How Do Firing Costs Affect Innovation and Growth when Workers' Ability is Unknown? Employment Protection as a Burden on a Firm's Screening Process

This paper analyzes the implication of employment protection legislation on a firm's screening process. We present a model in which human-capital-intensive firms (high-tech firms) with imperfect information about their workers' type attempt during a trial period to identify those incompetent workers they will subsequently dismiss. However, employment protection measures place a burden on this screening process thereby motivating innovators to embark on medium-tech projects which are more flexible in their human capital requirements. As such, employment protection legislation distorts the pattern of specialization in favor of medium-tech firms over high-tech firms and consequently slows down the process of economic growth. The results of the paper are consistent with documented data on Europe versus US productivity growth and specialization patterns.