Ensuring retirement income security is a priority for individuals, employers, and policymakers. To achieve this, employers and policymakers sponsor and subsidize retirement saving plans and provide educational interventions. The effectiveness of these tools will depend on individuals’ interest and willingness to engage in planning and preparing for retirement. Using merged administrative and survey data for public sector workers in North Carolina, we find that individuals who more heavily discount the future are less likely to plan and save for retirement. Further, retirement planning behavior is measured both subjectively and objectively, and time preferences have an association with subjectively measured retirement planning but not with objectively measured retirement planning. Finally, individuals’ retirement timing is associated with time preferences but only among individuals with a retirement plan. In total, our results highlight the important role of time preferences in determining retirement planning and preparedness.

中文翻译：

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计划退休？时间偏好的重要性

确保退休收入保障是个人、雇主和政策制定者的首要任务。为实现这一目标，雇主和政策制定者赞助和补贴退休储蓄计划并提供教育干预。这些工具的有效性将取决于个人参与退休规划和准备的兴趣和意愿。使用北卡罗来纳州公共部门工作人员的合并行政和调查数据，我们发现对未来更加重视的个人不太可能为退休做计划和储蓄。此外，退休计划行为是主观和客观衡量的，时间偏好与主观衡量的退休计划有关，但与客观衡量的退休计划无关。最后，个人的退休时间与时间偏好有关，但仅限于有退休计划的个人。总的来说，我们的结果强调了时间偏好在决定退休计划和准备方面的重要作用。