Job Protection Deregulation in Good and Bad Times

By Romain A Duval, Davide Furceri, João Tovar Jalles

December 14, 2017

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Romain A Duval, Davide Furceri, and João Tovar Jalles. Job Protection Deregulation in Good and Bad Times, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2017) accessed November 23, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

This paper explores the short-term employment effect of deregulating job protection for regular workers and how it varies with prevailing business cycle conditions. We apply a local projection method to a newly constructed “narrative” dataset of major regular job protection reforms covering 26 advanced economies over the past four decades. The analysis relies on country-sector-level data, using as an identifying assumption the fact that stringent dismissal regulations are more binding in sectors that are characterized by a higher “natural” propensity to regularly adjust their workforce. We find that the responses of sectoral employment to large job protection deregulation shocks depend crucially on the state of the economy at the time of reform——they are positive in an expansion, but become negative in a recession. These findings are consistent with theory, and are robust to a broad range of robustness checks including an Instrumental Variable approach using political economy drivers of reforms as instruments. Our results provide a case for undertaking job protection reform in good times, or for designing it in ways that enhance its short-term impact.

Subject: Business cycles, Economic growth, Employment, Employment protection, Labor, Labor market frictions

Keywords: Business cycle, Business cycles, Deregulation, Differential employment effect, Employment, Employment Protection, EPL reform, Growth, Labor Market, Labor market frictions, Labour market, Layoff rate, Severance pay, Southern Europe, Structural Reforms, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

44
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2017/277
Stock No:

WPIEA2017277
ISBN:

9781484333013
ISSN:

1018-5941

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