The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is carrying out a research initiative on the Economics of an Aging Workforce. It is directed by Professor Courtney Coile of Wellesley College and NBER. During the 2023-24 academic year, the initiative can support two projects on topics that relate to the labor market outcomes of older workers or the impact of older workers on the labor market more broadly.
Topics that are within scope for this initiative include, but are not limited to:
• the determinants of work and retirement behavior at older ages, including the impact of public and private pension programs on labor supply;
• age discrimination and the consequences of state and federal anti-discrimination policies;
• how workplace attributes such as flexible retirement, the opportunity to work from home, and the availability of various types of training affect the notional labor supply of older workers;
• the impact of older workers on workplace productivity and the effect of various workplace initiatives, such as production line modification, on it;
• how the aging workforce affects transitions between jobs and between firms, and the impact of any changes in workplace dynamism on aggregate productivity.
Researchers who have primary appointments as faculty members at US colleges or universities and who are interested in receiving support to conduct research on these or related questions should submit short proposals. Each proposal is limited to eight pages, double-spaced, including references, tables, graphs, a short budget outline, and other supplementary material. It should describe the research question to be studied, its relevance to understanding the aging workforce, and the data and methods that will be used to study it. Preliminary findings are encouraged but not required. In addition, each proposal should indicate the composition of the research team, with links to current CVs for key personnel.
The NBER will support two proposals with grants of up to $75,000. The funds may support investigator salary, graduate or undergraduate research assistants, data acquisition costs, or other research expenses. The grants will typically be structured as sub-awards to the principal investigator’s (PI’s) college or university. Projects that do not fund investigator salary or research assistant time may not require a sub-award. The budget outline should include all charges associated with a potential sub-award. The NBER cannot offer more than 12% in indirect costs to sub-recipient institutions.
Proposals should be submitted as a single PDF by midnight EST on Friday, March 24, 2023, to:
http://conference.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfp?id=WLs23
Proposals from early-career economists, from researchers with and without NBER affiliations, and from candidates from groups that historically have been under-represented in the economics profession are welcome. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of leading experts on demographics and labor economics, chaired by Professor Courtney Coile, and funding decisions will be announced in April 2023.
Investigators who receive an award must submit a research paper on the proposed research by May 15, 2024.
Questions about this call for proposals should be directed to Denis Healy, dhealy@nber.org