Of the many labour market Hartz IV reforms that have been implemented in Germany since 2005, the role of short-term unemployment insurance has not received much attention. In this paper we examine distributional effects of labour earnings and unemployment benefits using simulated increases in...

Informal caregivers provide valuable services to elderly persons with long-term care needs, but the consequences of caregiving on caregivers are not yet fully understood. This paper illustrates the interrelation between caregiving and caregivers’ labour force participation, cognitive ability,...

This paper uses the Italian Social Security employer-employee panel to study the effects of the Italian reform of 1990 on worker and job flows. We exploit the fact that this reform increased unjust dismissal costs for firms below 15 employees, while leaving dismissal costs unchanged for bigger...

We quantify labour market effects of changes in the potential benefit duration (PBD) in Poland. Individual workers' PBD depends on the county unemployment rate relative to the national average - 12 months of PBD above a cut-off of 125 per cent and 6 months below. This cut-off shifted from 125 to...

We study effects of retirement on cognitive abilities (up to ten years after retirement) using data from 21 countries in Continental Europe, England, and the US, and exploiting early-retirement thresholds for identification. For this purpose, combines event-study estimations with the marginal...

Individual cognitive functioning declines over time. We seek to understand how adverse physical health shocks in older ages contribute to this development. By use of event-study methods and data from the USA, England and several countries in Continental Europe we find evidence that health shocks...

We analyze the causal effect of retirement on mental health, exploiting differences in retirement eligibility ages across countries and over time using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We estimate not only average effects, but also use distributional regression to...

About 20% of German workers retire on disability pensions. Disability pensions provide fairly generous benefits for those who are not already age-eligible for an old-age pension and who are deemed unable to work for health reasons. In this paper, we use two sets of individual survey data to...

France stands out as a country with a low labor force attachment of older workers. A reversal in the trend of French labor participation rates over 50 is under way, partly due to the pension reforms that took place since 1993. The French ageing process is driven by large gains in life expectancy...