The second-largest pension fund in the Netherlands, the health care sector fund PFZW (former PGGM), placed the administrative records of its participants for 1999 to 2007 at the disposal of Statistics Netherlands. The data contain precise information on pension and early retirement rights and...

In this paper we consider the influence of the demography on the dynamic equilibrium of an economy. More precisely, we focus on mandatory pensions, as in most Western countries except USA and Switzerland the role of ‘the third pension-pillar,' based on voluntary savings, is relatively minor....

This paper investigates whether individuals at the end of working life choose self-employment out of necessity and to what degree job search requirements for unemployment benefits induce people to become self-employed. For this purpose we analyze labor market transitions for people between the...

We provide an explanation for the common finding that the effect of retirement on life satisfaction is negligible. For this we use subjective well-being measures for life and domains of life satisfaction that are available in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and show that the effect of...

This paper analyzes the effect of retirement on cognitive functioning using two large scale surveys. First, a longitudinal survey among older Americans allows controlling for individual heterogeneity and endogeneity of the retirement decision. Second, a cross-national European survey allows...

The paper provides a perspective on the development of the Belgian disability insurance system. Using both survey and administrative data, it sketches a picture of the (changing) factors leading towards disability, as well as the outcomes in terms of program participation. The paper shows the...

A majority of older Finns withdraw from employment via early retirement schemes years before the statutory retirement age. Over the past 15 years, a series of policy reforms have been introduced to reduce the widespread use of early exit pathways. By exploiting variation in eligibility rules...

Existing studies show that individuals who retire replace some private consumption by home production, but do not consider joint behavior of couples. Here we analyze the causal effect of retirement of each partner on hours of home production of both partners in a couple. Our identification...

In this paper we use the actual rules and formulas of an occupational pension fund, the state pension fund and the tax system in the Netherlands to calculate net replacement rates at each age from 60 to 70 in full and partial retirement scenarios. We then vary the parameters of the pension...

The paper studies retirement behavior of wage‐earners in Belgium – for the first time using rich survey data to explore retirement incentives as faced by individuals. Specifically, we use SHARE data to estimate a model à la Stock and Wise (1990). Exploring the longitudinal nature of...