Aging and Pension Reform: Extending the Retirement Age and Human Capital Formation

SAFE Working Paper No. 82

47 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2015

See all articles by Edgar Vogel

Edgar Vogel

Deutsche Bundesbank; Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA)

Alexander Ludwig

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA); Goethe University Frankfurt

Axel H. Börsch-Supan

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 29, 2014

Abstract

Projected demographic changes in industrialized and developing countries vary in extent and timing but will reduce the share of the population in working age everywhere. Conventional wisdom suggests that this will increase capital intensity with falling rates of return to capital and increasing wages. This decreases welfare for middle aged asset rich households. This paper takes the perspective of the three demographically oldest European nations — France, Germany and Italy — to address three important adjustment channels to dampen these detrimental effects of aging in these countries: investing abroad, endogenous human capital formation and increasing the retirement age. Our quantitative finding is that endogenous human capital formation in combination with an increase in the retirement age has strong implications for economic aggregates and welfare, in particular in the open economy. These adjustments reduce the maximum welfare losses of demographic change for households alive in 2010 by about 2.2 percentage points in terms of a consumption equivalent variation.

Keywords: population aging, human capital, welfare, pension reform, retirement age, open economy

JEL Classification: C68, E17, E25, J11, J24

Suggested Citation

Vogel, Edgar and Ludwig, Alexander and Börsch-Supan, Axel H., Aging and Pension Reform: Extending the Retirement Age and Human Capital Formation (December 29, 2014). SAFE Working Paper No. 82, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2553236 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2553236

Edgar Vogel

Deutsche Bundesbank ( email )

Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14
Frankfurt am Main, 60431
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.bundesbank.de

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) ( email )

Amalienstrasse 33
Munich, 80799
Germany

Alexander Ludwig (Contact Author)

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) ( email )

Amalienstrasse 33
Munich, 80799
Germany

Goethe University Frankfurt ( email )

Grüneburgplatz 1
Frankfurt am Main, 60323
Germany

Axel H. Börsch-Supan

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) ( email )

Amalienstrasse 33
Munich, 80799
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.mea.mpisoc.mpg.de

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