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Permanent Wage Cost Subsidies For Older Workers. An Effective Tool For Increasing Working Time And Postponing Early Retirement?

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  • Andrea Albanese
  • Bart Cockx

Abstract

In several OECD countries age-targeted wage subsidies have been introduced to increase the employment of older workers, but evidence on their effectiveness is scarce. This paper examines the effects of a permanent wage cost subsidy in Belgium on the employment rate, working time and hourly wage. We estimate these effects by integrating Inverse Probability Weighting in a, possibly trend-adjusted, Difference-in- Differences of endogenously sampled repeated cross sections. We find small positive short-run impacts on working time and larger ones on the employment rate, but only for employees at high risk of leaving to early retirement. The wage is not affected.

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  • Andrea Albanese & Bart Cockx, 2015. "Permanent Wage Cost Subsidies For Older Workers. An Effective Tool For Increasing Working Time And Postponing Early Retirement?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 15/902, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    • Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:15/902
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    Cited by:

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    2. Andrea Albanese & Bart Cockx & Yannick Thuy, 2020. "Working time reductions at the end of the career: Do they prolong the time spent in employment?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 99-141, July.
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    4. Maritza López-Novella, 2018. "Working Paper 04-18 - Removing youth sub-minimum wage rates in Belgium: did it affect youth employment?," Working Papers 1804, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    5. Bernhard Boockmann, 2015. "The effects of wage subsidies for older workers," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 189-189, September.
    6. Baert, Stijn & Norga, Jennifer & Thuy, Yannick & Van Hecke, Marieke, 2016. "Getting grey hairs in the labour market. An alternative experiment on age discrimination," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 86-101.
    7. Muriel Dejemeppe & Catherine Smith & Bruno der Linden, 2015. "Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of older workers in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-23, December.
    8. Matteo Picchio, 2023. "Microchipped bags and waste sorting," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(1), pages 1-30, January.
    9. Kerndler, Martin, 2016. "Contracting frictions and inefficient layoffs of older workers," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145711, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wage cost subsidies; older workers; Weighted Difference-in-Differences; endogenous sampling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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