IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04455419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxation of early retirement windows and delaying retirement: The French experience

Author

Listed:
  • P.J. Messe

    (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes)

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of the 2003 French pension reform on hiring, firing and employment rates among older workers. This reform increased the mandatory retirement age and simultaneously it set a tax levied on early retirement windows payed by firms to their older workers, to encourage them to leave their job early. We use a matching model with endogenous job destruction extended to account for a mandatory retirement age and we calibrate the model with data drawn from the French Labor Force Surveys for the years 2002 and 2003. We show that in the case of a high tax rate, delaying retirement raises job separation rates, which partially offsets its positive effect on job finding rates. Consequently, the combination of an increase in the retirement age and a taxation on early retirement windows may have negative effects on the employment rate among older workers.

Suggested Citation

  • P.J. Messe, 2011. "Taxation of early retirement windows and delaying retirement: The French experience," Post-Print hal-04455419, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04455419
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2011.04.010
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04455419v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04455419v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2011.04.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    2. Mortensen, Dale T & Pissarides, Christopher A, 1999. "Unemployment Responses to 'Skill-Biased' Technology Shocks: The Role of Labour Market Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 242-265, April.
    3. Arnaud Chéron & Jean‐Olivier Hairault & François Langot, 2011. "Age‐Dependent Employment Protection," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1477-1504, December.
    4. Jean-Olivier Hairault & Francois Langot & Thepthida Sopraseuth, 2010. "Distance to Retirement and Older Workers' Employment: The Case for Delaying the Retirement Age," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(5), pages 1034-1076, September.
    5. Luc Behaghel, 2007. "La protection de l'emploi des travailleurs Âgés en France : une étude de la contribution Delalande," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 85, pages 41-80.
    6. Behaghel, Luc & Crépon, Bruno & Sédillot, Béatrice, 2008. "The perverse effects of partial employment protection reform: The case of French older workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 696-721, April.
    7. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    8. Patrick Aubert & Eve Caroli & Muriel Roger, 2006. "New technologies, organisation and age: firm-level evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(509), pages 73-93, February.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10051 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Behaghel, Luc & Crépon, Bruno & Sédillot, Béatrice, 2008. "The perverse effects of partial employment protection reform: The case of French older workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 696-721, April.
    11. repec:adr:anecst:y:2007:i:85:p:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Hakola, Tuulia & Uusitalo, Roope, 2005. "Not so voluntary retirement decisions? Evidence from a pension reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2121-2136, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. van de Kraats, Coen & Galama, Titus & Lindeboom, Maarten & Deng, Zichen, 2024. "Why Life Gets Better After Age 50, for Some: Mental Well-Being and the Social Norm of Work," IZA Discussion Papers 17586, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Coen van de Kraats & Titus Galama & Maarten Lindeboom & Zichen Deng, 2025. "Why life gets better after age 50, for some: mental well-being and the social norm of work," Papers 2025-04, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Messe, P.J., 2011. "Taxation of early retirement windows and delaying retirement: The French experience," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 2319-2341, September.
    2. Etienne Lalé, 2018. "Turbulence and the employment experience of older workers," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 735-784, July.
    3. Arnaud Chéron & Jean‐Olivier Hairault & François Langot, 2011. "Age‐Dependent Employment Protection," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1477-1504, December.
    4. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Seija Ilmakunnas, 2014. "Age segregation and hiring of older employees: low mobility revisited," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(8), pages 1090-1115, October.
    5. Pawel Chrostek & Krzysztof Karbownik & Michal Myck, 2024. "Labor Market Externalities of Pre-Retirement Employment Protection," CESifo Working Paper Series 11078, CESifo.
    6. Messe, Pierre-Jean & Rouland, Bénédicte, 2014. "Stricter employment protection and firms' incentives to sponsor training: The case of French older workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 14-26.
    7. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2009. "Does the welfare state make older workers unemployable?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7490, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Seija Ilmakunnas, 2011. "Hiring older employees: Do incentives of early retirement channels matter?," Working Papers 268, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    9. Stefan Boeters, 2016. "Age-Specific Labour Market Effects of Employment Protection: A Numerical Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 281-305, August.
    10. Werner Eichhorst & Tito Boeri & Michela Braga & An de Coen & Galasso Vicenzo & Maarten Gerard & Michael J. Kendzia & Christine Mayrhuber & Jakob Louis Pedersen & Ricarda Schmidl & Nadia Steiber, 2013. "Combining the Entry of Young People in the Labour Market with the Retention of Older Workers," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46988.
    11. Amine Samir, 2015. "Reflections On Employment Protection Legislation: An International Comparison," Comparative Economic Research, Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 119-130, March.
    12. Andrea Bassanini & Luca Nunziata & Danielle Venn, 2009. "Job protection legislation and productivity growth in OECD countries [Appropriate growth policy: a unifying framework]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 24(58), pages 349-402.
    13. Kerndler, Martin, 2016. "Contracting frictions and inefficient layoffs of older workers," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145711, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Chéron, Arnaud & Langot, François, 2007. "Job Creation and Job Destruction over the Life Cycle: The Older Workers in the Spotlight," IZA Discussion Papers 2597, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Pierre-Jean Messe & Benedicte Rouland, 2012. "Stricter employment protection and firms’ incentives to train: The case of French older workers," TEPP Working Paper 2012-04, TEPP.
    16. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    17. Stefan Boeters, 2014. "Age-Specific Labour Market Effects of Employment Protection - A numerical approach," CPB Discussion Paper 281.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Ricardo Lagos, 2007. "A Model of Job and Worker Flows," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 770-819, October.
    19. Ichino, Andrea & Schwerdt, Guido & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf & Zweimüller, Josef, 2017. "Too old to work, too young to retire?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 14-29.
    20. Rabaté, Simon, 2019. "Can I stay or should I go? Mandatory retirement and the labor-force participation of older workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04455419. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.