In the past decade, Switzerland has experienced a large increase in the number ofindividuals that went into early retirement. This paper takes a look at the determinants of earlyretirement using data from the 2002 Swiss Labor Force Survey that contains an interestingmodule on this topic...

We study the effects of demographic shocks and changes in the pension system on themacroeconomic performance of an advanced small open economy. An overlappinggenerationsmodel is constructed which includes a realistic description of the mortalityprocess. Individual agents choose their optimal...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

A deferred annuity typically includes an option-like right for thepolicyholder. At the end of the deferment period, he may either choose toreceive annuity payouts, calculated based on a mortality table agreed to atcontract inception, or receive the accumulated capital as a lump sum.Considering...

Using data for six OECD countries, this paper studies the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the mortality index kt in the well-known Lee-Carter model. Significant correlations are found with real GDP growth rates in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and with unemployment rate changes...

This research suggests that a Darwinian evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played asignificant role in the process of economic development and the dynamics of inequality withinand across societies. The study argues that entrepreneurial spirit evolved non-monotonicallyin the course of human...

This paper contributes to the already vast literature on demography-induced internationalcapital flows by examining the role of labor market imperfections and institutions. We setup atwo-country overlapping generations model with search unemployment, which we calibrateon EU15 and US data. Labor...

Switzerland has one of the highest employment rates of older individuals amongindustrialized countries. Nevertheless, in the past decade, Switzerland has experienced amarked trend toward early retirement. This study analyzes the motives of early retirement inSwitzerland in the 1990s...

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables with the example of age-specific mortality in the U.S., building on the Lee-Carter approach and extendingit in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables underlying...