TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola
AU  - Jessen, Jonas
AU  - Ong, Pinchuan
AU  - Pan, Jessica
        TI  - Assessing Hypothetical Scenarios for Estimating Labor Supply Responses: Evidence from a Pension Reform
        PY  - 2026/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18944
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18944
        AB  - We assess whether survey responses to hypothetical policy scenarios can recover actual labor supply responses from policy variation. We study the German Mütterrente, a pension benefit crediting parents for child-rearing, benchmarking against Artmann et al. (forthcoming). Surveying mothers and fathers about a hypothetical reform modeled on that expansion, we find that mothers expect to reduce their labor supply, with an implied marginal propensity to earn of −0.65—close to the quasi-experimental estimate of −0.54. The response is sensible across subgroups, falls mainly on the extensive margin, and spills over to fathers. In the aggregate, spousal predictions match partners’ own reports.
        KW  - marginal propensity to earn
KW  - pension reform
KW  - hypothetical scenarios
        ER  -