We analyze the impact of population aging on Japan's household saving rate and on its public pension system and the impact of that system on Japan's household saving rate and obtain the following results: first, the age structure of Japan's population can explain the level of, and past and...

This paper examines the substitution between pension wealth and household saving by studying Norway's 2011 pension reform. The analysis identifies the effect of reductions in social security pension generosity on household saving using cohort, time and sector variation in pension wealth induced...

This paper examines the substitution between pension wealth and household saving by studying Norway's 2011 pension reform. The analysis identifies the effect of reductions in social security pension generosity on household saving using cohort, time and sector variation in pension wealth induced...

Household saving rate in Italy declined over the last two decades.This trend still persists despite three pension reforms have been enacted since the beginning of the nineties. In this paper we search further evidence of general macroeconomic effects through the analysis of households behaviour....

Individual pension accounts are growing in importance as a pillar of retirement incomes policy in the developed world. Policy-makers have generally assumed that by introducing pre-funded pension schemes, they can increase household wealth and thereby raise retirement incomes. However, there has...

I argue that the offsetting effect of public pension contributions on household retirement saving depends on how closely the public pension programme imitates a private retirement saving plan (i.e. the ‘actuarial’ content of the public pension programme) – the closer the design of the...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

The 'saving for a rainy day' hypothesis implies that households' saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...