This paper examines the impact of increasing the relative cost of fixed-term contracts on labor demand as well as the demand for standard measures of human capital and specific skill requirements. We evaluate a 2018 Italian labor law reform that raised the cost of fixed- term contracts while...

This paper examines the impact of increasing the relative cost of fixed-term contracts on labor demand as well as the demand for standard measures of human capital and specific skill requirements. We evaluate a 2018 Italian labor law reform that raised the cost of fixed-term contracts while...

Somewhat surprisingly, cross-country empirical evidence (at least in the cross section) does not seem to support the predictions of standard models that economies with stricter regulations on hiring and firing should have a lower pace of job reallocation. One problem in exploring these issues...

The theoretical predictions of how employment protection affects firm productivity are ambiguous. In this paper I study the effect of employment protection rules on labor productivity using micro data on Swedish firms. A reform of the employment protection rules in 2001 made it possible for...

There is increasing pressure for the flexibility of labour markets both in current EU member states and candidate countries. The paper aims to estimate the strictness of employment protection regulation, one of the most relevant aspects of labour market flexibility, and the degree of its actual...

In countries with strong employment protection laws it is often considered to be unwise to hire a woman in childbearing age because she might get pregnant. However, such labour demand effects of job protection measures related to maternity leave are often rather anecdotal. To provide analytical...

This paper studies the impact of an increase in the enforcement of labor regulations on unemployment and inequality, using city level data from Brazil. We find that stricter enforcement (affecting the payment of mandated benefits to formal workers) leads to: higher unemployment, less income...

Over the past decade, the share of jobs not controlled by the state has increased considerably, whilst employment in agriculture has declined, against the backdrop of ongoing urbanisation. Over 200 million people have been drawn into urban areas through official or unofficial migration, despite...

This paper examines the interactions between employment and training policies. Their effectiveness in stimulating income may be interdependent for various important reasons. For example, the more employment policies stimulate the employment rate, the greater the length of time over which workers...

Small firms are seen as important drivers of dynamics and innovation. They need to be particularly flexible and be able to react quickly to new challenges. This paper uses the latest change in dismissal protection legislation in Germany as a natural experiment and tries to find causal effects on...