The paper seeks to explain the huge cross country variation in private pension funding,shaped by historical choice made when universal pension systems were created after theGreat Depression. According to Perotti and von Thadden (2006), large inflationaryshocks due to war damage devastated middle...

This paper focuses on the relation between worker's productivity and retirement decision. Assuming that productivity follows geometric Brownian motion with drift, there exists such a level of productivity for which it is optimal to retire. The worker buys an insurance, which gives a constant...

When the financial positions of pension funds worsen, regulations prescribe that pension funds reduce the gap between their assets (invested contributions) and their liabilities (accumulated pension promises). This paper quantifies the business cycle effects and distributional implications of...

We investigate how early life circumstances - childhood health and socioeconomic status (SES) - are associated with labor market outcomes over an individualś entire life cycle. A life cycle approach provides insights not only into which labor market outcomes are associated with adverse...

This study explored the psychological mechanisms that underlie the retirement planning and saving tendencies of Dutch and American workers. Participants were 988 Dutch and 429 Americans, 25-64 years of age. Analyses were designed to: (a) examine the extent to which structural variables were...

In January 2006, the Dutch government implemented a pension reform that substantially reduced the public pension wealth of workers born in 1950 or later. At the same time, a tax-facilitated savings plan was introduced that implied a large savings subsidy for all workers, irrespective of birth...