Ageing and firm-sponsored training: the role of pension reforms in Italy

This paper takes advantage of a recent pension reform to study the effect of ageing upon workplace training activities. While economic theory is inconclusive on the expected effect – inasmuch as training can be effective in reducing the productivity gap of old-age workers, but the payback period of training investments would in their case be very short – our empirical analysis clearly suggests that firms react to increased retirement age by increasing training, provided that the related costs are funded through external resources. Distinguishing by sector and firm size the results of the empirical analysis allow us detecting some specific and different patterns between small companies in the service sector on the one hand, and larger ones from manufacture on the other.