Labor and Product Market Reforms and External Imbalances: Evidence from Advanced Economies
Labor and Product Market Reforms and External Imbalances: Evidence from Advanced Economies

Author: Mr.Romain A Duval

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-02-26

Total Pages: 31

ISBN-13: 1513570749

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

We explore the impact of major labor and product market reforms on current account dynamics using a new “narrative” database of major changes in employment protection for regular workers and product market regulation for non-manufacturing industries covering 26 advanced economies over the past four decades. Our main finding is that product market deregulation is associated with a weakening of the current account, while labor market deregulation is associated with an improvement. These effects are transitory and driven by both saving and investment responses. Labor and product market reforms both have a more positive impact on the current account balance when implemented under weak macroeconomic conditions. Our results are broadly consistent with predictions from recent DSGE models with endogenous producer entry and labor market frictions.

Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies
Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies

Author: Gabriele Ciminelli

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2018-08-16

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 1484373723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Labor market deregulation, intended to boost productivity and employment, is one plausible, yet little studied, driver of the decline in labor shares that took place across most advanced economies since the early 1990s. This paper assesses the impact of job protection deregulation in a sample of 26 advanced economies over the period 1970-2015, using a newly constructed dataset of major reforms to employment protection legislation for regular contracts. We apply the local projection method to estimate the dynamic response of the labor share to our reform events at both the country and the country-industry levels. For the latter, we employ a differences-in-differences identification strategy using two identifying assumptions grounded in theory—namely that job protection deregulation should have larger negative effects in industries characterized by (i) a higher “natural” propensity to adjust the workforce, and (ii) a lower elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. We find a statistically significant, economically large and robust negative effect of deregulation on the labor share. In particular, illustrative back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that job protection deregulation may have contributed about 15 percent to the average labor share decline in advanced economies. Together with existing evidence regarding the macroeconomic gains from job protection and other labor market reforms, our results also point to the need for policymakers to address efficiency-equity trade-offs when designing such reforms.

Law and Employment
Law and Employment

Author: James J. Heckman

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 0226322858

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.

What is the Impact of Increased Business Competition?
What is the Impact of Increased Business Competition?

Author: Sónia Félix

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-12-13

Total Pages: 57

ISBN-13: 1513521519

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This paper studies the macroeconomic effect and underlying firm-level transmission channels of a reduction in business entry costs. We provide novel evidence on the response of firms' entry, exit, and employment decisions. To do so, we use as a natural experiment a reform in Portugal that reduced entry time and costs. Using the staggered implementation of the policy across the Portuguese municipalities, we find that the reform increased local entry and employment by, respectively, 25% and 4.8% per year in its first four years of implementation. Moreover, around 60% of the increase in employment came from incumbent firms expanding their size, with most of the rise occurring among the most productive firms. Standard models of firm dynamics, which assume a constant elasticity of substitution, are inconsistent with the expansionary and heterogeneous response across incumbent firms. We show that in a model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups the most productive firms face a lower demand elasticity and expand their employment in response to increased entry.

Labor and Product Market Reforms in Advanced Economies
Labor and Product Market Reforms in Advanced Economies

Author: Angana Banerji

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-03-13

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1475583974

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Product and labor market reforms are needed to lift persistently sluggish growth in advanced economies. But reforms have progressed slowly because of concerns about their distributive and short-term economic effects. Our analysis, based on new empirical and numerical analysis and country case-studies shows that most labor and product market reforms can improve public debt dynamics over the medium-term. This because reforms raise output by boosting employment and/or labor productivity. But the effect of some labor market reforms on budgetary outcomes and fiscal sustainability depends critically on business cycle conditions. Our evidence also suggests that some temporary and well-designed up-front fiscal stimulus can help enhance the economic impact of reforms. In the past, countries have used fiscal incentives in the past to facilitate reforms by alleviating transition and social costs. But strong ownership of reforms was crucial for their successful implementation.

Wage-Led Growth
Wage-Led Growth

Author: Engelbert Stockhammer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-12-03

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1137357932

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume seeks to go beyond the microeconomic view of wages as a cost having negative consequences on a given firm, to consider the positive macroeconomic dynamics associated with wages as a major component of aggregate demand.

Sticky Feet
Sticky Feet

Author: Claire H. Hollweg

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2014-07-03

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1464802637

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This report quantifies labor mobility costs in developing countries and simulates the implied adjustment paths of employment and wages following a change in trade policy. High mobility costs are shown to reduce the potential gains to trade reform.