A. “Pension Costs and Retirement Decisions in Plans that Combine DB and DC Elements: Evidence from Oregon,” by John Chalmers, Woodrow T. Johnson and Jonathan Reuter (w18517, November 2012, .pdf format, 50p.).
Abstract:
The Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a hybrid pension plan that provides employees the security of a defined benefit (DB) pension plus the option to receive instead retirement benefits based on a defined contribution-style (DC) retirement account. We use PERS administrative data for 1990 to 2003 to study the effect of this hybrid design on employers’ costs and employees’ retirement-timing decisions. We have four findings. First, the option built into PERS is costly for employers to provide. Ex post, average retirement benefits are 49% higher in the hybrid plan than they would have been in a traditional DB plan. For the typical retiree, simulations show that our ex post estimate lies between the 50th and 75th percentiles of the ex ante distribution. Second, the hybrid plan distorts employees’ retirement timing decisions relative to a traditional DB plan. Looking across benefit formulas, we find that as an employee’s DC benefit increases above her DB benefit, so does the probability that she retires before the normal retirement age. Third, we find that retirement timing decisions respond to two sources of exogenous variation in the level of the DC benefit. Finally, we find evidence of peer effects in that employees respond more strongly to their own retirement incentives when more of their coworkers face similar incentives. The retirement waves that result from employees seeking to avoid declines in pension benefits are likely to impose significant administrative costs on employers.
B. “Health Insurance Reform: The Impact of a Medicare Buy-In,” by Gary D. Hansen, Minchung Hsu and Junsang Lee (w18529, November 2012, .pdf format, 32p.).
Abstract:
The steady state general equilibrium and welfare consequences of health insurance reform are evaluated in a calibrated life-cycle economy with incomplete markets and endogenous labor supply. Individuals face uncertainty each period about their future health status, medical expenditures, labor productivity, access to employer provided group health insurance, and the length of their life. In this environment, incomplete markets and adverse selection, which restricts the type of insurance contracts available in equilibrium, creates a potential role for health insurance reform. In particular, we consider a policy reform that would allow older workers (aged 55-64) to purchase insurance similar to Medicare coverage. We find that adverse selection eliminates any market for a Medicare buy-in if it is offered as an unsubsidized option to individual private health insurance. Hence, we compare the equilibrium properties of the current insurance system with those that obtain with an optional buy-in subsidized by the government, as well as with several types of health insurance mandates.
