Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show that gig jobs could be considered an alternative way, albeit not the very best, to give work opportunities to older people. This could offset the continuously decreasing income from the pay-as-you-go pension system, which remains the main source of income for older Hungarians. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews the most important aspects of employment of older people and highlights the digital divide which still restricts their participation in the labor market. The paper analyzes data from the Hungarian carpooling company Oszkár and compares it with official statistical data from the Hungarian labor market, focusing on the dynamics of the employment of older persons. Findings The findings show that the alienation of older workers from the gig economy is just transitory, and that an increasing proportion of older gig workers can be anticipated. Research limitations/implications Compiling data on the gig economy faces a number of obstacles, as enterprises are disincentivized from revealing all their data. Social implications Older people are more likely to be employed in lower-quality jobs, such as own-account self-employed. They are also increasingly more likely to become gig workers. Originality/value The paper articulates the importance of remaining active as one ages and moreover challenges the traditional belief that gig jobs mainly offer opportunities to the younger generations.

Many papers have analyzed the effects of foreign acquisition on firm productivity, articulating its positive impacts. However, an important issue remains: is there a general foreign acquisition effect, or is there any heterogeneity in the effects? This paper reports on the analysis of over 3,400 majority foreign acquisitions in Hungary. The main result (which exists in a propensity score matching sample as well) of the difference-in-differences analysis is that only acquirers from higher income countries foster labor productivity significantly — and this effect increases with the income gap between Hungary and the country of origin -, while acquirers from lower income countries do not induce statistically significant effects.

We used the last three waves of the European Quality of Life Surveys to analyze the happiness of older workers in Romania and the Visegrád countries. Applying ordinary least squares and ordered logit models we showed that being employed makes people happier ceteris paribus than being unemployed. This effect is the same for younger and older persons in the V4 countries, but there is an extra positive effect for older workers in Romania.

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One important aspect of globalization is the crossborder flow of capital, namely foreign direct investment that is considered to be an important engine of economic growth via productivity enhancement. One important form of foreign direct investment is crossborder mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The effect of M&As on firmlevel productivity has been analyzed in many papers. This article provides a survey of this literature following a kind of evolutionary perspective: The main results are presented following advances in data usage and methodology. Further research questions are also formulated. JEL code: F21, F43