Renewal of generations, employment instability of young workers and technological dynamics of firms [Renouvellement des générations, précarité de l'emploi des jeunes et dynamique technologique des entreprises]

This paper explores empirically the relationships between the renewal of generations, employment instability of young workers and technological dynamics of firms using the business section of the French survey on organizational changes and computerization (C.O.I. [1997]) matched with the DADS data file ("Déclarations Annuelles de Données Sociales"). We find that age pyramids with a wide base are the most favourable to the adoption of technological and organisational changes within firms and that age pyramids with a wide summit are the less favourable. We also find a negative impact of employment instability of young workers relative to workers of intermediate age. We then develop a model with overlapping generations where we formalise a participating constraint concerning the implementation of technological progress which is differentiated according to age. This model generates an affect of the firm's age pyramid on the propensity to innovate that is similar to the one we observe in our data.