Productivity consequences of workforce ageing - Stagnation or a Horndal effect?

Bo Malmberg (), Thomas Lindh and Max Halvarsson
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Bo Malmberg: Institute for Futures Studies, Postal: Box 591, SE-101 31 Stockholm, Sweden, http://www.framtidsstudier.se
Max Halvarsson: Institute for Futures Studies, Postal: Box 591, SE-101 31 Stockholm, Sweden, http://www.framtidsstudier.se

No 2005:17, Arbetsrapport from Institute for Futures Studies

Abstract: Data linking the production of value-added at the plant level to the individual employees provide an opportunity to deepen the understanding of how the labor force composition relates to productivity performance. In view of the anticipated aging of the workforce in industrialised economies a body of research has emerged that indicate that individual productivity has a more pronounced hump-shape than the wage profile. This paper studies these issues by examining the composition of the workforce at the plant level in relation to the productivity performance of the plants. Our data cover the Swedish mining and manufacturing industries 1985-1996. The fact that older workers selectively work with older capital may have biased results found in the literature. Endogeneity of workforce composition poses serious estimation problems, but our attempts to cope with these problems tend to indicate that biases in general go in the direction that productivity of the young is overestimated and the productivity of the old is underestimated.

Keywords: workforce ageing; productivity growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 J21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2005-12-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-hrm and nep-lab
Note: ISSN 1652-120X ISBN 91-89655-75-3
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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