ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an overview of the current characteristics of Destinie microsimulation model and describes what are or have been its main applications. It gives some details on one of the reasons that made microsimulation particularly attractive for the French case, which is the non-linearity of rules governing access to a full rate pension. The chapter describes the general structure retained by the first version of the model and main developments over the last 10 years. It concentrates on how the model tries to simulate retirement behaviour, giving some results and discussing the relevance and limits of these results, with some indications on tracks that could be followed to overcome part of these limits. Destinie was not created with the idea of replacing all other approaches to pension projections. The principle is to assume that each individual considering retirement compares the discounted flows of utility levels upon retiring now or at all other potential retirement ages.