Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Voting On Pensions With Endogenous Retirement Age , Georges Casamatta, Helmuth Cremer, Pierre Pestieau

Georges Casamatta

It is often argued that the observed trend towards early retirement is due mainly to the implicit tax imposed on continued activity of elderly workers. We study the relevance of such a distortion in a political economy model with endogenous age of retirement. The setting is a two-period overlapping generations model. Individuals differ in their productivity. In the first period they work a fixed amount of time; in the second, they choose when to retire and then receive a flat rate pension benefit. Pensions are financed by a payroll tax on earnings in the first and in the second period …