https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/andrew-carter/Andrew CarterHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usThu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/are-targeted-matching-schemes-effective-in-stimulating-retirement-savings/Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/are-targeted-matching-schemes-effective-in-stimulating-retirement-savings/<p>Governments across ten-plus countries — including Australia, the United States, Germany, and New Zealand — have introduced matching schemes to encourage low- and middle-income earners to contribute voluntarily to private pensions, motivated by the concern that progressive tax systems give these groups weaker incentives to save for retirement than high-income earners. Whether such schemes actually raise retirement savings is theoretically ambiguous: by reducing the cost of contributing they produce a substitution effect favoring more contributions, but the government payment also raises anticipated retirement income, reducing the desire to save further (a retirement income effect). The sign of the net effect depends on the distribution of contributions that would have occurred in the scheme&rsquo;s absence, and it is especially unclear for those who would already have contributed above the matching ceiling.</p>