Optimal age-specific election policies in two-level organizations with fixed size

Many organizations — faculties, firms, political bodies, societies, national academies — have recently been faced with the problem of aging. These trends are caused by increasing longevity of the members of these organizations as well as a lower intake at younger ages. The aging problem is particularly pronounced in organizations of fixed size, where no dismissal due to age (up to a statutory “retirement” age) is acceptable. Attenuating the aging process in a fixed-size organization by recruiting more young people leads to another adverse effect: the number of recruitments will decline, so the chances to be recruited decrease. For multi-level organizations transition flows between the levels and recruitment at different levels complicate the aforementioned problems. In this paper we present 1Institute of Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology Argentinierstr. 8/119, A-1040 Vienna, Austria and Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences Wohllebengasse 12-14, A-1040 Vienna, Austria Tel.: +43-1-58801-11927 [email protected] 2Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics, Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences S. Kovalevskoi 16, 620990, Ekaterinburg, Russia Tel.: +43-681-107-45439 [email protected] 3Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences Wohllebengasse 12-14, A-1040 Vienna, Austria and Institute for Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology Argentinierstr. 8/4/105-3 A-1040 Vienna, Austria Tel.: +43-1-58801-17510 [email protected] 4Institute of Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology Argentinierstr. 8/119, A-1040 Vienna, Austria Tel.: +43-1-58801-11923 [email protected]