Funded Pensions and Economic Growth

If larger pension savings lead to deeper capital markets, this can be expected to have a positive effect on economic growth in particular for firms that rely on external finance. We employ this differential impact on firms with less or more external finance to identify the effect of pension saving on economic growth. Using data for 69 industrial sectors in 34 OECD countries for the period 2001–2010, we find a significant impact of pension assets on growth for sectors that are more dependent on external financing. This relation is not significantly changed by the 2007–2008 banking crisis.