In this paper, we examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of entrepreneurs. We surveyed a representative sample of Swedish entrepreneurs and wage employees at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey data, combined with register data, show that the COVID-19 outbreak has a negative effect on the well-being of entrepreneurs in terms of increased perceived stress. However, this negative effect is weaker for entrepreneurs who feel younger than their chronological age and entrepreneurs who are geographically distant from the epicenter of the crisis. 

Recent pension reforms have shifted a larger responsibility towards savers. Individuals therefore need better knowledge of the rules and incentives embedded in the pension system to adequately save and prepare for retirement. In this paper, we use a novel Swedish survey matched with high-quality administrative data to show that many lack, and feel that they lack, such pension-specific knowledge. We also show that the most economically vulnerable groups know the least. Linking pension knowledge to behavior, we find that knowing less is associated with lower preparedness for retirement, even after controlling for financial literacy and subjective knowledge. Moreover, a large majority state the complexity of the pension system, or that they have planned to learn more about pensions but that it just hasn't happened, as reasons for why they do not have sufficient knowledge.

Den här rapportens syfte är att studera hur kunniga individer är om sina egnapensioner och pensionssystemet i stort, där vi analyserar hur denna pensionskunskap skiljer sig mellan olika grupper, vilka orsaker det finns till att individersaknar kunskaper och om det finns ett samband mellan individers pensionskunskap och hur väl förberedd man är inför sin pension. Rapporten bygger på enny och omfattande enkätundersökning kring individers kunskap om det svenskapensionssystemet och deras egna pensioner. Resultaten från enkäten visar att enstor andel av pensionsspararna saknar grundläggande pensionskunskap och igenomsnitt är kunskapen lägre bland yngre, lågutbildade, låginkomsttagare ochkvinnor. Individer med sämre pensionskunskaper har också i lägre utsträckningplanerat och förberett sig inför sin pension. Vidare anger en klar majoritet komplexiteten i pensionssystemet, eller att de har planerat att skaffa sig kunskap menatt det inte blivit av, som orsaker till avsaknad av kunskap. Att detta är förklaringar till avsaknad av kunskap styrks i vår analys av att individer som ser sigsjälva som sämre på matematik och som säger sig vara benägna att skjuta uppsaker till morgondagen också har lägre genomsnittlig kunskap.

Recent pension reforms have shifted a larger responsibility towards savers. Individuals therefore needbetter knowledge of the rules and incentives embedded in the pension system to adequately save andprepare for retirement. In this paper, we use a novel Swedish survey matched with high-quality administrative data to show that many lack, and feel that they lack, such pension-specific knowledge. Wealso show that the most economically vulnerable groups know the least. Linking pension knowledgeto behavior, we find that knowing less is associated with lower preparedness for retirement, even aftercontrolling for financial literacy and subjective knowledge. Moreover, a large majority state the complexity of the pension system, or that they have planned to learn more about pensions but that it justhasn’t happened, as reasons for why they do not have sufficient knowledge. That the complexity of thepension system and individuals’ proclivity to procrastinate are plausible causal factors for low pensionknowledge is supported by analyses showing that individuals with low math skills and procrastinationtendencies have lower pension knowledge. 

Using a randomized field experiment in the Swedish pension system, we investigate whether receiving an information letter affects the take-up rate of the housing allowance for pensioners. We also investigate whether the framing of the information letter affects take-up. The results show that simple information letters had a dramatic effect on the application rate and subsequent take-up rate: the baseline application rate in the targeted control population was only 1.4 percent while the corresponding rates in the different treatment groups were between 9.9 and 12.1 percent. The letter that addressed common misconceptions about the benefit caused significantly higher submission and acceptance rates. The letters had a substantial economic effect on the applicants. We estimate that the applicants, induced by the treatment, increased their monthly income by around 10 percent.

We assess the impact of a Swedish regulatory change, which required businesses with any business-to-consumer transactions, whether by cash or card, to use a certified electronic cash register (ECR), on reported revenue. To do this, we use administrative data on the monthly reported revenue of all affected firms and a staggered difference-in-differences approach. Our findings indicate that there was an immediate increase of about 2.7–4.3% in reported revenue following the implementation of a certified ECR. However, the effect was temporary and diminished to zero after just a few months, which indicates that firms found innovative methods to underreport their revenue.

Många äldre med låga inkomster ansöker inte om bostadstillägg för pensionärer trots att de kan ha rätt till det. En viktig fråga är därför hur man kan få fler berättigade att ansöka. Vi har tillsammans med Pensionsmyndigheten genomfört ett randomiserat informationsexperiment riktat till populationen av potentiellt berättigade pensionärer. Ungefär var tionde pensionär som fick ett brev (behandlingsgruppen) ansökte om bostadstillägg inom fyra månader jämfört med drygt en av hundra som inte fick ett brev (kontrollgruppen). Andelen avslag i behandlingsgruppen var dock något högre.

Using a randomized field experiment in the Swedish pension system, we investigate whether receiving an information letter affects the take-up rate of the housing allowance for pensioners. We also investigate whether the framing of the information letter affects take-up. The results show that simple information letters had a significant effect on the application rate and subsequent take-up rate: The baseline application rate in the targeted control population was only 1.4%, while the corresponding rates in the different treatment groups were between 9.9 and 12.1%. However, while the applications in the control group were accepted in almost 3 out of 4 cases, up to 50% of the applications in the treatment group were declined. The lower conditional acceptance rate in the treatment group seems to be largely driven by wealth, which the Pensions Agency cannot observe prior to submission. Information campaigns aimed at increasing benefit take-up therefore need careful design in situations with imperfect targeting.

The consumption based method to estimate underreporting among self-employed, introduced by Pissarides andWeber (1989), is one of the workhorses in the empirical literature on tax evasion/avoidance. We show that failure to account for transitory income fluctuations in current income may overestimate the degree of underreporting by around 40 percent. Previous studies typically use instrumental variable methods to address the issue. In contrast, our access to registry based longitudinal income measures allows a direct approach based on more permanent income measures. This also allows us to evaluate the performance of a list of instruments widely used in the previous literature. Our analysis shows that capital income is the most suitable instrument in our application, while education and housing related measures do not seem to satisfy the exclusion restrictions.

In this paper, we improve upon the Pissarides-Weber (PW) method for estimating tax evasion among the self-employed by utilizing unique register-based consumption measures from the Swedish and Finnish mandatory registers for pleasure boats. Our main contributions are twofold: i) The PW method crucially relies on the assumption that the intrinsic consumption preferences are the same for self-employed and wage earner households. Thanks to our rich data, we are able to test this assumption directly by contrasting the Engel curves between wage earner households and households that will become self-employed in the future. We find that the group that will become self-employed is only marginally more prone to own a boat before they actually become self-employed. This lends support to the assumption of similar intrinsic preferences between the two groups. ii) The large sample size that comes with register-based consumption measures allows us to challenge the standard functional form assumptions in previous PW applications. The estimated sizes of income underreporting in absolute monetary amounts are almost constant over reported income levels, whereas previous studies have assumed that the underreporting is proportional to income.

We improve upon the Pissarides-Weber method for estimating tax evasion among the self-employed by utilizing unique register-based consumption measures from the Swedish and Finnish mandatory registers for pleasure boats. This allows for more detailed and statistically powered analyses than survey-based applications. Our results indicate overall levels of hidden incomes that are in line with previous studies. However, the functional form analysis shows that the estimated sizes of underreporting in absolute monetary amounts are almost constant over reported income levels, whereas previous studies have assumed that the underreporting is proportional to income. The results from the preference analysis—in which we compare households that will become self-employed in the near future with households that will remain wage earners—are mixed; the two types of households have insignificant (Finland) or economically small (Sweden) preference differences. However, when we use engine power as a price proxy, the preference differences are larger in both countries.

This report provides an extensive overview of the history of the Swedish pension system. Starting with the implementation of the world's first universal public pension system in 1913, the report discusses the political as well as the economic background to each major public pension reform up until today. It presents the rules and the institutional details of these reforms and discuss their implications for retirement behavior, the general state of the economy and the political environment. Parallel to the development of the public pension system, a comprehensive and quite complex occupational pension system has emerged. This report describes the historical background and the institutional details of the four largest agreement-based occupational pension schemes in Sweden.

The Swedish pension system contains a great variety of different retirement savings products with over SEK 5.8 trillion (€565 billion) in managed capital. There are funded components in each of the three pillars. In the public pension system, 2.5% of earnings are allocated to the premium pension, whereas the default fund, AP7 Såfa, has had an average real rate of return of 5.8% compared to the 2.9% of all other funds over the last 17 years. The second pillar is dominated by four large agreement-based pension plans, covering more than 90% of the workforce. These have largely transitioned from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system to a funded system.

The Swedish private pensions market is quite diversified, consisting of a great variety of different retirement savings products with over SEK 5.3 trillion (€559 billion) in managed capital. In terms of pensions, Swedish households hold €405 billion of assets in pension funds and €112 billion in life insurance reserves. Rather than relying on the PAYG system, the Swedish system tends to rely on private savings products. When it comes to returns, however, the AP7 Safa fund has been the best-performing over the last 16 years, with an average real return rate of 8.56%.

The Swedish pension system contains a great variety of different retirement savings products with over SEK 6 trillion (€566 billion) in assets under management (AuM). There are funded components in each of the three pillars. In the public pension system, 2.5% of earnings are allocated to the premium pension, whereas the default fund, AP7 Såfa, has had an average real rate of return of 9.4% compared to the 6.1% of all other funds over the last 19 years. The second pillar is dominated by four large agreementbased pension plans, covering more than 90% of the workforce. These have largely transitioned from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system to a funded system.

The Swedish pension system contains a great variety of different retirement savings products withover SEK 6,900 trillion (€688 billion) in assets under management (AuM). There are funded components in each of the three pillars. In the public pension system, 2.5% of earnings are allocated to the premium pension, whereas the default fund, AP7 Såfa, has had an average real rate of return of 6.95% compared to the 4.18% of all other funds over the last 19 years. The second pillar is dominated by four large agreement-based pension plans, covering more than 90% of the workforce. These have largely transitioned from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system to a funded system.

The Swedish pension system contains a great variety of different retirement savings products with over SEK 7,300 trillion (€726 billion) in assets under management (AuM). There are funded components in each of the three pillars. In the public pension system, 2.5% of earnings are allocated to the premium pension, whereas the default fund, AP7 Såfa, has had an average real rate of return of 7.78% compared to the 4.95% of all other funds over the last 19 years. The second pillar is dominated by four large agreement-based pension plans, covering more than 90% of the workforce. These have largely transitioned from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system to a funded system.

Essay I: This essay provides an overview of the history of the Swedish pension system. Starting with the implementation of the public pension system in 1913, it outlines the key components of each major pension reform up until today along with a discussion of the main trade-offs and concerns that policy makers have faced. It also describes the historical background of the four largest occupational pension plans in Sweden and the mutual influence between these plans and the public pension system.       

Essay II: Despite the fact that the increasing involvement of the private sector in pension provision has brought more flexibility to the pay-out phase of retirement, little is known about the characteristics of those who choose to annuitize their pension wealth and those who do not. I combine unique micro-data from a large Swedish occupational pension plan with rich national administrative data to study the choice between life annuities and fixed-term payouts with a minimum payout length of 5 years for 183,000 retiring white-collar workers. I find that low accumulation of assets is strongly associated with the choice of the 5-year payout. Consistent with individuals selecting payout length based on private information about their mortality prospects, individuals who choose the 5-year payout are in worse health, exhibit higher ex-post mortality rates and have shorter-lived parents than annuitants. Individuals also seem to respond to large, tax-induced changes in annuity prices.           

Essay III: This essay estimates the causal effect of postponing retirement on a wide range of health outcomes using Swedish administrative data on cause-specific mortality, hospitalizations and drug prescriptions. Exogenous variation in retirement timing comes from a reform which raised the age at which broad categories of Swedish local government workers were entitled to retire with full pension benefits from 63 to 65. The reform caused a remarkable shift in the retirement distribution of the affected workers, increasing the actual retirement age by more than 4.5 months. Instrumental variable estimation results show no effect of postponing retirement on the overall consumption of health care, nor on the risk of dying early. There is evidence, however, of a reduction in diabetes-related hospitalizations and in the consumption of drugs that treat anxiety.

Essay IV (with Per Engström): The consumption based method to estimate underreporting among self-employed, introduced by Pissarides and Weber (1989), is one of the workhorses in the empirical literature on tax evasion/avoidance. We show that failure to account for transitory income fluctuations in current income may overestimate the degree of underreporting by around 40 percent. Previous studies typically use instrumental variable methods to address the issue. In contrast, our access to registry based longitudinal income measures allows a direct approach based on more permanent income measures. This also allows us to evaluate the performance of a list of instruments widely used in the previous literature. Our analysis shows that capital income is the most suitable instrument in our application, while education and housing related measures do not seem to satisfy the exclusion restrictions.

Rapporten studerar effekten av senarelagd pensionering på individens hälsa. För detta utnyttjas en reform som innebar att pensionsåldern höjdes från 63 till 65 år för flertalet yrkesgrupper inom kommun- och landstingssektorn, framför allt inom den kvinnodominerade sektorn vård och omsorg. Resultaten visar att senarelagd pensionering troligtvis inte påverkar individens hälsa, som mäts med hjälp av data på slutenvårdsinläggningar, läkemedelsförskrivningar och dödlighet. Under antagandet att resultatet för offentliganställda kvinnor kan generaliseras till andra yrkesgrupper kan alltså en höjd pensionsålder ha en positiv effekt på samhällsekonomin i form av högre arbetsutbud utan att be-höva öka kostnaderna för hälso- och sjukvård.

This paper reports the results from a large telephone survey of 1,000 retiring white-collar workers in Sweden. Shortly before the interview, the participants at age 65 had a choice of receiving a life annuity by default or opting for a fixed-term payout, with a minimum payout length of five years. Large monetary amounts were at stake in the payout decision of the survey participants; the average monthly pension payment under the life annuity amounted to USD 280. Comparing the survey responses with administrative records on actual payout choices, I find that a majority of retiring white-collar workers fail to recall their payout decision. The recollection rate is much lower among annuitants (those who chose the default option); only 40% of the annuitants accurately recalled their payout decision compared to 77% of those who opted for a fixed-term payout. Beyond payout choice, few individual characteristics predict successful recollection.

This paper reports the results from a large telephone survey of 1,000 retiring white-collar workers in Sweden. Shortly before the interview, the participants at age 65 had a choice of receiving a life annuity by default or opting for a fixed-term payout, with a minimum payout length of 5 years. Large monetary amounts were at stake in the payout decision of the survey participants; the average monthly pension payment under the life annuity amounted to US $280. Comparing the survey responses with administrative records on actual payout choices, I find that a majority of retiring white-collar workers fail to recall their payout decision. The recollection rate is much lower among annuitants (those who chose the default option); only 40% of the annuitants accurately recalled their payout decision compared to 77% of those who opted for a fixed-term payout. Beyond payout choice, few individual characteristics predict successful recollection.

This article analyses the role of pension principles of funding and benefit provision for the development of the Swedish pension system. Focusing on four major public pension reforms in the twentieth century, it discusses why certain pension principles were used and under what circumstances they were more or less likely to change. The analysis shows that change was implemented to a large extent as a response to the previous pension system failing to fulfil its intended purpose in terms of financial stability, work incentives and redistribution.

Ingress: På senare tid har pensionerna seglat högt upp på den politiska dagordningen. I centrum för debatten står pensionssystemets förmåga att leverera tillräckliga pensioner. Syftet med den här artikeln är att ge ett aktuellt kunskapsunderlag samt diskutera några av de förslag som finns på hur pensionerna och pensionssystemet kan säkras

Despite the fact that the increasing involvement of the private sector in pension provision has brought more flexibility to the pay-out phase of retirement, little is known about the characteristics of those who choose to annuitize their pension wealth and those who do not. I combine unique micro-data from a large Swedish occupational pension plan with rich national administrative data to study the choice between life annuities and fixed-term payouts with a minimum payout length of 5 years for 183,000 retiring white-collar workers. I find that low accumulation of assets is strongly associated with the choice of the 5-year payout. Consistent with individuals selecting payout length based on private information about their mortality prospects, individuals who choose the 5-year payout are in worse health, exhibit higher ex-post mortality rates and have shorter-lived parents than annuitants. Individuals also seem to respond to large, tax-induced changes in annuity prices.

This paper uses unique micro data from a Swedish occupational pension plan to study the determinants of annuitization. The data is merged with national administrative data to create a large data set with rich individual background characteristics. The pension can either be withdrawn as a life annuity or during a fixed number of years with a minimum of ve years. Low accumulation of assets is strongly associated with the choice of the 5-year payout. Consistent with the predictions of a life-cycle model, retirees who choose the 5-year payout are in worse health and exhibit higher ex-post mortality rates than annuitants. I alsofind that the parents of annuitants live longer than the parents of those who choose the 5-year payout. This suggests that individuals form expectations about how long they are likely to live based on the life-span patterns of their parents and take this into account when they decide whether to annuitize or not.

This essay estimates the health effects of increasing the normal retirement age using Swedish administrative data on drug prescriptions, hospitalizations, and mortality. To this end, I use a reform that raised the age at which broad categories of Swedish local government workers were entitled to retire with full pension benefits from 63 to 65. Estimating the effect of the reform on individuals’ health within the age range 65–69, the results show no evidence that the reform impacted mortality or health care utilization. Increasing the normal retirement age may thus have positive government income effects without seriously affecting short to medium run government health care expenditures.

This essay estimates the causal effect of postponing retirement on a wide range of health outcomes using Swedish administrative data on cause-specific mortality, hospitalizations and drug prescriptions. Exogenous variation in retirement timing comes from a reform which raised the age at which broad categories of Swedish local government workers were entitled to retire with full pension benefits from 63 to 65. Instrumental variable estimation results show no evidence that postponing retirement impacts mortality or health care utilization.

Nudge is about affecting behavior in a certain way through small changes to the choice architecture. However, a nudge may also affect behaviors that the architect did not intend. We show that such spillover effects exist in a highly policy relevant context where the use of nudge is widespread; retirement. Specifically, we find that an exogenous application form change in the Swedish pension system that highlighted a five-year payout on the expense of a life annuity not only increased the demand for the nudged payout (as expected), but also induced individuals to retire earlier. We attribute the effects to decision-framing.

We study the effects of two exogenous modifications in the Swedish pension system application form nudging individuals towards a fixed-term payout. Meanwhile, the set of available options and the default option—life annuity—were unchanged during the period under study. We examine the effects on individuals’ payout decisions and the spillover effects on labour supply and other pensions using a difference-in-difference framework and detailed administrative data on actual payout decisions and a wide range of individual-level outcomes. Each modification increased the demand for the nudged payout by around 30 percentage points. The first modification also induced individuals to work less.

This study examines the simultaneous impact of risk type and risk preferences on annuity demand. Through a quasi-experimental design that leverages individuals’ reactions to their first malignant cancer diagnosis around retirement, we show that a 30% reduction in the present value of life annuities from decreased life expectancy results in just a 5% decline in annuitization rates. We further demonstrate that risk-averse individuals drive this effect, whereas the risk-tolerant remain unchanged in their demand. Our findings suggest that risk-averse individuals view life annuities as a means to ensure against longevity risk.

I de flesta tjänstepensionsavtal finns möjligheten att ta ut tjänstepensionen under en begränsad tidsperiod, till exempel 5 eller 10 år, i stället för livsvarigt. I den här rapporten studerar vi hur förändringar i förväntad livslängd påverkar valet av utbetalningstid. Vi jämför andelen livsvariga utbetalningar bland individer som drabbades av en elakartad cancertumör strax före pensionsåldern med motsvarande andel bland personer som fick samma diagnos strax efter pensionsåldern. Den senare gruppen hade därför inte möjlighet att beakta cancern när de valde utbetalningstid. Resultaten visar att andelen livsvariga utbetalningar är 5 procent lägre bland dem som diagnostiserades med cancer före pensionsuttaget. Effekten är tydlig, men samtidigt förhållandevis begränsad. I rapporten diskuterar vi också vilken roll riskpreferenser har för valet av utbetalningstid och hur dessa modererar den uppmätta effekten. 

Från inledningen: På senare tid har de svenska pensionärernas ekonomiska situation debatterats intensivare än på mycket länge. Flera politiska överenskommelser har också gjorts för att stärka pensionärernas inkomster. Under 2021 började inkomstpensionstillägget betalas ut och i januari 2022 kom den socialdemokratiska regeringen överens med Miljöpartiet och Vänsterpartiet om att införa garantitillägget som en ytterligare förstärkning. I synnerhet det senare förslaget har kritiserats för att vara ett avsteg från pensionsreformens princip om ett allmänt pensionssystem som skulle präglas av långsiktighet och bred politisk förankring.

En grundläggande fråga om bakgrunden till reformerna är om det finns en saklig grund för att hävda att pensionärernas inkomstutveckling borde varit mer gynnsam. Men frågan om huruvida “pensionärerna har fått det bättre” kan ha olika tolkningar. Vissa skulle mena att frågan syftar på om pensionärerna som grupp har fått större konsumtionsmöjligheter över tid. Andra skulle mena att frågan syftar på om pensionärerna fått det bättre i förhållande till den arbetande befolkningen eller andra åldersgrupper i ekonomin. En tredje tolkning skulle kunna vara i vilken utsträckning pensionärerna har kunnat behålla den inkomst de varit vana vid under sin yrkesverksamma tid.

I denna rapport undersöker vi dessa tre frågeställningar genom att analysera tillgängliga mikrodata som inkluderar hela den vuxna svenska befolkningen under tidsperioden 1991 till 2019. Den stora datamängden vi har tillgång till möjliggör att vi inte bara studerar hur ett centralmått för inkomstfördelningen – medianinkomsten – utvecklats över tid, utan också hur utvecklingen sett ut i olika delar – percentiler – av fördelningen samt hur inkomstfördelningen inom gruppen pensionärer har förändrats. 

We show that, after the revelation of financial fraud in a major pension fund manager, two-thirds of affected investors fail to divest. Inert investors are on average younger, of lower SES and more influenced by default options. The majority of those who divest move their money to the only state-run option on the fund menu. The revelation of fraud also induces a small movement of investors from non-fraudulent private investment funds to the state alternative. We further show that most fraud victims end up in underperforming high-fee funds through their prior affiliation with a subscription-based financial advisor. Our analysis is based on the remarkable events surrounding the expulsion of Allra from the Swedish Premium Pension, and administrative, individual-level data on mutual fund choices and background characteristics. Our results illustrate that fraudulent fund managers may exploit widespread consumer biases in choice-oriented pension plans, and that information interventions by the government are important but far from fully effective in nudging victimized investors to take the right action. Pension plans may be characterized by investor inertia even under extreme circumstances such as fraud.

How did investors in the Swedish Premium Pension System (PPS) react to the stock markets shock ignitedin 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic? The share of investors that traded more than doubled, and tradesshifted capital from equity funds to low risk interest funds. In economic terms, however, trading activitystayed at very low levels—less than two percent of investors traded in March 2020 and there was no effecton pension withdrawals. Given the vast evidence on retail investors’ strongly increasing trading volume incrisis times, the reaction of PPS investors looks surprisingly smart, i.e., avoiding the many mistakes thatinvestors incur when they try to outsmart the market. Potentially, the often-criticized choice architecture ofthe PPS that induces strong inertia provided positive side effects in times of a severe market shock. 

Purpose: How did investors in the Swedish Premium Pension System (PPS) react to the stock market shock ignited by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Design/methodology/approach: The authors use fund-level data from the Swedish Pensions Agency on investment choices in the PPS. For each fund, the authors use monthly information on the number of investors and holdings' market value up to November 2020. The authors also use information on the total number of portfolio changes per day. For analyzing whether PPS investors reacted to the pandemic with claiming their pension, the authors use monthly data on the number of investors of a certain age group who initiate their public pension payment.

Findings: Trades more than doubled, and shifted capital from equity funds to low risk interest funds. In economic terms, however, trading stayed at low levels–less than two percent of investors traded in March 2020 and there was no effect on pension withdrawals. The increased trading during the market tumult was disproportionately concentrated among investors in the top of the pension capital distribution.

Research limitations/implications: With fund-level data, the authors cannot investigate what in particular made retirement investors stay calm in the midst of a severe market decline. Either, those investors have a long-term investment horizon as they save for their pension or particular features of the system's choice architecture induce inertia and discourage from trading. The sub-group analyses are more consistent with the explanation that PPS-induced inertia is responsible for the relatively small increase in trading activity, but future research could exploit individual level data to explore this in more detail.

Practical implications: The often-criticized PPS choice architecture provided positive side effects in times of a severe market shock by shielding retail investors from committing trading mistakes when trying to outsmart the market.

Originality/value: The study complements previous evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on investor activity. The small response of PPS investors to COVID-19 is in line with earlier US findings on 401(k) accounts during the 2007 financial crisis (Tang et al., 2012) and industry reports about the COVID-19 period (see, e.g. Mitchell, 2020). The authors find no effects at all on public pension withdrawals in Sweden, while evidence from US 401(k) plans indicates a small share of workers taking COVID-related early withdrawals.

Employer cofinancing in disability insurance (DI) systems aims to reduce the inflow to DI by making employers internalise their DI costs. We evaluate a cofinancing system for the local government sector in Sweden inspired by the literature on yardstick competition. In the system, local governments are responsible for the DI of their employees, while being compensated by the central government for their expected DI payments. The arrangement essentially eliminates the large fiscal externalities associated with DI. Also, the arrangement can be implemented within current administrative setups, and the design credibly ensures that no extra costs are imposed on the local government sector in the aggregate. Drawing on Swedish employer-employee matched data, we show that the net transfers implied by the scheme are quite large as a share of DI payments, but sufficiently small as a share of tax payments to not be onerous, and that they only marginally increase regional inequality.

Både offentliga och privata arbetstagarförsäkringar måste ge arbetsgivare och arbetstagare drivkrafter att använda försäkringen vid rätt tillfälle. Internationellt har man försökt stärka dessa drivkrafter genom olika självförsäkringslösningar där arbetsgivaren påförs en del av kostnadsansvaret. Den här rapporten analyserar ett möjligt självförsäkringssystem inom den offentliga sjukersättningen (tidigare förtidspensionen), en av Sveriges största arbetstagarförsäkringar. Självförsäkringssystemet innebär att kommuner och regioner bär sjukersättningskostnaderna för sina anställda, men kompenseras av staten för sina förväntade kostnader. Den förväntade kostnaden för en kommun eller en region baseras på sammansättningen av dess arbetskraft. Denna konstruktion förstärker kommuners och regioners drivkrafter att undvika sjukersättning för sina äldre anställda, till exempel genom förebyggande arbetsmiljöarbete och rehabiliteringsinsatser på arbetsplatsen. Systemet är enkelt att införa inom nuvarande administrativa system, och designen tillförsäkrar på ett trovärdigt sätt att inga extra kostnader påförs kommunsektorn som helhet. Vid oförändrade uttag leder systemet endast till måttliga omfördelningseffekter mellan olika kommuner och regioner. Den viktigaste utmaningen med ett självförsäkringssystem är att undvika att folk med underliggande hälsoproblem blir mindre attraktiva på arbetsmarknaden.