Permanent wage cost subsidies for older workers: an effective tool for increasing working time and postponing early retirement?

"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 wag...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Albanese, Andrea, Cockx, Bart
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Bonn 2015
IZA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19113355124919315379-Permanent-wage-cost-subsidies-.htm
Description
Summary:"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."
Physical Description:43 p.
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