Survey data show that many respondents save for retirement in unconventional retirement accounts, such as investments in real estate. In countries where retirement savings are not mandatory for self-employed, representatives of this group often report this as an argument against making...

When it comes to financial preparation for retirement, self-employed workers in many European countries face unique challenges not encountered by traditional wage earners. This is particularly true for self-employed workers who do not supervise subordinate personnel. This is the case because...

We used administrative micro panel data from the Netherlands to study the wealth effect on the transitions of workers from wage-employment to self-employment. To isolate the causal effect of wealth, we used a pension system reform in 2006 as a quasi-natural experiment. With the onset of the...

Pensions may be provided for in a modern society by a mix of several methods, namely by voluntary individual savings, mandatory fully-funded occupational pension systems, mandatory social security financed by pay-as-you-go, and old-fashioned hoarding in cash. Here, we call the specific mixture...

I estimate the effect of additional pension benefits on women's retirement decisions by examining a German pension subsidy program for low-pay workers. The subsidies have a kinked relationship with the recipients' past contributions, creating a sharply different slope of benefits for similar...

This paper examines the impact of coinsurance exemption for prescription medicines applied to elderly individuals in Spain after retirement. To evaluate this coinsurance change we use a rich administrative dataset that links pharmaceutical consumption and hospital discharge records for the full...

In this article, we challenge the common thought that a liquid annuity contract is optimal. We indeed show, in a standard neoclassical framework, that another contract, which actually resembles much more to the contracts that are proposed by most insurance companies, may be preferred by rational...

Nations in Europe have been developing rapidly since the formation of the European Union (EU), not only socially and demographically, but economically as well. One question a number of countries will face during this period of structural transition will be how (and how well) they are able to...

We report the effects of framing and default settings in annuity demand after conducting a survey-based experiment with over 3,000 members of a Dutch occupational pension plan. The participants were asked to allocate their real projected pension accrual between a life annuity and a partial lump...

This paper analyzes for the Netherlands the need to introduce flexible take-ups of home equity and pension wealth, complementary to recent reforms in Dutch pensions and mortgages. The young may gain from supplementing a possible pension shortfall with additional retirement income from reverse...