Mandatory retirement and the consumption puzzle: Prices decline or quantities decline?

Arbeitspapier

This paper investigates household consumption changes at retirement by utilizing a comprehensive, diary-based household survey from China. The survey contains both consumption quantity and price information, which permits separating quantity changes from price changes. The mandatory retirement policy in China provides a quasi-experimental setting for identification of the true causal effects of fully anticipated retirement. Using regression discontinuity models, we show that food expenditure declines at retirement, particularly among the low-education group, and that the decline is driven by price declines instead of quantity declines. Shopping time for food increases at retirement, consistent with the price and quantity changes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Upjohn Institute Working Paper ; No. 16-251

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Retirement; Retirement Policies ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• Subject: Retirement-consumption puzzle ; Mandatory retirement ; Regression discontinuity ; Consumption vs. expenditure ; Time use ; Home production

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dong, Yingying ; Yang, Dennis Tao
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
• (where): Kalamazoo, MI
• (when): 2016

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.17848/wp16-251
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/172213
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET