Projecting Behavioral Responses to the Next Generation of Retirement Policies

71 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2008 Last revised: 13 Mar 2008

See all articles by Alan L. Gustman

Alan L. Gustman

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Thomas L. Steinmeier

Texas Tech University - Department of Economics and Geography

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Abstract

This paper examines retirement and related behavioral responses to policies that on average are actuarially neutral. Many conventional models predict that actuarially neutral policies will not affect retirement behavior. In contrast, our model allows those with high time preference rates to find that the promise of an actuarially fair increase in future rewards does not balance the loss from foregone current benefits. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we find that from age 62 through full retirement age, the earnings test reduces full-time work by married men by about four percentage points, or by about ten percent of married men at full-time work. Abolishing the requirements on many jobs that an individual work full-time or not at all, what we term a minimum hours constraint on employment, would induce more than twice as many people to enter partial retirement as would leave full-time work, so that total full-time equivalent (FTE) employment would increase, although by a modest amount. If all benefits from personal accounts could be taken as a lump sum, the fraction not retired at age 62 would fall by about 5 percentage points compared to a system where there is mandatory annuitization of benefits.

Suggested Citation

Gustman, Alan L. and Steinmeier, Thomas L., Projecting Behavioral Responses to the Next Generation of Retirement Policies. Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper No. WP 2007-153, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1095843 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1095843

Alan L. Gustman (Contact Author)

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics ( email )

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Thomas L. Steinmeier

Texas Tech University - Department of Economics and Geography ( email )

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United States
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