The UK government's promise in the Queen's Speech of 19 December 2019 to protect and enhance worker's rights after Brexit has taken on new urgency in the light of the coronavirus pandemic, the inadequacy of the present framework being exposed for all to see. Issues highlighted include the social...

In this article, we argue for application of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to proactive incidence prevention in the public health system response to COVID-19. HFACS is a framework of causal categories of human errors typically applied for systematic retrospective...

Why has the college wage premium risen rapidly in the United States since the 1980s, but not in European economies such as Germany? We argue that differences in employment protection can account for much of the gap. We develop a model in which firms and workers make relationship-specific...

We explore the interaction between labour market reforms and financial frictions. Our study combines a new cross-country reform database on labour market reforms with matched firm-bank data for nine euro area countries over the period 1999 to 2013. While we find that labour market reforms are...

According to French law, employers have to pay at least six months salary to employees whose seniority exceeds two years in case of unfair dismissal. We show, relying on data, that this regulation entails a hike in severance payments at two-year seniority which induces a significant rise in the...

From a theoretical viewpoint, there can be market failures resulting in an underprovision of occupational health and safety. Works councils may help mitigate these failures. Using establishment data from Germany, our empirical analysis confirms that the incidence of a works council is...

To estimate the causal effect of employment protection on firms' worker selection, we study a policy change that reduced dismissal costs for the employers of over a tenth of Sweden's workforce. Our difference-in-differences analysis of firms' hiring uses individual ability measures including...

Labour market segmentation currently is at the forefront of national and European policy debates. While the European Commission and the OECD try to promote what they see as more inclusive policies, academic observers remain skeptical. Particularly the dualisation literature points to stable...

This paper provides an overview of recent research on dual labour markets. Theoretical and empirical contributions on the labour-market effects of dual employment protection legislation are revisited, as well as factors behind its resilience and policies geared towards correcting its negative...

This study explores the impact an exogenous improvement in childhood health has on later-life outcomes. Using extensive and detailed register data from the Swedish Interdisciplinary Panel, we follow individuals exposed to the introduction of the first vaccine against polio in Sweden (birth...

This paper provides an overview of recent research on dual labour markets. Theoretical and empirical contributions on the labour-market effects of dual employment protection legislation are revisited, as well as factors behind its resilience and policies geared towards correcting its negative...

Aktuelle Erhebungen machen deutlich: Der Stress am Arbeitsplatz nimmt vielerorts zu - und mit ihm die Belastungen. Neben den traditionellen Gefahren sind in den letzten Jahren vermehrt psychosoziale Risiken und Burnout am Arbeitsplatz in den Vordergrund der öffentlichen Diskussion getreten....

On the occasion of the centenary of the International Labour Organization (ILO), this 11th special issue of International Development Policy explores the Organization's capacity for action, its effectiveness and its ability to adapt and innovate. The collection of thirteen articles, written by...

This paper tests whether the job security offered by stricter employment protection legislation (EPL) undermines positive compensating wage differentials that would otherwise be paid. Specifically, we ask whether industries with relatively more need for layoffs and labour flexibility have lower...

We offer new evidence on the real effects of credit shocks in the presence of employment protection regulations by exploiting a unique provision in Spanish labor laws: dismissal rules are less stringent for Spanish firms with fewer than 50 employees, lowering the cost of hiring new workers....

This paper provides robust estimates of the impact of both product and labour market regulations on unemployment using data for 24 European countries over the period 1998-2013. Controlling for country-fixed effects, endogeneity and a large set of covariates, results show that product market...

We explore the role of firing costs on labor market outcomes in a search and matching framework with distinct decisions on the intensive (hours per employee) and extensive (employment) margins of labor supply. We show that allowing for two distinct labor supply margins matters for assessing...