Labor Market Institutions Research Papers (original) (raw)

Este estudio de país para Argentina consiste en el análisis de la interacción entre el desempeño de las instituciones laborales y la dinámica del mercado de trabajo (particularmente, el nivel del empleo, sus características y los salarios... more

Este estudio de país para Argentina consiste en el análisis de la interacción entre el desempeño de las instituciones laborales y la dinámica del mercado de trabajo (particularmente, el nivel del empleo, sus características y los salarios en los últimos 25 años), brindando una línea de base a partir de la cual se pueda contribuir al debate sobre los nuevos y los viejos desafíos que enfrentan las instituciones laborales para la búsqueda del empleo pleno y productivo y el trabajo decente para todos en Argentina.

Globalization and labor; jobless growth and poor quality jobs; gig economy; services and manufacturing jobs; labor markets and inequality; decent jobs; labor outlook in Mexico: growth, wages and poverty; regional inequality; labor... more

Globalization and labor; jobless growth and poor quality jobs; gig economy; services and manufacturing jobs; labor markets and inequality; decent jobs; labor outlook in Mexico: growth, wages and poverty; regional inequality; labor policies; institutional weakness; some final proposals.

The gender wage gap varies across countries. For example, among OECD nations women in Australia, Belgium, Italy and Sweden earn 80% as much as males, whereas in Austria, Canada and Japan women earn about 60% as much as males. Current... more

The gender wage gap varies across countries. For example, among OECD nations women in Australia, Belgium, Italy and Sweden earn 80% as much as males, whereas in Austria, Canada and Japan women earn about 60% as much as males. Current studies examining cross-country differences focus on the impact of labor market institutions such as minimum wage laws and nationwide collective bargaining. However, these studies neglect labor market institutions that affect women’s lifetime work behavior—a factor crucially important in gender wage gap studies that employ individual data. This paper explicitly concentrates on labor market institutions that are related to female lifetime work. Using ISSP (International Social Survey Programme), LIS (Luxembourg Income Study) and OECD wage data for 40 countries covering 1970-2002, we show that the gender pay gap is positively associated with the fertility rate, positively associated with the husband-wife age gap at first marriage, and positively related t...

Latin America is experiencing an unprecedented crisis in its labor markets because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is reflected in a drastic contraction of employment, hours worked, and income. The outlook is even more worrying when... more

Latin America is experiencing an unprecedented crisis in its labor markets because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is reflected in a drastic contraction of employment, hours worked, and income. The outlook is even more worrying when considering that these impacts have been unequal and that the path of recovery, which is slowly emerging in the region, could be accompanied by a widening of labor and income gaps across different population groups. This crisis, therefore, would be exacerbating the high levels of inequality that existed before the outbreak of the pandemic, even though countries have made significant efforts to rapidly implement a set of policies aimed at sustaining employment and incomes. It is crucial to strengthen the labor institutional framework, particularly with regard to active labor market policies. Likewise, occupational health and safety have become a relevant element for any recovery strategies with safe and healthy employment.

Theory and policy relating to labor markets is dominated by the mainstream labor market model, although a less well-known, socioeconomic version can also be identified. The mainstream model is methodologically flawed and forced, thereby,... more

Theory and policy relating to labor markets is dominated by the mainstream labor market model, although a less well-known, socioeconomic version can also be identified. The mainstream model is methodologically flawed and forced, thereby, to relegate any (serious) investigation of labor market institutions and/or social structures to the margins of its analysis. The socioeconomic account is not so much methodologically flawed, as methodologically ambivalent. While this ambivalence does not actually prevent the investigation of institutions and/or social structures, it does promote ambiguity whenever we inquire into the precise nature of the interaction between them and labor markets. Insights from Austrian economics, when used in collaboration with critical realist methodology, can play a part in augmenting the socioeconomic account, generating a totally new approach to the analysis of labor markets.

The paper sets up a two-country asymmetric trade model with heterogeneous firms, search frictions and endogenous labor market institutions. Countries are linked by trade in goods and non-cooperatively set unemployment benefits to maximize... more

The paper sets up a two-country asymmetric trade model with heterogeneous firms, search frictions and endogenous labor market institutions. Countries are linked by trade in goods and non-cooperatively set unemployment benefits to maximize national welfare. We show that more open and smaller economies have more generous unemployment benefit replacement rates as a larger fraction of the costs is borne by foreign trading partners. These results are in line with empirical stylized facts. Additionally, we find that the optimal level of unemployment benefits is independent from the level of unemployment benefits abroad and that non-cooperatively set unemployment rates are inefficiently high.

The authors investigate how labor market institutions such as unemployment insurance, unions, firing regulations, and minimum wages have affected the evolution of wage inequality among male workers. Results of estimations using data on... more

The authors investigate how labor market institutions such as unemployment insurance, unions, firing regulations, and minimum wages have affected the evolution of wage inequality among male workers. Results of estimations using data on institutions in eleven OECD countries indicate that changes in labor market institutions can account for much of the change in wage inequality between 1973 and 1998. Factors found to have been negatively associated with male wage inequality are union density, the strictness of employment protection law, unemployment benefit duration, unemployment benefit generosity, and the size of the minimum wage. Over the 26-year period, institutional changes were associated with a 23% reduction in male wage inequality in France, where minimum wages increased and employment protection became stricter, but with an increase of up to 11% in the United States and United Kingdom, where unions became less powerful and (in the United States) minimum wages fell.

Más allá de la reforma laboral: buscando mecanismos alternativos que mejoren la equidad salarial. Chile es un país donde la desigualdad es un problema que podría llegar a afectar de seriamente el potencial de crecimiento y desarrollo del... more

Más allá de la reforma laboral: buscando mecanismos alternativos que mejoren la equidad salarial. Chile es un país donde la desigualdad es un problema que podría llegar a afectar de seriamente el potencial de crecimiento y desarrollo del país. Sin embargo este no es un problema exclusivo de Chile, ya que este fenómeno se ha convertido en una problemática a nivel mundial. Lo que se ha podido observar en un alto porcentaje de países de la OCDE es un incremento persistente en los niveles de desigualdad salarial, situación que coincidentemente ha ido acompañada de una reducción en la densidad sindical. Claramente la reducción del tejido sindical no es el único factor que ha incidido en la mayor desigualdad salarial, también se sabe que procesos como el cambio tecnológico y la profundización de la financiarización mundial han influenciado también el equilibrio en la asignación de recursos entre los factores productivos a favor del capital. Existe un consenso relativo, en que la forma más directa de mejorar la equidad salarial al interior de la economía-sin la intervención activa del estado-, es mediante el fortalecimiento de la negociación colectiva, en donde los actores son capaces de consensuar las condiciones de trabajo, en particular el nivel salarios. En este sentido la reforma laboral recientemente promulgada como ley, tenía como motivación inicial el fortalecimiento de la negociación colectiva, buscando obtener como resultado una mejora progresiva de los salarios medios de la economía, lo cual permitiría a su vez mejorar la distribución de la renta. Si bien la reforma laboral logra algunos avances en materia de relaciones laborales, después de una dilatada discusión y cambios en su espíritu, se puedes esperar que los efectos de esta reforma sean más bien modestos en cuanto a salarios, esto, porque en términos reales no altera la distribución de poder dentro del sistema económico-productivo. En este contexto poco alentador no se debe dejar de persistir en la búsqueda de mecanismos institucionales que puedan servir como segunda mejor opción (second best) para alcanzar mayores niveles de equidad salarial. De este modo, la institucionalidad laboral del salario mínimo y su perfeccionamiento, representa un camino viable para lograr este objetivo. Para reconocer los potenciales efectos que puede tener esta institucionalidad laboral sobre la equidad salarial, debemos responder al menos dos preguntas iniciales, ¿el salario mínimo permite superar la condición de pobreza de los trabajadores?, ¿La institucionalidad y el nivel de salario mínimo actual son los adecuados para Chile?

Social Protection Discussion Papers are not formal publications of the World Bank. They present preliminary and unpolished results of analysis that are circulated to encourage discussion and comment; citation and the use of such a paper... more

Social Protection Discussion Papers are not formal publications of the World Bank. They present preliminary and unpolished results of analysis that are circulated to encourage discussion and comment; citation and the use of such a paper should take account of its provisional ...

This chapter reviews what economists have learned about the impact of labor market institutions, defined broadly as government regulations and union activity on labor outcomes in developing countries. It finds that:(1)Labor institutions... more

This chapter reviews what economists have learned about the impact of labor market institutions, defined broadly as government regulations and union activity on labor outcomes in developing countries. It finds that:(1)Labor institutions vary greatly among developing countries but less than they vary among advanced countries. Unions and collective bargaining are less important in developing than in advanced countries while government

We estimate the effect of immigrant flows on native employment in Western Europe, and then ask whether the employment consequences of immigration vary with institutions that affect labor market flexibility. Reduced flexibility may protect... more

We estimate the effect of immigrant flows on native employment in Western Europe, and then ask whether the employment consequences of immigration vary with institutions that affect labor market flexibility. Reduced flexibility may protect natives from immigrant competition in the near term, but our theoretical framework suggests that reduced flexibility is likely to increase the negative impact of immigration on equilibrium employment. In models without interactions, OLS estimates for a panel of European countries in the 1980s and 1990s show small, mostly negative immigration effects. To reduce bias from the possible endogeneity of immigration flows, we use the fact that many immigrants arriving after 1991 were refugees from the Balkan wars. An IV strategy based on variation in the number of immigrants from former Yugoslavia generates larger though mostly insignificant negative estimates. We then estimate models allowing interactions between the employment response to immigration an...

This paper studies the role of labor market institutions on unemployment and on the cyclical properties of job flows. We construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model with search unemployment and endogenous job turnover, and... more

This paper studies the role of labor market institutions on unemployment and on the cyclical properties of job flows. We construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model with search unemployment and endogenous job turnover, and examine the consequences of introducing an unemployment benefit, a firing cost and a downward wage rigidity. The simulations suggest that downward wage rigidities, rather than unemployment

This paper presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model that can explain cross-country empirical regularities in geographical mobility, unemployment and labor market institutions. Rational agents vote over unemployment insurance... more

This paper presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model that can explain cross-country empirical regularities in geographical mobility, unemployment and labor market institutions. Rational agents vote over unemployment insurance (UI), taking the dynamic distortionary effects of insurance on the performance of the labor market into consideration. Agents with higher cost of moving, i.e., more attached to their current location, prefer more generous UI. The key assumption is that an agent´s attachment to a location increases the longer she has resided there. UI reduces the incentive for labor mobility and increases, therefore, the fraction of attached agents and the political support for UI. The main result is that this self-reinforcing mechanism can give rise to multiple steady-states - one "European" steady-state featuring high unemployment, low geographical mobility and high unemployment insurance, and one "American" steady- state featuring low unemploy...

This product is part of the RAND Labor and Population working paper series. RAND working papers are intended to share researchers' latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. They have been approved for circulation by RAND... more

This product is part of the RAND Labor and Population working paper series. RAND working papers are intended to share researchers' latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. They have been approved for circulation by RAND Labor and Population but have not been ...

By using the recent Gertler and Kiyotaki's (2010) setup, this paper explores the interaction between real distortions stemming from the labor market institutions and financial shocks. We find that neither labor market imperfections... more

By using the recent Gertler and Kiyotaki's (2010) setup, this paper explores the interaction between real distortions stemming from the labor market institutions and financial shocks. We find that neither labor market imperfections nor fiscal institutions determining ...

The purpose of the paper is to firstly provide a conceptual perspective on the existing European economic environment and secondly, to delineate the disastrous economic policies responsible for derailing the entire Greek economic... more

The purpose of the paper is to firstly provide a conceptual perspective on the existing European economic environment and secondly, to delineate the disastrous economic policies responsible for derailing the entire Greek economic establishment.The study expounds upon the very framework that EU policy has been conducted by scrutinizing the way some main economic indicators have fluctuated over the years. The

There has been a widely accepted belief that certain labor market institutions, includ-ing high taxation and generous benefits, can lead to low employment and/or high unemployment. To what extent do such priors about tax wedges and... more

There has been a widely accepted belief that certain labor market institutions, includ-ing high taxation and generous benefits, can lead to low employment and/or high unemployment. To what extent do such priors about tax wedges and unemployment ...