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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?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5301, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5301
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    2. 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.
    3. Svraka, András, 2019. "The Effect of Labour Cost Reduction on Employment of Vulnerable Groups — Evaluation of the Hungarian Job Protection Act," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 64(1), pages 72-92.
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    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Bernhard Boockmann, 2015. "The effects of wage subsidies for older workers," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 189-189, September.
    9. 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.

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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
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

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