On the long-run growth effect of raising the retirement age

We show that the long-run economic growth effect of an increase in the retirement age is unambiguously positive in research and development based endogenous growth models. This contrasts recent findings based on models of learning-by-doing-spillovers, in which an increase in the retirement age reduces physical capital accumulation and thereby economic growth. Our results imply that models based on learning-by-doing-spillovers, which are often used as a short-cut formulation for research and development based growth models, do not necessarily lead to similar policy conclusions.