I am an applied microeconomist, mainly interested in the intersection of social safety net programs (e.g., retirement and unemployment) with labor markets and their implications for inequalities.
I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the CERGE-EI and a research associate at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). During my PhD years, I made research visits to the University of Chicago and the IAB. I also did a PhD internship at the Dutch National Bank.
CV: here
Crowded Career Ladders? Firm Responses to Raising Women's Retirement Age
Abstract: Coworkers' careers are interdependent. This paper studies how extending older workers’ careers affects the advancement of their younger coworkers. I exploit a 1999 German reform that raised the early retirement age for women, using the universe of German social security records. These data allow me to track workers by occupation and establishment, identifying precise coworker groups. The reform delayed older women’s labor force exit and reduced promotion and hiring opportunities for younger coworkers, particularly middle-aged women. These effects are stronger where coworkers are more substitutable due to occupational segregation and career stage proximity. The results highlight internal labor market frictions and show that even with a long planning horizon, firms face adjustment costs in response to workforce aging.
Awards: 1st place: Young Economists Seminar (Croatian National Bank, 2024)
2nd place: Young Economist of the Year in the Czech Republic (Czech Economic Society, 2024)
Retirement Age Reforms and Worker Substitutability: Implications for Employment of Older Workers
Abstract: This paper studies how labor demand factors—specifically worker substitutability and job-specific skills—shape employment responses to a rise in the early retirement age. Using a regression discontinuity design, I exploit a 1999 German reform that eliminated the option for women to retire at age 60. Before the reform, older workers could exit voluntarily, thereby imposing turnover costs on firms. Afterward, firms were better able to retain less substitutable, more difficult-to-replace workers for whom turnover costs are higher. At the same time, the loss of early pension eligibility reduced workers’ outside options, allowing firms to offer lower wages. The reform thus improved the retention of less substitutable workers, lowering both turnover costs and wages.
[CERGE-EI Working Paper, forthcoming]
Coworkers Delaying Retirement, Together
Abstract: Retirement is not solely an individual choice — it’s a social phenomenon. I study the extent to which peer groups in the workplace shape the retirement timing of women by leveraging detailed social security data to assign peer groups. I leverage exogenous variation in early retirement ages by cohorts in Germany by a reform that abolished the women’s pathways to retirement, resulting in at least a 3-year jump in early retirement age across consecutive cohorts. The identifying variation stems from the exposure of coworkers to peer women born in a narrow window around the reform cohort cutoff.
[Latest version, data coding is in progress]
Households in Crisis: From Pink Slips to Career Shifts Across Generations (with C. Biesenbeek & M. Mastrogiacomo)
[Latest version, data coding is in progress]
Disclosure Discrimination: An Experiment Focusing on Communication in the Hiring Process (with D.Korlyakova & R.Rehák)