TY  - JOUR
AU  - Baker,Michael
AU  - Gruber,Jonathan
AU  - Milligan,Kevin
TI  - The Retirement Incentive Effects of Canada's Income Security Programs
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8658
PY  - 2001
Y2  - December 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8658
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8658.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael Baker
Department of Economics
University of Toronto
150 St. George Street
Toronto, ON M5S 3G7
CANADA
Tel: 416/978-4138
Fax: 416/978-6713
E-Mail: baker@chass.utoronto.ca

Jonathan Gruber
MIT Department of Economics
E52-355
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8892
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: gruberj@mit.edu

Kevin S. Milligan
Department of Economics
University of British Columbia
#997-1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
CANADA
Tel: 604/822-6747
Fax: 604/822-5915
E-Mail: kevin.milligan@ubc.ca
AB  - Like most other developed nations, Canada has a large income security system for retirement that provides significant and widely varying disincentives to work at older ages. Empirical investigation of their effects has been hindered by lack of appropriate data. We provide an empirical analysis of the retirement incentives of the Canadian Income Security (IS) system using a new and comprehensive administrative data base. We find that the work disincentives inherent in the Canadian IS system have large and statistically significant impacts on retirement. This suggests that program reform can some play a role in responses to the fiscal crises these programs periodically experience. We also demonstrate the importance of controlling for lifetime earnings in retirement models. Specifications without these controls overestimate the effects of the IS system. Finally, our estimates vary in sensible ways across samples lending greater confidence to our estimates.
ER  -