Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/198852 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7492
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Within a politico-economic model we first establish three hypotheses: (i) Retirees generally prefer a higher retirement age than workers, whereby just retired individuals prefer the highest retirement age, (ii) in equilibrium the level of the legal retirement age is increasing in longevity and (iii) decreasing in the public pension replacement rate. We then test these hypotheses empirically. Employing micro data for Germany we corroborate the first hypothesis with descriptive regressions and a fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) design. We show that just retired individuals are indeed most in favor of an increase in the legal retirement age. On the basis of cross country panel IV regressions we provide evidence for the second and third hypothesis. We demonstrate that a one percentage point increase in the share of the elderly increases the legal retirement age by 0.3 to 0.5 years, and that a 10 percentage point increase in the replacement rate reduces the legal retirement age by 0.5 to 3 years. We conclude that if policy contains the generosity of public pensions, increasing the legal retirement age becomes politically more feasible.
Subjects: 
retirement age
pension reform
longevity
replacement rate
JEL: 
D72
H55
J26
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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