IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1816.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Age Structure of the Workforce and Firm Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Grund, Christian

    (RWTH Aachen University)

  • Westergård-Nielsen, Niels C.

    (Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

In this contribution, we examine the interrelation between corporate age structures and firm performance. In particular, we address the issues, whether firms with young rather than older employees are successful and whether firms with homogeneous or heterogeneous workforces are doing well. Several theoretical approaches are discussed with respect to these questions and divergent hypotheses are derived. Using Danish linked employer-employee data, we find that both mean age and dispersion of age in firms are inversely u-shaped related to firm performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Grund, Christian & Westergård-Nielsen, Niels C., 2005. "Age Structure of the Workforce and Firm Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 1816, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1816
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1816.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lazear, Edward P, 1979. "Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1261-1284, December.
    4. Jacques Cremer, 1986. "Cooperation in Ongoing Organizations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 33-49.
    5. Bengt Holmström, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 169-182.
    6. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    7. George Akerlof, 1976. "The Economics of Caste and of the Rat Race and Other Woeful Tales," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 90(4), pages 599-617.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," NBER Working Papers 6875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    2. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics," Introductory Chapters, in: Robert Gibbons & John Roberts (ed.),The Handbook of Organizational Economics, Princeton University Press.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Mani, Sureshbabu & Ye, Pengfei, 2016. "Relative peer quality and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 196-219.
    5. Dora Gicheva, 2013. "Working Long Hours and Early Career Outcomes in the High-End Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(4), pages 785-824.
    6. Xiaping Cao & Michael Lemmon & Xiaofei Pan & Meijun Qian & Gary Tian, 2019. "Political Promotion, CEO Incentives, and the Relationship Between Pay and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 2947-2965, July.
    7. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Cici, Gjergji & Hendriock, Mario & Kempf, Alexander, 2018. "The impact of labor mobility restrictions on managerial actions: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," CFR Working Papers 18-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    9. Lam, W., 2015. "Status in Organizations," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015033, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. Lazear, Edward P., 2012. "Leadership: A personnel economics approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 92-101.
    11. Leon Yang Chu & David E.M. Sappington, 2009. "Implementing high‐powered contracts to motivate intertemporal effort supply," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 296-316, June.
    12. Michael Schwarz & Sergei Severinov, 2010. "Investment Tournaments: When Should a Rational Agent Put All Eggs in One Basket?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 893-922, October.
    13. Alan Benson & Ben A. Rissing, 2020. "Strength from Within: Internal Mobility and the Retention of High Performers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 1475-1496, November.
    14. Cziraki, Peter & Jenter, Dirk, 2021. "The Market for CEOs," CEPR Discussion Papers 16281, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Xie, Jun, 2015. "CEO career concerns and investment efficiency: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 149-159.
    16. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2003. "Contratti incompleti ed enforcement endogeno. Una rassegna della letteratura," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 391-440.
    17. Huanxing Yang, 2013. "Nonstationary Relational Contracts With Adverse Selection," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(2), pages 525-547, May.
    18. Michael Schwarz & Sergei Severinov, 2009. "Investment Tournaments: When Should a Rational Agent Put All Eggs in One Basket?," NBER Working Papers 15136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bardsley, Peter & Erkal, Nisvan & Nikiforakis, Nikos & Wilkening, Tom, 2013. "Recursive contracts, firm longevity, and rat races: An experimental analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 217-231.
    20. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    21. Brickley, James A. & Linck, James S. & Coles, Jeffrey L., 1999. "What happens to CEOs after they retire? New evidence on career concerns, horizon problems, and CEO incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 341-377, June.
    22. Tom Coupé & Valérie Smeets & Frédéric Warzynski, 2006. "Incentives, Sorting and Productivity along the Career: Evidence from a Sample of Top Economists," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 137-167, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    firm performance; corporate age structures; demographic change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1816. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.