Frischsenterets publikasjoner
Stiftelsen Frischsenteret for samfunnsøkonomisk forskning er en uavhengig stiftelse opprettet av Universitetet i Oslo med virkning fra 1. januar 1999. Frischsenteret utfører samfunnsøkonomisk forskning i samarbeid med Økonomisk institutt ved Universitetet i Oslo.
Nedenfor følger en oversikt med sammendrag for pensjonsrelaterte publikasjoner fra Frisch de senere årene. Trykk på overskriften for å laste ned hele publikasjonen.
2009
Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the earnings test on the labour force activity. We find no impact on labour market participation, but positive effects on earnings. The effect increases with exposure to the reform and is stronger for individuals with earnings around the threshold and with high education. Individuals who remain active until retirement age respond more to the reform than those who left labour force earlier. The results indicate both substantial labour supply responsiveness among elderly, and heterogeneity with respect to preferences, labour market options or both.
Colombino, Ugo, Erik Hernæs, Marilena Locatelli og Steinar Strøm (2009). Towards an Actuarial Fair Pension System in Norway. Memorandum 9/2009.
In order to estimate labour supply responses among older people we have employed a very simple model of retirement decisions that can be estimated on a single cross-section sample, and still be given a structural interpretation in terms of inter-temporal decisions. The model is estimated on Norwegian register data from 1996, which covers all Norwegians aged 55-68 in 1996. The empirical model is employed to assess the impact on retirement of moving the Norwegian pension system towards actuarial fairness. Future annual pension benefits are increased if retirement is postponed say, for one year. In one of the simulations future annual benefits are increased by NOK 8,000 (as of April 2009 1 Euro~ NOK 8.7), which is around 5 per cent of the average pension benefit in 1996 and corresponds approximately to the adjustment in the new pension system which comes into effect 1. January 2011. The number of men and women choosing retirement is reduced by around 5 per cent, given that there is no consumption smoothing. When perfect consumption smoothing is assumed the reduction is much larger; 18 per cent in the case of men and 14 per cent in the case of women. These reductions are really sizeable and indicate that pension reforms, combined with removing constraints in the credit market, may be of great importance in giving the individuals incentive to prolong their working life.
Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the earnings test on the labour force activity. We find no impact on labour market participation, but positive effects on earnings. The effect increases with exposure to the reform and is stronger for individuals with earnings around the threshold and with high education. Individuals who remain active until retirement age respond more to the reform than those who left labour force earlier. The results indicate both substantial labour supply responsiveness among elderly, and heterogeneity with respect to preferences, labour market options or both.
In order to estimate labour supply responses among older people we have employed a very simple model of retirement decisions that can be estimated on a single cross-section sample, and still be given a structural interpretation in terms of inter-temporal decisions. The model is estimated on Norwegian register data from 1996, which covers all Norwegians aged 55-68 in 1996. The empirical model is employed to assess the impact on retirement of moving the Norwegian pension system towards actuarial fairness. Future annual pension benefits are increased if retirement is postponed say, for one year. In one of the simulations future annual benefits are increased by NOK 8,000 (as of April 2009 1 Euro~ NOK 8.7), which is around 5 per cent of the average pension benefit in 1996 and corresponds approximately to the adjustment in the new pension system which comes into effect 1. January 2011. The number of men and women choosing retirement is reduced by around 5 per cent, given that there is no consumption smoothing. When perfect consumption smoothing is assumed the reduction is much larger; 18 per cent in the case of men and 14 per cent in the case of women. These reductions are really sizeable and indicate that pension reforms, combined with removing constraints in the credit market, may be of great importance in giving the individuals incentive to prolong their working life.
Denne rapporten kalibrerer en stokastisk dynamisk programmeringsmodell og lager to simuleringer av virkninger på arbeidstilbudet av den norske pensjonsreformen. Det er tatt hensyn til den aktuariske justeringen ved fleksibelt pensjonsuttak og at pensjonen ikke avkortes mot arbeidsinntekt. Sparing er ikke tatt med i modellstrukturen, hvor all inntekt forbrukes hvert år og valget er kombinasjoner i prosent av fulltids arbeid og full pensjon fra 62 år. En av modellene har kombinasjoner som hver summerer seg til 100 prosent og den andre har kombinasjoner som varierer fra 80 til 120 prosent. Den siste modellen kan tolkes som å ha en viss grad av sparing, selv om dette ikke er tatt inn i modellstrukturen via nyttefunksjonen. Resultatet av denne modellen er at et flertall vil velge å kombinere arbeid og pensjon. Begge modeller gir som resultat at arbeidstilbudet øker betydelig, omkring 50 prosent i aldersgruppen 62-69. Etterspørselssiden er ikke eksplisitt modellert, men modellen er kalibrert til å gi faktisk yrkesdeltaking i basisberegningen. I simuleringene øker arbeidstilbudet, men hvorvidt dette kan realiseres gir ikke modellen svar på.
This paper simulates a set of proposed policies from the Norwegian pension reform within a structural dynamic model of health and retirement estimated on the Norwegian labour market data. The paper focuses on the two main elements of the reform, namely the new pension entitlement accrual rules linking benefits more closely to earnings and the new pension benefit drawing rules designed to eliminate the incentives distortions with respect to the time of retirement. The effects of these proposals are investigated in terms of labour market outcomes, social welfare and income distribution. It is shown that while the proposed pension reform succeeds in urging the older workers to postpone their retirement and induces an increase in total social welfare, individuals in good health who retire early experience a negative change in their discounted utility. In addition, an increase in social welfare is accompanied with an increase in income inequality.
2008
Iskhakov, Fedor (2008). Dynamic programming model of health and retirement. Memorandum 3/2008.
A structural dynamic programming model is applied for modeling labour market transitions among older age workers in Norway in 1992-2003. Special attention is given to early retirement pension and disability pension as two major exit routes from the labour force. Health status is represented by a latent variable reflecting the eligibility for participating in disability programs. Incomplete information maximum likelihood method is used in several stages to facilitate the estimation. The model is used to investigate the degree of potential substitution of the early retirement and retirement through the disability insurance scheme. Estimates of the structural parameters of the concealed health process allow for forecasting the individual “eligibility” for the disability and thus facilitate the assessment of the potential substitution between the two exit routes from the labour force. Performed policy simulation of the complete elimination of the early retirement program indicates nearly complete return of the otherwise early pensioners back to the labour market.
Falch, Nina Skrove (2008). Tjenestepensjon og mobilitet på arbeidsmarkedet. Rapport 2/2008.
Denne rapporten undersøker hvorvidt arbeidstakere påvirkes av pensjonene de får når de velger hvor de skal jobbe. Dette gjøres ved å se på folks valg av sektor i 2001 og 2003. Datagrunnlaget er administrative registerdata, og til estimeringen benyttes en conditional logit-modell. Analysen finner en signifikant, men svært liten påvirkning av pensjon på valg av sektor.
2007
Variation in non-pension wealth accumulation with the level of expected pensions is investigated with a register based, linked employer-employee dataset. This includes wealth components, earnings history and demographic information, supplemented with detailed calculations of public and occupational pension entitlements, allowing construction of full life time income trajectories. Regressions are run on the half of the population with some wealth and therefore the option of consumption smoothing. The results imply substantial offsets of pension wealth against other private wealth, mostly financial. Although pension benefits are related to earnings, the regressive structure of the public pension and incomplete coverage of occupational pensions provide independent variation in pensions. Panel estimation provides support for the cross section results. Heterogeneity and selection bias are investigated with estimation on a variety of sub-samples.
In this analysis, we evaluate the labour force activity effect of abolishing the retirement earnings test for the age group 67-69. The report starts with an empirical overview of labour force participation and earnings for the age group 67-70. We then predict the impact of abolishing the earnings test by using both a transition model and a structural model. Both models predict that abolishing the earnings test would have increased labour force participation of persons aged 67 to 69, by 0.5 to 1 percentage points. The structural model indicates that about two thirds of the extra cost to the National Insurances System would have been offset by increased tax, half from tax rules and half from increased labour supply.
2006
Bakken, Line Smart (2006). The Golden Age of Retirement. Memorandum 22/2006.
The aim of this paper is to investigate income, saving and consumption for households around retirement age. When doing this, there are different objectives which can be analyzed. First of all it is possible to get some insight of welfare of elderly when they reach retirement. Second, it is interesting to check the predictions of the life-cycle model by investigating consumption trends of households. Register data files are used to construct households which are used in the analysis throughout the paper. Modeling was done for a particular group of Norwegian households who were tracked through their retirement transition period. For each household there are characterizations such as pension income, labor income, wealth accumulation, saving and consumption. The results show that the households increase their after tax income and consumption, and have a high level of net financial wealth. In addition is a connection between high income replacement ratio and low income before retirement found. Households who have high income replacement ratios increase consumption more than households with low income replacement. The results also suggest that retirement decisions are independent of other decision making such as consumption and saving.
Early retirement decisions derived from a structural model with economic incentives and firm workforce changes, are estimated on Norwegian linked household and firm data. For households in which the wife is the first to become eligible for early retirement, the impact on early retirement of a reduction in the firm workforce is stronger relative to economic incentives than is the case for men, in particular in the private sector. Both for men and women, also an expansion of the firm workforce implies a higher retirement probability.The eligibility age in the early retirement programme has gradually been reduced from 66 in 1989 to 62 in 1998. We find that the economic incentives relative to the push factor have become more important, both for men and women, the lower the eligibility age is.
Models for non-cooperative as well as cooperative behavior of families are estimated on data from Norway from 1994 to 1998. The models aim at explaining labor supply behavior of married couples the first five months after the husband becomes eligible for early retirement, while the wife is not eligible. Estimates and predictions derived from the different models are compared. Econometric tests find that the Stackelberg model with the male as the leader is the best. Simulations with the estimated models show that taxing pension income the same way as labor income would reduce the propensity to retire early considerably.
Hernæs, Erik og Tao Zhang (2006). Costs and coverage of occupational pensions. Arbeidsnotat 1/2006.
This paper reports on progress in a project to analyse the determinants of the pension decision, that is, the decision by firms to offer a pension plan to its employees. The particular contribution of the present paper is to document empirical groundwork for the research project, and serves as supplement to the paper “The Determinants of Occupation Pension” by Erik Hernæs, John Piggot, Steinar Strøm and Tao Zhang, 2006.
The decision by firms to offer an occupational pension is investigated with a unique linked employer-employee dataset, supplemented with detailed actuarial calculations of the cost to the firms of offering occupational pensions and constructed tax gains from pension contributions versus cash wage, driven by lower tax on wages than on pensions. The tax gains which can be shared between employers and employees by the degree of wage moderation, are clearly associated with the occurrence of an occupational pension plan. An occupational pension is associated with longer average tenure in the firm. Occupational pensions typically are found in large firms, and individual wage negotiations, a high degree of unionization and requirement of long training are all positively associated with an occupational pension. Hence, financial and productivity incentives are found to operate within a moderating institutional framework.
2003 og tidligere
Bakgrunnen for denne rapporten er arbeidet med pensjonsreformen, og avveiningen mellom hensynet til effektivitet og hensynet til omfordeling som oppstår i denne sammenhengen. Rapporten er ment som et bidrag til økt kunnskap om fordelingen av pensjonsgivende inntekt i Norge, og om kilder til ulikhet i pensjonsgivende inntekt. Innledningsvis er fokuset på hvordan inntektsfordelingen i 2001 påvirkes av forhold som ikke har med lønnsforskjeller å gjøre. Jeg finner at omsorgsarbeid, frivillig deltid og selvvalgt ikke-deltakelse kan forklare inntil 1/3 av inntektene under 4G, og at gruppen som står helt uten pensjonsgivende inntekt reduseres med 60% når det i tillegg er justert for bortfall av inntekt som følge av studier eller avtjening av verneplikt. Videre benyttes to ulikhetsmål til å beskrive hvordan inntektsfordelingen er endret over perioden 1971-2003. Dersom vi ser perioden under ett er ulikheten kraftig redusert blant kvinner, ulikheten blant menn har økt noe, mens ulikheten samlet sett har vært ganske stabil. Ellers er rapporten i stor grad viet til sammenlikning av to kohorter, født med 18 års mellomrom. Vi finner tildels store forskjeller mellom kohortene, og det er særlig kvinners situasjon som er bedret over perioden. Likevel kommer kvinner fortsatt dårligere ut enn menn på de fleste av målene som benyttes.
The paper presents some procedures that can be used for recovering the quantitative characteristics of early retirement (AFP) and private (occupational) pensions when their values are not directly observed. The developed techniques are then used for analysing the potential compensation ratios for the limited sample of households in Norway.
Jia, Zhiyang (2003). A Mixture Model of Household Retirement Choice. Memorandum 4/2003
This paper analyzes the labor market participation behavior of the elderly couples when a new option (early retirement) becomes available to the husband. Unlike other studies of household labor supply model, which assume that all the households follow the same decision making structure, we assume there are two types of household, the cooperative type and the non-cooperative type. When facing the choice problem, those belong to the non-cooperative type behave according to a Stackelberg game with male as the leader, while those of the cooperative type follow a simple unitary model. Under this assumption, we formulate a mixture model using the latent class analysis framework. This model explicitly takes account of the unobserved heterogeneity in decisionmaking structures. The empirical estimation of the model is based on register data from Statistics Norway. We find that more than half of the households belong to the non-cooperative type. And these households on average have lower education level than those of the cooperative type. Our conjecture is that this may suggest that it is easier for higher education couples to communicate and compromise to reach a efficient solution.
A structural model for retirement and employment based on a flexible, parametric utility function is developed. The model requires only cross section data and is estimated on survey data for Italy and register data for Norway. The estimates indicate that the preference structure among middle-aged Italian males and Norwegian males and females who are approaching retirement has strong similarities. The utility function estimates from a model with no consumption smoothing, seem more reasonable than estimates from a model with a perfect credit market. Policy simulations indicate a somewhat stronger response to cuts in pension benefits in Norway than in Italy.
The main aim of the paper is to describe savings behaviour of household’s through saving functions. It means to define factors, which influence the households’ decision-making process on how much to save. The influence of pension system and accessible types of pensions together with income and age variables are considered as the main parameters, which determine behaviour. Savings functions are introduced here as linear regression models with income variable included in entropy form. Estimation of the model is done for a particular group of population, only full households are included.
Structural forward-looking quasi-dynamic behavioural model is estimated for the Norwegian households where husband is eligible for early retirement between 1993 and 1996. Random utility approach is applied to rationalize the observed shifts between four main stages on the labour market. Specific attention is paid to the retirement decisions. Based on the finest model policy simulation is run to register the impact of altering taxation on the labour force participation. The following thesis was prepared within the aging population and pension project carried out by Erik Hernæs and Steinar Strøm at the Frisch Centre for Economic Research. The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council. The project has resulted in a whole series of papers which date back to 1997 ([Hernæs et al. 2001, 2002a, 2002b], [Dagsvik, Strøm 1997], [Brinch et al., 2002]). As the data quality increases and more data is collected with years, it is necessary to come back to some previous results to improve and correct them. The modelling details also change with time although the major path has been laid out solid. In the current research the data is substantially improved with additional occupational pension included in the dataset for the very first time. Besides, new three periods model is developed to make predictions more accurate and less restrictions are introduced on the sample selecting stage to make the models more general.
Denne rapporten gir en oversikt over de viktigste studiene som har blitt gjort både i Norge og i andre land om sammenhengen mellom økonomiske incentiver og yrkesdeltakelse blant eldre arbeidstakere, særlig overgangen til pensjonering. Hovedvekten er lagt på empiriske studier, men rapporten gir også en oversikt over teoretiske analyserammer for pensjoneringsatferd. Siktemål har vært å trekke ut informasjon om hvordan incentiver og atferd henger sammen, og spesielt relevansen av resultatene for Norge. Det har blitt lagt vekt på å ta hensyn til ulikheter i design mellom de omtalte studiene, og trekke ut mest mulig sammenliknbare resultater.
Nilsen, Guro Engstrøm (2002). Implisitte skattesatser i pensjonssystemet. Arbeidsnotat 2/2002.
Tema for dette notatet er implisitte skatterater og førtidspensjonering i Norge. Implisitt skatt kan være et velegnet begrep for å si noe om hvilke insentiver pensjonssystemet gir for eldres arbeidsdeltakelse. Først presenteres teori om implisitte skatter. For perioden 1993- 97 beregnes kompensasjonsgrad, implisitte skatterater og skattepress for AFP-pensjonister. Videre blir det sett på hvilken effekt egenskapene kjønn, sektor og utdanning har på disse beregningene, og hvordan en eventuell avkorting av pensjonen ved førtidspensjonering ville slå ut. Resultatene settes i sammenheng med yrkesdeltakelse for eldre, og sammenlignes med tilsvarende internasjonale tall.
In 1988, an early retirement program (AFP) was introduced in Norway for the 66-years-old. Since then, AFP has gradually been extended and by now it covers workers aged 62-66. In this paper we employ a multinominal logit model to study the transition between states in the labour market. The model is estimated on a large panel data set covering the period 1988-2 to 1999-4. The estimated model tracks the development quite well, as also outside sample predictions do. The model is used to assess the future labour market impact of abolishing AFP. We find that by abolishing AFP may increase the labour force participation among older men (55-67) in 2005 from 72 percent in the baseline projection to 83 percent. For females the corresponding increase is from 62 to 67 percent.
Haugen, Fredrik (2000). Insentivvirkninger av skatte- og pensjonsregler. Arbeidsnotat 4/2000.
Arbeidsnotatet søker å forklare arbeidstilbudet til gifte par der mannen er kommet i en alder som innebærer at han kvalifiserer for Avtalefestet Pensjon (AFP). Vi estimerer en multinomisk logit-modell for å forsøke å forklare mannens arbeidstilbud året etter at han kvalifiserer for AFP. Videre har vi utført politikk-simuleringer der vi ser på effektene av endringer i skatte- og pensjonsreglene på arbeidstilbudet. Arbeidsnotatet inneholder også en detaljert beskrivelse av pensjonsregelverket og skattereglene for årene 1991 til 1997.
When the husband works in the private sector in Norway the take-up rate of early retirement during the first twelve months after becoming eligible (once during 1993 and 1994) was around 40 percent. If the husband works in the public sector the corresponding take up rate was around 25 percent. A model with forward-looking and utility maximising married couples, where the husband only is eligible for early retirement, has been estimated on these data. The estimated model has been used to predict the labour supply responses of the husband and wife when pensions are taxed as wage earnings. Taxing early benefits as labour earnings induces a substantial decline in retirement and a substantial shift towards full-time work among males. Females tend to decrease their labour supply a little. An additional 10 per cent cut in the pre-tax pension income has a positive impact on full-time work among both spouses, but the effect is a magnitude smaller than the effect obtained by changing taxation. Husbands in poor households tend to increase their labour supply more than husbands in rich households. Poor households are also more negatively hit in terms of loss in expected household welfare than the rich households.
An econometric model modeling the joint labor market decision of married couples made in the first twelve months following the husband’s eligibility of early retirement has been estimated on microdata covering the period 1993-1994. Different specifications of alternative models are presented and compared on the basis of empirical estimation results.
Røgeberg, Ole J. (2000). Married Men and Early Retirement Under the AFP Scheme. Memorandum 2/2000.
The following thesis concerns itself with the labour supply of elderly married men eligible for early retirement under the AFP (AvtaleFestet Pensjonsordning) scheme.