industrialized countries provide a subsistence level consumption floor in old age, usually in the form of means-tested benefits or income supplements. The availability of such meanstested payments creates an...

The labor market effects of pension reform stem from retirement behavior and from job search and hours worked of prime age workers. This paper investigates the impact of four often proposed policy measures for sustainable pensions: strengthening the tax benefit link, moving from wage to price...

This paper analyzes a recent ballot in which two virtually identical popular initiatives, both demanding a decrease in the legal age of retirement in Switzerland, led to differences in approval rates of nearly seven percentage points. Based on this unique natural experiment, the existence of...

This paper investigates how parametric reform in a pay-as-you-go pension system with a tax benefit link affects retirement incentives and work incentives of prime-age workers. We find that postponed retirement tends to harm incentives of prime-age workers in the presence of a tax benefit link,...