This myth is thus related to Myth #5, but focuses specifically on older workers. A
critical question in evaluating its importance is the degree to which we should be
concerned about early retirement per se. Some social insurance programs implicitly
provide "obsolescence" insurance against technological shocks that affect the value of
human capital. Experience normally increases an individual's human capital, but rapid
technological change may diminish its value, so that older workers face diminishing
productivity and wages. Some workers may want to obtain insurance against this risk, in
the form of an "option" to retire early. Carefully defined retirement insurance programs
could provide an element of such insurance by providing early retirees some increment in
the present value of benefits over contributions. To be sure, like most insurance, moral
hazard concerns arise with such insurance: The provision of the insurance at the margin
induces some individuals whose productivity has not fallen to retire earlier than they
otherwise would have. Optimal insurance balances the risk reduction and moral hazard
effects. It is a valid criticism to say that balancing has not been undertaken properly; it is
not a valid criticism to say that some adverse incentive effect exists.
Even if one concludes that the optimal tradeoff between insurance and work
should be tilted more toward work, this issue provides a vivid illustration of the "inherent
vs. implemented" point we noted in the introduction. A public defined benefit plan need
not necessarily impose an additional tax on elderly work. Similarly, a defined
contribution approach could potentially impose such a tax. The net effect of a pension
system on the incentive to retire comprises three components: the marginal accrual rate
for additional work (additional benefits relative to additional taxes or contributions, for
any given age of initial benefit receipt), the actuarial adjustment for delaying the initial
receipt of benefits (regardless of whether work continues), and the rules for whether
benefits are reduced because of earnings. In all three components, defined benefit plans
need not provide more of a disincentive against work and in favor of claiming benefits
than a defined contribution plan. For example, benefit accrual rates are higher under
many forms of defined benefit plans (e.g., some forms of final salary plans) than under
defined contribution plans -- potentially providing a stronger incentive for continued
work at older ages. The actuarial adjustment within a defined benefit plan is a policy
parameter. And the presence or absence of an earnings test need not depend on the form
of the pension system.
An idealized comparison between a defined benefit and defined contribution
approach therefore does not uphold this myth. But what about the as-implemented
comparison? Here, too, the situation is complicated. Many industrialized countries are
reducing the incentives for early retirement within their defined benefit structures. For
example, in the United States, Diamond and Gruber (1999) find small subsidies at age 62
and small net tax rates until age 65, with substantial tax rates from ages 65 to 69. But
those large tax rates above age 65 will fall over time: under current law, the delayed
retirement credit, which provides increased benefits to those who delay claiming benefits
past 65, has been increasing, and is scheduled to reach 8 percent for each year of delayed
claiming by 2005. (That level is viewed as being approximately actuarially fair.) Coile
and Gruber (1999) find that increasing the delayed retirement credit has a particularly
strong effect on encouraging work among the elderly. Similarly, the economies in
transition have generally increased the retirement ages within their traditional defined
benefit programs over the past decade (the only exceptions, as of 1998, were Bulgaria
and the Ukraine).
It is also worth noting that Sweden has recently introduced a new pension system
(including a "notional defined contribution" approach to the pay-as-you-go component)
that reflects concerns about the return to work among the elderly. A similar system was
earlier implemented in Latvia and Poland. In Sweden, combined employer and
employee contributions to the new system will amount to 18.5 percent of all earnings, of
which 16 percent will be used for pay-as-you-go benefits and 2.5 percent will be
deposited in a prefunded pension called a "premium reserve." The benefit formula under
the "notional income" pay-as-you-go component is innovative, and is intended to
automatically provide an incentive for delayed claiming.