The effect of macroprudential policies on pensions and retirement preparation
After the financial crisis, financial supervisors, such as the ECB and DNB, adopted several measures in order to enhance financial stability and economic recovery. Their primary aim was to prevent financial threats that lead to economic instability, but repercussions in the pension domain are very likely and need research. Pension funds, insurance companies and banks have been subject to targeted policies, the so called macroprudential measures. These came mostly within a
comprehensive financial assessment framework for pension funds, insurers and banks and have affected the behavior of both financial institutions and households. As these measures were adopted recently, little is known about their effect of these agents, and no comprehensive research has been done to establish a link with pensions and retirement preparation.
In this project, we set up an international team of micro-econometricians with expertise in related fields (pension, retirement, savings, aging, micro-finance) and institutional settings (Dutch pension system, Italian deposit insurance etc.) in order to investigate the effect of these measures on such behaviors. The common denominator of this project is the use of micro data, to assess the effects of specific macroprudential policies on the relevant actors in the pension domain. We design a number of quasi natural experiments based also on the introduction of new loan-to-value and loan-to-income
caps for households. In a comparative cross-country research, we exploit the contemporaneous introduction of a new deposit guarantee, in order to elicit its’ effect on free pre-retirement savings.
