The Effect of Saving Subsidies on Household Saving - Evidence from Germany

Diskussionspapiere extern

Giacomo Corneo, Matthias Keese, Carsten Schröder

Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen: Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Department of Economics, Technische Universität Dortmund, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Department of Economics and Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), 2010,
(Ruhr Economic Papers #170)

Abstract

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a natural experiment framework. Estimation results from both the German Socio-Economic Panel and the SAVE study indicate that private saving was hardly aff ected by the introduction of the Riester scheme.



Keywords: Household saving, saving incentives, retirement, Riester scheme, coarsened exact matching
Externer Link:
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/30318

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