Employment protection legislation in Russia : regional enforcement and labor market outcomes

The efficiency of the labor market critically depends on the design of its institutions, including employment protection legislation. However, since formal laws can be observed to varying degrees, the actual enforcement regime shapes incentives and constraints. Most of the studies exploring the effects of employment protection on labor market performance implicitly assume that compliance is near to complete. However, if enforcement varies widely across regions/cities or segments of firms, then this variation may cause variation in performance. This paper, looking at Russia, explores whether cross-regional and inter-temporal variation in enforcement of employment protection laws is significant and is translated into regional labor market outcomes. The paper utilizes a unique data set based on State Labor Inspectorate data and Supreme Court statistics. Keywords: employment protection regulations; enforcement; employment; unemployment; regional labor markets; Russia. (Comparative Economic Studies / SWP)