Revisiting wage, earnings, and hours profiles

For the youngest cohorts whose entire working life can be observed, hours start falling much earlier than wages. Wages do not fall (if they fall at all) until one's late 60s. The data suggest that many workers start a smooth transition into retirement by working progressively fewer hours while still facing an upward-sloping wage profile. This pattern is not an artifact of staggered abrupt retirement or selection. This evidence imposes restrictions on dynamic models of the aggregate economy, and provide updated numerical profiles that can be readily used in quantitative macroeconomic analysis to incorporate this new pattern into aggregate models.