Recent pension reforms have shifted a larger responsibility towards savers. Individuals therefore need better knowledge of the rules and incentives embedded in the pension system to adequately save and prepare for retirement. In this paper, we use a novel Swedish survey matched with high-quality...

Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a rich setting in which to study the effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement-timing decisions. PERS pays retirees the maximum benefit calculated using three formulas that can be characterized as defined benefit...

The degree to which the Social Security tax distorts labor supply depends on the extent to which individuals perceive the link between current earnings and future Social Security benefits. Some Social Security reform plans have been motivated by an assumption that workers fail to perceive this...

This paper presents the results of a field experiment in which a sample of older workers was randomized between a treatment group that was given information about key Social Security provisions and a control group that was not. The experiment was designed to examine whether it is possible to...

Welfare-state measures often tend to persist even when they seem to have become suboptimal due to changes in the economic environment. This paper proposes an information-based explanation for the persistence of the welfare state. I present a structural model where rationally inattentive voters...

As evidence is accumulating that subjective expectations influence behavior and that these expectations are sometimes biased, it becomes policy-relevant to know how to influence individuals' expectations. Information in the media is likely to affect how people picture the future. This paper...

This paper uses individual-level data on fund choices in the Swedish Premium Pension to analyze how investors respond to information about their pension savings. The Swedish Pensions Agency mails an annual information letter, the Orange Envelope, to investors to provide them with tailored...

We review the evidence on decision making in complex choice situations—i.e., situations where there are many alternatives and/or where attributes of alternatives are difficult to understand. We focus on choices about health insurance, health care, and retirement planning, all of which are very...

This article explores subjects in optimal income taxation characterized by recent research interest, practical importance in light of concerns about inequality, potential for misunderstanding, and prospects for advancement. Throughout, the analysis highlights paths for further investigation....

Während die deutsche Bevölkerung zentrale Kenngrößen des deutschen Rentensystems vergleichsweise treffsicher bewerten kann, wird das Ausmaß des bevorstehenden demografischen Wandels unterschätzt. Dabei wird die Lebenserwartung von Männern und Frauen im Alter von 65 Jahren um jeweils fünf...