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Productivity-Wage Gaps Among Age Groups: Does the ICT Environment Matter?

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Abstract

This paper disentangles the age-productivity-wage nexus by estimating productivity and wage equations with longitudinal employer-employee panel data for Belgium. Results indicate that workers above 49 years are significantly less productive than their younger colleagues. Moreover, while relative productivities across age groups are not found to differ significantly between ICT and non ICT firms, the upward sloping age-wage profile appears to be somewhat steeper in ICT firms. Yet, whatever the ICT environment, findings show that young workers are paid below and older workers above their marginal productivity. This pattern is in line with the deferred payment model developed by Lazear (J Polit Econ 87:1261–1284, 1979).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

    Alessandra Cataldi

  2. SBS-EM (DULBEA), Brussels, Belgium

    Alessandra Cataldi

  3. Université de Lille, CLERSE, SBS-EM (DULBEA), Brussels, Belgium

    Stephan Kampelmann

  4. Université Libre de Bruxelles, SBS-EM (CEB, DULBEA), Brussels, Belgium

    François Rycx

  5. IZA, Bonn, Germany

    François Rycx

Authors
  1. Alessandra Cataldi
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  2. Stephan Kampelmann
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  3. François Rycx
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Correspondence to François Rycx.

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Cataldi, A., Kampelmann, S. & Rycx, F. Productivity-Wage Gaps Among Age Groups: Does the ICT Environment Matter?. De Economist 159, 193–221 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10645-011-9162-9

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