The Ben-Porath (1967) mechanism suggests that prolonging the period during which individuals may receive returns on their investment spurs investment in human capital and causes growth. An important, albeit implicit implication of this mechanism is that the total labour input over a lifetime...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of life expectancy for optimal schooling and lifetime labor supply. The results of a simple prototype Ben-Porath model with age-specific survival rates show that an increase in lifetime labor supply is not a necessary, nor a...

This paper uses a difference-in-differences approach, combined with propensity score matching, to identify the effect of older workers employment protection on French firms' incentives to sponsor training. Between 1987 and 2008, French firms laying off workers aged over 50 had to pay a tax to...

Since 2002, public school teachers in Florida have been permitted to choose between a defined benefit (DB) and a defined contribution (DC) retirement plan. We exploit this unique policy environment to study new teachers’ revealed preferences over pension plan structures. Roughly 30...

This paper analyses the effect of retirement on cognitive functioning using a longitudinal survey among older Americans, which allows controlling for individual heterogeneity and endogeneity of the retirement decision by using the eligibility age for social security as an instrument. The results...

I develop a general equilibrium life cycle model with an intensive and extensive margin of labor supply and endogenous human capital accumulation. I use the model to assess the effects of changes to various features of social security on labor supply outcomes. Of particular interest are changes...

This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched injured and non-injured workers, these health shocks (predominantly impairments in the...

This paper seeks to gain insights on the relationship between growth and employment when considering heterogeneous agents in terms of their working horizon. Using an OECD database, our empirical estimations suggest that growth positively influences the employment rate of workers having a long...

With almost 50 per cent of the working age population not working, improving labour market performance represents an essential and daunting challenge for Poland. While some of today’s joblessness is cyclical in nature, most of it appears to be structural. This paper argues that to increase...

The traditional process of farm transmission within the family is threatened by the increasing age of operators and by their children’s preference for other activi-ties. After describing the national patterns of agricultural labour ageing, this es-say aims at quantifying the proportion of...