Nonparametric Evidence on the Effects of Financial Incentives on Retirement Decisions

This paper presents new evidence on the e¤ects of retirement bene…ts on labor force participation decisions. The analysis is based on a mandated rule for employerprovided retirement bene…ts in Austria that creates discontinuities in the incentives for workers to delay retirement. We present graphical evidence on labor supply responses and e¤ective …nancial incentives and develop nonparametric methods to estimate extensive margin labor supply elasticities. Overall, multiple results highlight modest impacts of …nancial incentives on retirement decisions. We are grateful to Joe Altonji, Richard Blundell, Martin Browning, David Card, Raj Chetty, Courtney Coile, Julie Cullen, Gordon Dahl, Eric French, John Friedman, Jon Gruber, Patrick Kline, Kathleen Mullen, Jesse Rothstein and numerous seminar and conference participants for insightful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful for …nancial support from the Steven H. Sandell Grant Program. Andrea Weber acknowledges research funding by the Leibniz Association (Pakt für Forschung und Innovation) and the Austrian Science Fund (NRN Labor Economics and the Welfare State). E-mail addresses: dsmanoli@austin.utexas.edu and a.weber@uni-mannheim.de.