ECIN Replication Package for "The Age-Wage-Productivity Puzzle: Evidence from the Careers of Top Earners"

<div>This replication package contains all material necessary to recreate the tables and figures in "The Age-Wage-Productivity Puzzle: Evidence from the Careers of Top Earners" by Scarfe, Singleton, Sunmoni &amp; Telemo (2023).</div><div><br>Abstract: There is an inverted u-shaped relationship between age and wages in most labour markets and occupations, but the effects of age on productivity are often unclear. We use panel data on productivity and salaries in a market of high earners, professional footballers (soccer players) in North America, to estimate age-productivity and age-wage profiles. We find stark differences between these profiles; wages continue to increase for several years after productivity has peaked, before dropping sharply at the end of a career. This discrepancy poses the question: why are middle-aged workers seemingly overpaid relative to their contemporaneous productivity? The richness of our dataset allows us to investigate a range of possible mechanisms that could be responsible, including institutional factors, unobserved elements of productivity, and a talent discovery theory, by which teams pay younger players less because their productivity is more uncertain. We find some evidence that tentatively supports this last mechanism. </div>

本复现包包含了复刻Scarfe、Singleton、Sunmoni与Telemo于2023年发表的论文《年龄-薪资-生产率之谜：顶级收入者职业轨迹证据》中所有表格与图表所需的全部材料。

摘要：多数劳动力市场与职业场景中，年龄与薪资呈现倒U型关系，但年龄对生产率的影响往往尚不明确。我们依托北美地区职业足球运动员（soccer players）的生产率与薪资面板数据，估算年龄-生产率与年龄-薪资关系曲线。研究发现两类曲线存在显著差异：生产率达到峰值后，薪资仍会持续上涨数年，直至职业生涯末期才会急剧下滑。这一差异引出了核心问题：相较于同期生产率，中年劳动者为何看似薪资过高？本数据集的丰富性使得我们能够探究一系列可能的成因机制，包括制度性因素、未被观测到的生产率维度，以及人才发现理论：球队会为年轻球员支付更低薪资，因为后者的生产率具有更高不确定性。我们找到了一些初步证据，能够为这一最后提及的机制提供佐证。