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Cooperation and Competition in Intergenerational Experiments in

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  • Charness, Gary B
  • VILLEVAL, MARIE-CLAIRE

Abstract

There is economic pressure towards the postponement of the retirement age, but employers are still reluctant to employ older workers. We investigate the comparative behavior of juniors and seniors in experiments conducted both onsite with the employees of two large firms and in a conventional aboratory environment with students and retirees. We show that seniors are no more risk averse than juniors and are typically more cooperative; both juniors and working seniors respond strongly to competition. The implication is that it may be beneficial to define additional incentives near the end of the career to motivate and retain older workers.

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  • Charness, Gary B & VILLEVAL, MARIE-CLAIRE, 2008. "Cooperation and Competition in Intergenerational Experiments in," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt210035w2, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt210035w2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Degli Antoni, 2017. "Workers’ Propensity to Make a Monetary Sacrifice in Favour of Colleagues or People from the General Population: A Comparison based on an Artefactual Field Experiment," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 6(2), pages 2-19.
    2. Peter Kuhn & Kailing Shen, 2009. "Employers' Preferences for Gender, Age, Height and Beauty: Direct Evidence," NBER Working Papers 15564, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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