The objective of the paper is to explore the saving and consumption responses of a representative household to a range of policy interventions such as changes in taxes and pension settings. To achieve this, it develops a two-period life-cycle model. The representative household maximises...

Historic debates about the measurement of capital are even more complicated in the case of education and human capital. As extensive research demonstrates, education resources are not consistently related to student performance in existing elementary and secondary schools. This inefficiency in...

Do IRAs increase savings or are they merely a windfall for otherwise well-off taxpayers? A major objective of universal IRAs was to encourage saving for retirement. A spirited debate has ensued over the use of IRA tax deductions as a means of promoting private savings. The crucial policy issue...

This paper summarizes the authors work on the effect of IRA and 401(k) contributions on net personal saving. They consider many different nonparametric approaches to controlling for heterogeneity in individual saving behavior and conclude that the weight of the available evidence suggests that...

Estimates for a structural model of savings and labour supply calculated on UK field data support the hypothesis of quasi-hyperbolic discounting. The estimated model indicates that a DC pension encourages increased saving and labour supply prior to pension age, and substantially reduced labour...

Early retirement is predominantly considered to be the result of incentives set by social security and the tax system. But the Swiss example demonstrates that the incidence of early retirement has dramatically increased even in the absence of institutional changes. We argue that an actuarially...

The authors study labor supply of elderly couples by means of a collective model. The model allows individuals to enjoy leisure more (or less) in company of their spouse (complementarity/ externalities in leisure). Preferences and the intra-household bargaining process are identified by using...

This paper derives optimal life cycle portfolio asset allocations as well as annuity purchases trajectories for a consumer who can select her hours of work and also her retirement age. Using a realistically-calibrated model with stochastic mortality and uncertain labor income, we extend the...

This research analyses retirement behaviour in Austria based on a combined administrative dataset. Data from the Austrian social security database is merged with a dataset that contains very detailed information on all pension-relevant information on the individual level, e.g. insurance records...

We study the labor supply dynamics of elderly couples by means of a structural collective model.The model allows for general externalities with respect to spouses leisure.Preferences and the intrahousehold bargaining process are identified by using panel data with couples and individuals who...