The effect of saving subsidies on household saving: evidence from Germany

Abstract

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions – the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households’ propensities to save in a natural experiment framework. Estimation results from both the German Socio-Economic Panel and the SAVE study indicate that private saving was hardly affected by the introduction of the Riester scheme.