TY  - JOUR
AU  - Juerges, Hendrik
AU  - Thiel, Lars
AU  - Bucher-Koenen, Tabea
AU  - Rausch, Johannes
AU  - Schuth, Morten
AU  - Boersch-Supan, Axel
TI  - Health, Financial Incentives, and Early Retirement: Micro-Simulation Evidence for Germany
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 19889
PY  - 2014
Y2  - February 2014
DO  - 10.3386/w19889
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19889
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19889.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Hendrik Jürges
University of Wuppertal
Schumpeter School of Business and Economics
Rainer-Gruenter-Str. 21 [FN.01]
42119 Wuppertal
GERMANY
Tel: +49-621-181-3519
Fax: +49-621-181-1863
E-Mail: juerges@uni-wuppertal.de

Lars Thiel
University of Wuppertal
Schumpeter School of Business and Economics
Rainer-Gruenter-Str. 21 [FN.01]
42119 Wuppertal
GERMANY
E-Mail: thiel@wiwi.uni-wuppertal.de

Tabea Bucher-Koenen
Max Planck Institute
for Social Law and Social Policy
Munich Center for the Economics of Aging
Amalienstraße 33, 80799 Munich, Germany
E-Mail: Tabea.Bucher-Koenen@zew.de

Johannes Rausch
Munich Center for the Economics of Aging
Max Planck Institute
for Social Law and Social Policy
Amalienstraße 33, 80799 Munich, Germany
E-Mail: rausch@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de

Morten Schuth
Max Planck Institute
for Social Law and Social Policy
Munich Center for the Economics of Aging
80799 Munich, Germany
E-Mail: Schuth@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de

Axel H. Börsch-Supan
Munich Center for the Economics of Aging
Max Planck Institute
for Social Law and Social Policy
Amalienstrasse 33
80799 Munich
GERMANY
Tel: +49 (89) 3860-2355
Fax: 49 (89) 3860-2390
E-Mail: boersch-supan@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de
M1  - published as Hendrik Jürges, Lars Thiel, Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Johannes Rausch, Morten Schuth, Axel Börsch-Supan. "Health, Financial Incentives, and Early Retirement: Microsimulation Evidence for Germany," in David A. Wise, editor, "Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Disability Insurance Programs and Retirement" University of Chicago Press (2016)

M3  - presented at "International Social Security", September 26-28, 2013
AB  - About 20% of German workers retire on disability pensions. Disability pensions provide fairly generous benefits for those who are not already age-eligible for an old-age pension and who are deemed unable to work for health reasons. In this paper, we use two sets of individual survey data to study the role of health and financial incentives in early retirement decisions in Germany, in particular disability benefit uptake. We show that financial incentives to retire do affect sick individuals at least as much as healthy individuals. Based on 25 years of individual survey data and empirical models of retirement behavior, we then simulate changes in the generosity of disability pensions to understand how these changes would affect retirement behavior. Our results show that making the disability benefit award process more stringent without closing other early retirement routes would not greatly increase labor force participation in old age.
ER  -