Retirement routes and economic incentives to retire

We estimate the effect of benefit rates on individuals’ retirement behaviour. Compared to most other studies in the field, the characterising feature of this paper is to use a cross-country panel data set of individuals (the European Community Household Panel, ECHP) to estimate economic effects across countries.
A descriptive part of the paper makes clear that retirement via a period of unemployment prior to retirement programmes is quantitatively very important. We find econometric evidence that benefit rates affect retirement and the magnitude of this effect is relatively low if retirement occurs via a spell of unemployment.