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B. Mahlberg, I. Freund, J. Crespo Cuaresma, A. Fürnkranz-Prskawetz:
"The Age-Productivity Pattern: Do Location and Sector Affiliation Matter?";
Report for TU Wien, Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy; Report No. Working Paper No. 1, 2013; 21 pages.

Current demographic developments are expected to challenge the sustainability of welfare in
industrialised economies. Persistent low fertility levels and increasing survival rates to older
age imply a decreasing share of younger individuals within the labour force that needs to
support an increasing share of old people out of the labour force. We use matched employeremployee
data for Austria at the firm level in order to study the link between the age structure
and labour productivity and concentrate on the role played by regional location and sector
affiliation. We apply multilevel estimation techniques in order to account for systematic
variation of the age-productivity pattern with regard to these two dimensions. Our results
indicate that the age-productivity pattern differs significantly across regions and across sectors
and that sectoral differences are the more sizable source of heterogeneity in the link between
the age structure and firm productivity.

Age-productivity profile, firm heterogeneity, employer-employee data,