Seniority wages and the role of firms in retirement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Frimmel, Wolfgang; Horvath, Thomas; Schnalzenberger, Mario; Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf
• 署名单位: Johannes Kepler University Linz; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.04.013
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 19-32
• 关键词: Retirement; Seniority wages; Firm incentives

摘要

In general, retirement is seen as a pure labor supply phenomenon, but firms can have strong incentives to send expensive older workers into retirement. Based on considerations about wage costs and replacement costs, we discuss steep seniority wage profiles as incentives for firms to dismiss older workers before retirement. Conditional on individual retirement incentives, e.g., social security wealth accrual rates or health status, the steepness of the wage profile will have different incentives for workers as compared to firms to maintain the employment relationship. Using an instrumental variable approach to account for selection of workers in our firms and for reverse causality, we find that firms with higher labor costs for older workers have on average a lower job exit age and a higher incidence of golden handshakes. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.