Germany has long been portrayed as the best real-world example of an export-oriented economic model associated with a dualized labor market and welfare state. The success of this export-centered model over the last decades has typically been ascribed to competitiveness due to wage restraint and...

We analyze the impact of occupational deregulation on the wages of licensed workers. To do so, we exploit a deregulation policy in the German craft sector that removed the master certificate as a requirement for starting a business in about half of the craft occupations. Specifically, we examine...

The changing nature of work, accelerated by the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in several fundamental shifts in the terms and conditions of work. Overlain with a clear trend of increased non-standard employment, including through the gig economy and platform work, this poses...

Flexible work schedules and telecommuting may help to improve the combination of work and family. This is arguably most important in households with (young) children. An open question is whether job flexibility can increase the well-being of the children, which depends, in part, on the time...

The existing literature investigating the labor market impact of immigration assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that the law or labor regulation is exogenous to immigration. To test this assumption, we build a novel workers' protection measure based on 36 labor law variables that capture labor...

Workplace flexibility has become increasingly popular and important within the landscape of human resource management especially during and even after the COVID19-pandemic among young working adults. The objective of this study is to identify the influence of four forms of workplace flexibility...

This study examines the association between investments in automation technologies and employment outcomes at the firm level, utilizing a panel dataset of about 10,450 Italian firms. Focusing on the proliferation of non-standard, flexible labor contracts introduced by labor market reforms in the...

We study heterogeneity in the prevalence of and preferences for workplace flexibility and work meaning. We show that, internationally, women and parents value flexibility more but do not work more flexible jobs. The gender dimension of this flexibility puzzle is related to differences in...

We conduct an experiment on a major international online freelancing labor market platform to study the impact of greater flexibility in choosing work hours within a day on female participation. We post identical job advertisements (for 320 jobs) covering a wide range of tasks (80 distinct...

We examine the relationship between oil price windfalls and labor market regulation empirically through panel regressions in a sample of 83 countries spanning 1970-2014. We find that oil price windfall gains lead to a deregulation of the labor market in autocracies but have no effects in...

This paper highlights the critical role that demand-shock and policy-shock induced finite changes play for the unconventional employment consequences of such shocks at a general equilibrium of a multi-sector competitive economy. A labour market reform that lowers the institutional costs of...

This paper examines structural challenges facing the Korean labor market and analyzes the macroeconomic effects of potential labor market reforms. Our cross-country empirical analysis finds that easing of employment protection legislation tends to have positive macroeconmic effects during...

This report gather coherent overview of the literature and data around how flexible working can relate to gender equality patterns in European societies. This report aims to summarise the current state of art in the theory and evidence around flexible working with regards to gender equality,...

Leveraging the first Covid-19 lockdown in Norway as a laboratory for an increase in work flexibility, we uncover a significant and persistent increase in births nine months later. Using the Goldin (2014) measure of work flexibility based on occupation characteristics, we show that fertility...

We empirically investigate whether employment is affected by foreign direct investment (FDI). Empirical results show that the FDI deregulations promote employment by increasing the job creation rate. In addition to the employment expansion of incumbent firms, the FDI deregulations facilitate the...

This work investigates the relationship between the numerical flexibility of a firm’s workforce and its innovative performance, taking into account the heterogeneity of firms and labor contracts. Using longitudinal data on Italian firms, we find that the share of temporary employees has a...

This study investigates the hourly wage gap between 25- and 55-year-old temporary and permanent employees across 30 countries worldwide based on Luxembourg Income Study data from 2000 to 2019 supplemented by other survey data. Two-stage multilevel regressions reveal wage disadvantages for...

This study investigates the hourly wage gap between 25-55 year old temporary and permanent employees across 30 countries worldwide based on Luxembourg Income Study data from 2000-2019 supplemented by other survey data. Two-stage multilevel regressions reveal wage disadvantages for temporary...

Africa is endowed with both natural resources and a young growing workforce. In light of this, it is obvious that regulations on labour markets will have significant impacts on economic growth, especially through effects on employment and productivity. This study provides information on labour...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...