normal retirement age in Germany did not prolong employment of older men. The reason for this surprising result is that … retirement option for the long-term insured. Bridge options allowed employers to terminate employment considerably earlier than … of the bridge options. Therefore mainly employers with high employment adaption costs induced employees to use a bridge …

employment. An important at‐risk group comprises employees who have worked in demanding jobs for many years. This group may be …‐discontinuity approach to estimate the labor market reactions. Surprisingly, we find the same relative employment increase of about 25% for …