Would the employer-side payroll tax-incidence fall mostly/fully on the employee, in the form of lower wages in the long-term, if said tax was funding mandatory savings accounts?
I've been going on to do research about what the pass-through of employer-side payroll taxes would be to the final wages of the worker in question. This study intrigued me greatly, as it provides evidence that the tax-incidence is dependent on what they call the "tax-benefit linkage". It overall challenged the seemingly common belief that nearly (if not all) of the employer-side payroll tax, ultimately falls onto the worker, in the form of lower wages.
That got me wondering on what the tax-incidence would be on employer-side payroll contributions, if said contributions were going into mandatory savings accounts (I support some pretty steep payroll taxes to fund mandatory savings accounts; several reasons for it, but I won't get into it).
The study seems to effectively state, whether deliberately or not, that it's about perception. The higher payroll taxes to fund greater pension payouts, for example, seems to mean a reduced pressure for higher wages today, since the greater pension payout in the future, would (at least, appears to) significantly/completely make-up for reduced wages in the present/throughout the employee's working life.
Assuming my interpretation is correct: I question if there would be similar pass-through, from a mandatory savings scheme. On the one hand: Higher payroll tax would equal higher payouts in the long-term. But, at the same time: It would only grow from you contributing your own wages. So, the final amount you have, is entirely tied to how much you have saved during your working life.
This would, at least I believe, result in workers not being willing to tolerate a significant reduction wages. The defined-benefit scheme, "externalizes" the risk of financial insecurity; so, people don't end up really thinking about having more money in the short-term, in order to build up their own safety-net in the long term. Meanwhile, with a defined-contribution scheme, it "personalizes" the risk of financial insecurity; so, people are now directly thinking about how much they're earning now, and have a very heavy incentive to maximize how much they're saving (and thus: How much they're earning). This "fear-driven saving", as I'll call it, seems to be corroborated by the data we have on personal savings rates, unemployment rate data and their (at least, seemingly) heavy correlation between economic downturns, and elevated savings rates.
But maybe I'm way off base here. I'm not exactly an economist; I've just read many economic/economics-related studies and articles to self-educate myself to the level of understand I have today. So, I look to properly certified people, to see if my assumption/"theory" has any merit.