Can the Actuarial Reduction for Social Security Early Retirement Still Be Right
The option to claim Social Security benefits earlier than the program’s Full Retirement Age, in exchange for receiving an actuarially reduced benefit, is a key feature of the nation’s Social Security program. This principle remained in place when Congress increased the Full Retirement Age from 65 to 67. Most workers choose to claim early and retire on the reduced benefits. The option to claim early was enacted over 50 years ago, when Congress set 62 as the program’s Earliest Age of Eligibility. To make up for the extra three years of benefit payments, those claiming at 62 received 20 percent less in monthly benefits than if they had claimed at 65. Despite a significant increase in life expectancy in the intervening years, benefits claimed at 62 today are still about 20 percent less than benefits claimed at 65. This brief asks whether this actuarial reduction is still correct...
Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Role of Actuarial Reduction Rates in Individual Retirement Planning in Germany
This Paper provides a two-part empirical analysis on how actuarial reduction rates for early retirement affect current pension payments in Germany and to what extent the existence and the magnitude of such reduction rates influence peopleâ€™s retirement planning. First, when looking at administrative records, early retirement shows a high prevalence at the extensive and at the intensive margin, in particular for women and medium income insurant. Second, a special question in the 2011 SAVE survey is exploited where respondents are offered a hypothetical deal for early retirement if in turn they are willing to accept an actuarial reduction on their pension. It becomes evident that the maximal reduction rate people would be willing to accept is widely dispersed and on average roughly double the current legal rate. Furthermore, respondents seem to make consistent choices and high endowment of financial assets and additional old age provision, high subjective life expectancy, bad health as well as being a man are positively correlated to the actuarial reduction rate the respondents would accept at most. Given that policymakers aim to increase the average retirement age, the results emphasize the need for a simultaneous increase of not only the statutory retirement age but the minimum early retirement age as well, since actuarial reduction rates cannot be expected to change the retirement behavior of workers with a strong preference for early retirement or those who rely on social benefits.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.