Despite substantial increases in longevity, the age of retirement in the industrialized countries has steadily fallen throughout most of the 20th century. In 13 OECD countries, the employment-population ratio of 55-64-year-old males fell by an average of more than 12 percentage points between...

The trend in most of the industrialized counties is in the direction of decreasing labor force participation of older workers. The steady withdrawal of workers from the workforce at a younger age suggests that retirement income is gradually increasing and/or that older workers are increasingly...

Externalities caused by human capital accumulation have taken up considerable space in theoretical work on economic growth. However, less attention has been paid to this externality in traditional growth accounting exercises. This paper takes up the issue of growth accounting, suggesting a...

The national-income account identity and the life-cycle theory of consumption together imply that the current account should be a function of the age structure. A country with a high proportion of young and retired should have current account deficits. Using a panel of 84 countries, we find...

Despite substantial increases in longevity, the age of retirement in the industrialized countries has steadily fallen throughout most of the 20th century. In 13 OECD countries, the employment-population ratio of 55-64-year-old males fell by an average of more than 12 percentage points between...

A fundamental problem for an economy based on a common property resource is the absence of a market to trade the resource. This implies that private costs are below social costs. This paper investigates possible government interventions that correct for such distortions in a neoclassical growth...

The withdrawal of older workers from the labor force creates a variety of economic challenges, including an increase in unused production capacity. Costs due to early retirement measured in terms of forgone output averaged 6.3 percent of potential gross domestic product in the OECD in 1998....

This paper extends the literature on the Dutch disease by showing how natural resources can reduce secondary-sector employment and investment through channels involving labor-market externalities and exchange-rate volatility. We then look at data from Iceland - which is one of few OECD countries...

Medium- to long-term changes in unemployment appear to be closely correlated with medium- to long-term changes in private investment. This becomes a puzzle once we abandon the Keynesian framework as an explanation for medium-term movements in unemployment and replace it with the natural-rate...

Most industrialized countries are struggling with reforming their retirement income systems. The systems have mainly been based on public pay-as-you-go plans but as the systems have become mature they have increased the fiscal burden of nations and become an inadequate device for financial...