To estimate the effects of large cuts in pensions on the age of first benefit receipt, we exploit two natural experiments in which such cuts affect a group of repatriated ethnic German workers. The pensions were cut by about 12%, yet, according to our regression discontinuity estimates based on...

We exploit a comprehensive restructuring of the early retirement system in Norway in 2011 to examine labor supply responses to alternative pension reform strategies relying on improved work incentives (flexibility) or increased access ages (prescription), respectively. We find that increasing...

This study analyzes the causal effect of an increase in the retirement age on health. We exploit a sizable cohort-specific pension reform for women using two complementary empirical approaches - a Regression Discontinuity Design and a Difference-in-Differences approach. The analysis is based on...

We evaluate the labor market and distributional effects of an increase in the early retirement age (ERA) from 60 to 63 for women. We use a regression discontinuity design which exploits the immediate increase in the ERA between women born in 1951 and 1952. The analysis is based on the German...

We provide empirical evidence that the removal of work disincentives embedded in retirement earnings tests can increase old-age labor supply considerably, but it does so at the cost of more income inequality. Causal effects are identified based on a reform of the Norwegian early retirement...

This paper uses a natural experiment approach to identify the effects of an exogenous change in future pension benefits on workers' training participation. We use unique matched survey and administrative data for male employees in the Dutch public sector who were born in 1949 or 1950. Only the...

This paper investigates the role of childcare provided by grandparents for the fertility decisions of their offspring. We exploit a decade of pension reforms in Italy that mandated the grandparental generation to a working horizon longer than they would have had otherwise. We argue that the rise...

In order to study whether public pension systems displace private saving, we use the quasi-experimental variation in pension wealth created by Poland's 1999 pension reform. Using the 1997-2003 Polish Household Budget Surveys, we begin by estimating "difference-in-differences" regressions, where...

This paper assesses the impact of a dramatic reform of the Dutch pension system on mental health, savings behavior and retirement expectations of workers nearing retirement age. The reform means that public sector workers born on January 1, 1950 or later face a substantial reduction in their...

Radical changes have been implemented to pension schemes across the UK public sector from April 2015. This paper simulates how these changes will affect the lifetime pension and how the negotiated pension changes compare across six public sector schemes by level of education. Specifically, we...