Are tax incentives the best way to encourage people to save for retirement? This publication
assesses whether countries can improve the design of financial incentives to promote
savings for retirement. After describing how different countries design financial
incentives to promote savings for retirement in funded pensions, the study calculates
the overall tax advantage that individuals may benefit from as a result of those incentives
when saving for retirement. It then examines the fiscal cost of those incentives and
their effectiveness in increasing retirement savings, and looks into alternative approaches
to designing financial incentives. The study ends with policy guidelines on how to
improve the design of financial incentives to promote savings for retirement, highlighting
that depending on the policy objective certain designs of tax incentives or non-tax
incentives may be more appropriate.