Der Zusammenhang zwischen Alter und Leistungsfähigkeit von Beschäftigten wird in den verschiedensten Disziplinen untersucht – mit zum Teil recht unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen. Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Literatur und diskutiert die Notwendigkeit einer neuen Sicht der...

We study the relation between workers’ age and their productivity in work teams, based on a new and unique data set that combines data on errors occurring in the production process of a large car manufacturer with detailed information on the personal characteristics of workers related to...

In this paper, I analyse the relation between workers’ sick leave and the composition of their work teams with respect to age, job tenure, education, and nationality. The probability of sick leave of workers in work teams is shown to be lower if their teammates are older, have shorter job...

We propose and test a general equilibrium model in which longer working time and higher labor force participation lead to a fall in unemployment. Longer working hours and higher labor force participation have two direct effects: People have higher incomes and less (leisure) time. This has...

This paper challenges the common view that skill-biased technological change boosts wage inequality. In a multi-sector economy, relative wages depend not only on relative productivities but also on relative goods prices. If there are complementarities between goods that do not benefit greatly...

This paper studies the employment effects of technological change when benefits are endogenous. If the (i) level of welfare aid depends on the general income level in the economy and (ii) wages for unskilled workers cannot fall below the level of welfare aid, there is a link between the wage for...

In this paper, we study the effect of skill-biased technological change on unemployment when benefits are linked to the evolution of average income and when this is not the case. In the former case, an increase in the productivity of skilled workers and hence their wage leads to an increase in...

In Acemoglu's model of directed technical change (1998 in this Journal), the skill-premium increases in consequence of an increase in the relative supply of skilled labor. In this paper, I argue that other measures of wage inequality such as the Gini-coefficient do not necessarily rise as well....

The paper examines the long-term implications of various reform options on retirement entry decisions and the actual retirement age of older workers. It focuses on the changes in pension legislation since 1992 and the reform options discussed by the German Social Security Reform Commission...

Public pensions – the primary pillar of old-age income provision – will, in the future, be less generous than they have been in the past, in particular owing to the impact of demographic change. The pension gap is supposed to be plugged by the second and third pillars of pension...