DP6263 Choosing the Legal Retirement Age in Presence of Unemployment

Author(s):	Georges Casamatta, Caroline De Paoli
Publication Date:	April 2007
Keyword(s):	retirement age, unemployment
JEL(s):	H55
Programme Areas:	Public Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=6263

The aim of this paper is to better understand the impact of unemployment on the design of Pay-As-You-Go pension systems, in the context of population aging. We consider a model in which people differ according to age and face in every period a given probability of becoming unemployed. We first determine the optimal pension system, which consists in a payroll tax rate, a pension benefit level and a retirement age and study its comparative statics with respect to a change of the unemployment rate and the length of life. We then characterize the issue-by-issue voting equilibrium and compare it to the optimal pension scheme. It is shown that the median voter in general chooses a retirement age lower than the optimal one as well as a higher payroll tax rate.