Labour Market Institutions

The paper takes a comparative perspective on the labour market impact on G20 and EU countries of the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. It starts from the observation that the decline in employment and rise in unemployment in relation to output or GDP reductions varies significantly across countries. It examines the impacts from an institutional perspective taking into account different channels of external, internal and wage flexibility determined by both the institutional arrangements in place before the crisis and discretionary reforms implemented during the crisis. Emphasis is placed on the role of permanent and temporary jobs, working time adjustment, wage flexibility and active and passive labour market policies. The paper shows that, at least for the time being, unemployment increases have been contained in countries with comparatively strong internal flexibility. At the same time, however, it appears that the crisis has -at least in some casescontributed to a further dualization of labour markets given that risks are allocated unequally across types of employment. JEL Classification:

This paper investigates theoretical and empirical links between jobtenure and short-term mobility wage gains. Standard theoretical approaches examining this subject (search theory, job-matching and on-the-job training models) predict a negative correlation between these variables. Furthermore, this result has been confirmed in different applied researches for US. However, European labour market institutions appear to be quite different from US ones, especially for employment protection and turnover costs. Taking this feature into account we develop a theoretical model, evaluated through analytical and simulation procedures, where optimal switching conditions determine a positive correlation between jobtenure and short-term mobility wage gains. The main proposition derived from our model is confirmed for the Italian case. Using a panel database and different econometric specifications -in order to control for individual observable and non-observable effects, firm attributes and endog...

This paper, while broadly located within reforming the labour market policy debate, is specifically focused on one aspect of the labour regulatory regime, namely the dispute resolution system. Hence, we attempt to understand the efficiency and effectiveness of the country's institutionalised dispute resolution body, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). A better and more informed understanding of the nature of dispute resolution and its determinants, it would seem, remains central to any detailed debate regarding labour market institutions in particular and labour market regulation in general. Ultimately then, the study intends to empirically verify the patterns of dispute referral, settlement and determination regionally, sectorally and historically. It should be noted at the outset that this paper, possibly for the first time for South Africa, provides a detailed economic and econometric analysis and interpretation of dispute resolution in the post-apartheid period.

The growing role of institutions and their influence on the labour market outcomes, i.e. wage rates and labour allocation, has been among the most significant characteristic features of labour markets in recent decades. Labour market economics built its paradigm on the principles of marginalism, which brought suitable instruments for analysis of market agentsíndividual decisions capable of achieving effective solutions. Smith´s " invisible hand " has gradually been limited by institutional interventions – by governments, corporations and trade unions with government legislation, corporate personnel policies and collective bargaining. The expanding regulatory interventions into the labour market and the effort to explain the reality leads inevitably to the fact that modern labour market economics incorporates more and more institutional theories. The contribution outlines the gradual invasion of neoinstitutional topics and theories into the neoclassical labour market paradigm and it analyses the differences in the neoclassical and neoinstitutional interpretation of labour markets' functioning. The recent discussion on the consequences for labour market economics theory is presented. A conclusion about the gradual direction towards a changed paradigm of labour market economics is presented.

Purpose -Greece has the highest youth unemployment rate in the European Union. Even though it is clear that persistent unemployment requires bold measures so as to engage young educated Greeks in the labour market, there is no coherent policy at present targeting that population group, especially university students. This paper explores university student internship as a new labour market institution that has the potential of enhancing youth employability in Greece. Design/methodology/approach -In order to answer the main research questions, an explorative case study methodology was chosen. This paper was based on a series of semi-structured face-to-face interviews whose aim was to explore student perceptions of the effects of a current co-operative education programme launched by the University of Macedonia in Greece.

O c c a s i O n a l Pa P e r s e r i e s n O 8 7 / J u n e 2 0 0 8 n O 8 7 J u n e 2 0 0 8 O c c a s i O n a l Pa P e r s e r i e s laBOur suPPlY anD eMPlOYMenT in THe eurO area cOunTries DeVelOPMenTs anD cHallenGes This paper can be downloaded without charge from http://www.ecb.europa.eu or from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=1084913.

HR NEWS, PRACA.PL, NGO.PL, JOBS.PL oraz partnerowi Konkursu, firmie APART. Akademia dziękuje także laureatom Konkursu "Zysk z dojrzałości 2010" za udostępnienie materiałów informacyjnych o swojej działalności. 4| | 5 WPROWADZENIE SPOŁECZNE UWARUNKOWANIA I KONSEKWENCJE NISKIEJ AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ ORAZ ROZWIĄZANIA SŁUŻĄCE JEJ ZWIĘKSZANIU EKONOMICZNE SKUTKI I UWARUNKOWANIA NISKIEJ AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ W POLSCE POPYT NA DOJRZAŁOŚĆ O POŻYTKACH Z DIALOGU MIĘDZYPOKOLENIOWEGO SŁOWO DO PRACODAWCY I PIĘĆDZIESIĘCIOLATKA DYSKRYMINACJA ZE WZGLĘDU NA WIEK, REGULACJE PRAWNE CO TO JEST ZARZĄDZANIE WIEKIEM? ROLA PRACODAWCÓW W STRATEGIACH WYDŁUŻANIA AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ AKTYWIZACJA ZAWODOWA OSÓB 50+ W DZIAŁANIACH INSTYTUCJI RYNKU PRACY PRZYKŁADY POLSKICH DOBRYCH PRAKTYK W ZAKRESIE ZARZĄDZANIA WIEKIEM ZAŁĄCZNIKI: Użyteczne strony internetowe O Projekcie "Zysk z dojrzałości" Informacja o rządowym Programie "Solidarność Pokoleń. Działania dla zwiększenia aktywności zawodowej osób w wieku 50+" Czy twoja firma jest przyjazna pracownikom 50+? -(auto)test dla pracodawcy 7 8 16 22 24 30 34 42 48 56 66 70 72 74 75 SPIS TREŚCI: 6| | 7

This article analyses the expansion of precarious work in industrialized economies, integrating the welfare regime, risk shift and segmentation literatures. I examine trends in wages, working hours, pensions and healthcare in food retail in Canada, Germany, Sweden and the USA between 1980 and 2016. Precariousness increased in each country, but the form and degree of change differed markedly, reflecting the effects of product market competition, bargaining centralization and labour regulation.

This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions. It describes the different empirical approaches used to explore the nexus between labour market institutions and labour market performance. It stresses that the effect of institutions is complex in both stock and flow models and that it is also crucial to take into account the interactions they generate among themselves and with macroeconomic shocks. While their importance in explaining labour market performances is uncontroversial, there is no full consensus on their actual impact and the precise transmission channels. In addition, rather than taking institutions for granted, a new branch of research attempts to understand them as the result of an endogenous process. The paper also briefly discusses the relationships between the efficiency of the redistributive policies (via taxation) and the type of protection provided (on the job or in the market). Lastly, the paper examines the key issue of efficient policy design both at the macro-and micro-level.

Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent, nonprofit limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) supported by the Deutsche Post AG. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. The current research program deals with (1) mobility and flexibility of labor markets, (2) internationalization of labor markets and European integration, (3) the welfare state and labor markets, (4) labor markets in transition, (5) the future of work, (6) project evaluation and (7) general labor economics.

This paper describes the development of labour market institutions and policies in seven Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries and Georgia during the transition period up to the year 2007, thus characterizing the condition of these institutions at the eve of economic crisis. It shows that in many CIS countries, public employment services lost resources, staff, and authority during the transition period, which reduced their capacity to replace lost income for unemployed workers, or to redirect them to new or better jobs. This attrition of the PESs was mainly due to policy choices made early on in the transition process with respect to their source of funding and the overall design of labour market institutions. In the early 1990s with rapidly rising unemployment and job destruction accompanied by large-scale informalization of work, these countries adopted models from well-functioning developed economies, which were ill-fitted to the national environments. After almost two decades of transition, the typical outcomes in CIS include liquidation of insurance-based employment funds and shifting of expenditures to the state or local budgets, abolition or mergers of labour market institutions, and a partial replacement of unemployment insurance with targeted social assistance. This paper will argue that an essential first step to alleviating the impact of recession-related unemployment in CIS countries is loosening eligibility criteria and improving funding for existing labour market programmes, followed by increasing the capacity of the existing national public employment services and establishing a regulatory framework for the proper functioning of private employment agencies. 1 I would like to express my gratitude to Elaine Fultz, Peter Auer, and Makiko Matsumoto for their valuable inputs and comments.

OECD unemployment rates show long swings which dominate shorter business cycle components and these long swings show a range of common patterns. Using a panel of 21 OECD countries 1960-2002, we estimate the common factor that drives unemployment by the first principal component. This factor has a natural interpretation as a measure of global expected returns, which is given added plausibility by the fact that it is almost identical to the common factor driving investment shares. We estimate a model of unemployment adjustment, which allows for the influence both of the global factor and of labour market institutions and we examine whether the global factor can act as a proxy for the natural rate in a Phillips Curve. In 15 out of the 21 countries one cannot reject that the same natural rate, as a function of the global factor, appears in both the unemployment and inflation equations. In explaining both unemployment and inflation, the global factor is highly significant, suggesting that models which ignore the global dimension are likely to be deficient.

This paper investigates the hypothesis that the extent to which hysteresis occurs in the aftermath of recessions depends on monetary policy reactions. The degree of hysteresis is explained econometrically by the extent of monetary easing during a recession and by standard variables for labour market institutions in a pooled cross-country analysis using quarterly data. The sample includes 40 recessions in 19 OECD countries for which the required data is available. The time period lasts from 1980 to 2007. The paper builds on Ball (1999) and extends the sample of countries, the time period under investigation and the set of control variables. countries and on econometric analysis which covered the recessions of 17 OECD countries in the early 1980s.

This study investigates the causes of variation in regional unemployment rates in a cross-country perspective. The explanatory variables consist of both regional-level and macro-level variables. An appropriate econometric model of random coefficients for the former and fixed coefficients for the latter variables is developed, further taking into account that observations may be correlated over time and over space and that

The OECD is a unique forum where governments work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.

This paper uses two employer-employee linked data sets to investigate the interactive role of labour market institutions and firm wage policies on the gender earnings gap. Extending the Juhn, Murphy, and Pierce (1991) decomposition methodology, a new decomposition methodology is proposed to investigate the role of firm wage policies on the gender earnings gap. Two countries with different wage bargaining systems, Australia and France, are used to conduct a comparative study. It is found that firm wage policies in Australia play a much larger role in narrowing the gender earnings gaps than in France. This is mainly due to the fact that Australia has a more decentralised wage bargaining system and that such system is operated under an environment where there is a strong union presence.

JT03314059 Document complet disponible sur OLIS dans son format d'origine Complete document available on OLIS in its original format ECO/WKP(2012)4 Unclassified English -Or. English ECO/WKP(2012)4 2 ABSTRACT/RÉSUME Less income inequality and more growth -Are they compatible?

Labour market 'deregulation' is a major economic policy issue in Australia. Some of the desire for deregulation has been part of a worldwide trend in OECD countries whilst some comes from more localised disquiet about the alleged effect of Australia's industrial relations institutions on the economy. This article looks at the evidence on Australian labour market regulation and its relation to economic performance. The article finds that Australian labour market institutions have had little effect on efficiency have provided important distributional outcomes. Furthermore it is argued that with 'globalisation' there is more reason to continue labour market protection not less to enhance Australia's capacity to trade and invest in the global economy.

Institutional factors and increased supply of skilled labour have been advanced in an effort to explain why some countries have experienced smaller increases in earnings dispersion and in returns to education than the USA and the UK. Ireland has had a highly centralized wage bargaining structure and the supply of skilled labour has increased sharply in recent years; hence, relatively little change in earnings dispersion might be expected. We compare the distribution of earnings in Ireland in 1987 and 1994 and ®nd a surprisingly large growth in earnings dispersion. In addition, using a decomposition technique, we ®nd that much of this is accounted for by increasing returns to measured characteristics.

The recent debate on trends in inequality in industrial countries has been marred by the lack of consensus about the relevant concept of inequality. Labour economists are concerned with inequality in earnings, macroeconomists with movements in the wage share, while policy-makers tend to focus on household income inequality. We provide a unifying framework to study the relationship between these three concepts of inequality and their correlation with labour market institutions. Institutional measures exhibit significant associations with inequality, yet they play different roles depending on the extent to which they complement or substitute each other. As a result, we are able to propose a set of inequality minimizing institutions. Institutions that decrease inequality are, however, associated with higher unemployment, and our analysis explores the magnitude of this trade-off, and its implications if a common labour standard is imposed on members of the European Union.

HR NEWS, PRACA.PL, NGO.PL, JOBS.PL oraz partnerowi Konkursu, firmie APART. Akademia dziękuje także laureatom Konkursu "Zysk z dojrzałości 2010" za udostępnienie materiałów informacyjnych o swojej działalności. 4| | 5 WPROWADZENIE SPOŁECZNE UWARUNKOWANIA I KONSEKWENCJE NISKIEJ AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ ORAZ ROZWIĄZANIA SŁUŻĄCE JEJ ZWIĘKSZANIU EKONOMICZNE SKUTKI I UWARUNKOWANIA NISKIEJ AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ W POLSCE POPYT NA DOJRZAŁOŚĆ O POŻYTKACH Z DIALOGU MIĘDZYPOKOLENIOWEGO DYSKRYMINACJA ZE WZGLĘDU NA WIEK, REGULACJE PRAWNE AKTYWIZACJA ZAWODOWA OSÓB 50+ W DZIAŁANIACH INSTYTUCJI RYNKU PRACY CO TO JEST ZARZĄDZANIE WIEKIEM? PRZYKŁADY POLSKICH DOBRYCH PRAKTYK W ZAKRESIE ZARZĄDZANIA WIEKIEM CO ROBIĆ, A CZEGO UNIKAĆ W AKTYWIZACJI 50+? ZAŁĄCZNIKI: Użyteczne strony internetowe O Projekcie "Zysk z dojrzałości" Informacja o rządowym Programie "Solidarność Pokoleń. Działania dla zwiększenia aktywności zawodowej osób w wieku 50+" Czy twoja firma jest przyjazna pracownikom 50+? -(auto)test dla pracodawcy 8| | 9 SPOŁECZNE UWARUNKOWANIA I KONSEKWENCJE NISKIEJ AKTYWNOŚCI ZAWODOWEJ OSÓB 50+ ORAZ ROZWIĄZANIA SŁUŻĄCE JEJ ZWIĘKSZANIU -Tomasz Schimanek Nieubłagana demografia Od kilkudziesięciu lat społeczeństwa wielu krajów rozwiniętych starzeją się. Oznacza to, że stale zwiększa się w nich udział osób dojrzałych i starszych. Ta tendencja dotyczy także Polski w perspektywie najbliższych kilkudziesięciu lat. Od 1995 r. co miesiąc przybywa na świecie milion osób, które ukończyły minimum 60. rok życia 1 . Według szacunków Światowej Organizacji Zdrowia (WHO) w 2025 r. liczba osób 60+ na świecie będzie wynosiła 1,2 mld, a w 2050 r. osiągnie 2 mld 2 .

In this paper, we investigate to what extent labour market institutions influence the way firms respond to flexibility requirements in terms of human resource management. In order to do so, we consider two contrasting economies: France and the UK. France is highly regulated, whereas the UK is more clearly a 'liberal market economy'. We focus on the food processing sector which is subject to very similar competitive pressure in both countries. Our methodology is based upon plant-level case studies. We explore numerical and functional labour flexibility in terms of outcomes at the firm level. How and to what extent are firms able to deliver flexibility in different institutional contexts? Does this matter in terms of outcomes for workers? We find evidence that firms use a combination of different forms of numerical flexibility although there appears to be a slight move away from internal flexibility (overtime) to external flexibility (agency workers) in the UK and possibly in the opposite direction in France. The research also seems to suggest that there is not a simple trade-off between numerical and functional flexibility. In France, the organisation of work indicates a more functionally flexible core, with a less skilled, numerically flexible periphery. However, in the UK there is little evidence that firms are utilising the core workforce in a similar way. Part of this may be due to the more stable workforce found in most of the French plants. But perhaps more importantly, this is likely to be due to the high cost of labour in France which creates an incentive for firms to replace many of the lowest skilled jobs by machines.

In this survey, we compare the history and status of immigration of a traditional immigration county (the US) with the experiences of a new immigration country (Germany). This reveals differences in the immigration policy as in the immigration population in the respective countries. We resume the theoretical model implications which the existing immigration should have had on the labour market outcome of natives. This takes into account the differing labour market institutions in both countries. We conclude then with a summary on the controversial debate of the empirical studies if immigration is harmful to natives or not.

The recent debate on trends in inequality in industrial countries has been marred by the lack of consensus about the relevant concept of inequality. Labour economists are concerned with inequality in earnings, macroeconomists with movements in the wage share, while policy-makers tend to focus on household income inequality. We provide a unifying framework to study the relationship between these three concepts of inequality and their correlation with labour market institutions. Institutional measures exhibit significant associations with inequality, yet they play different roles depending on the extent to which they complement or substitute each other. As a result, we are able to propose a set of inequality minimizing institutions. Institutions that decrease inequality are, however, associated with higher unemployment, and our analysis explores the magnitude of this trade-off, and its implications if a common labour standard is imposed on members of the European Union. JEL classification numbers: D31 (Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions) -D33 (Factor Income Distribution) 1 The Gini coefficient is our own computation using the Luxemburg Income Study data, the wage differential is from OECD (Trends in earning dispersion database) and the aggregate labour share is obtained from the OECD-Stan dataset. 2 The notable exception is the sharp increase and subsequent fall of the labour share during the labour government of 1974-1976, after a period of major conflict between unions and the conservative government of Heath.

In this paper we analyse the effect of immigration on the labour market prospects for different skill groups among natives. We develop a model of endogenous labour supply in which immigration affects educational decisions of natives. We argue that the distributional consequences of immigration with respect to native between-skill-group inequality are ambiguous in general and crucially depend on the host country's level of educational attainment. We show that this result is robust irrespective of labour market institutions as, e.g., with a rigid wage regime featuring unemployment. Additionally, the model is applied to assess the impact on within-skill-group wage inequality. JEL-Code: F22, J31

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are drawn from this evidence. Firms adjust wages less frequently than prices: the former tend to remain unchanged for about 15 months on average, the latter for around 10 months. The degree of price rigidity varies substantially across sectors and depends strongly on economic features, such as the intensity of competition, the exposure to foreign markets and the share of labour costs in total cost. Instead, country specificities, mostly related to the labour market's institutional setting, are more relevant in characterising the pattern of wage adjustment. The latter also exhibits a substantial degree of time-dependence, as firms tend to concentrate wage changes in a specific month, mostly January in the majority of countries. Wage and price changes feed into each other at the micro level and there is a relationship between wage and price rigidity.

Quantile regression estimates of returns to education are used to address the relation between schooling and wage inequality. Empirical evidence for male workers from 16 countries for the mid-1990s suggests a robust stylised fact: Returns to schooling are higher for the more skilled individuals, conditional on their observable characteristics. This suggests that schooling has a positive impact upon within-levels wage inequality. Factors such as over-education, abilityschooling interactions and school quality or different fields of study may be driving this result. D

European countries, based on the Survey on Income and Living Conditions conducted in 2005. Although the ranking among Northern European and Mediterranean countries is generally respected, our measures of equality of opportunity provide a different ranking with respect to the one offered by the measures of overall income inequality. Our figures show that equality of opportunity has correlation with both institutional measures of schooling (preprimary education, de-tracked secondary school) as well as with labour market institutions (union density, but not employment protection). [JEL Classification: D31, D63, J62] Keywords: inequality of opportunity, income inequality, intergenerational mobility. Questo lavoro propone una stima della disuguaglianza delle opportunità e delle sue determinanti in un campione di paesi europei utilizzando i dati della Indagine Europea sul Reddito e le Condizioni di Vita (Survey on Income and Living Conditions) del 2005. Sebbene l'ordinamento fra paesi nordici e paesi mediterranei sia generalmente rispettato, le nostre misure di uguaglianza delle opportunità forniscono un ordinamento diverso rispetto a quello delle misure di disuguaglianza complessiva del reddito. La nostra indagine inoltre evidenzia che l'uguaglianza delle opportunità è correlata sia con caratteristiche istituzionali che misurano il grado di scolarizzazione (tasso di iscrizione alla scuola materna, stratificazione nella scuola secondaria) sia con caratteristiche strutturali del mercato del lavoro (importanza del ruolo dei sindacati piuttosto che di meccanismi di tutela dell'occupazione). 265 *

Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent, nonprofit limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) supported by the Deutsche Post AG. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. The current research program deals with (1) mobility and flexibility of labor markets, (2) internationalization of labor markets and European integration, (3) the welfare state and labor markets, (4) labor markets in transition, (5) the future of work, (6) project evaluation and (7) general labor economics.

This paper explores the role of labour market policy and institutional factors in explaining cross-national differences in earnings mobility across Europe in the 1990s using the European Community Household Panel and OECD data on institutional variables. More regulation in both labour and product markets emerge as sources of labour market rigidity, being positively associated with earnings immobility and exacerbating the

A vast and often confusing economics literature relates competition to investment in innovation. Following Joseph Schumpeter, one view is that monopoly and large scale promote investment in research and development by allowing a firm to capture a larger fraction of its benefits and by providing a more stable platform for a firm to invest in R&D. Others argue that competition promotes innovation by increasing the cost to a firm that fails to innovate. This lecture surveys the literature at a level that is appropriate for an advanced undergraduate or graduate class and attempts to identify primary determinants of investment in R&D. Key issues are the extent of competition in product markets and in R&D, the degree of protection from imitators, and the dynamics of R&D competition. Competition in the product market using existing technologies increases the incentive to invest in R&D for inventions that are protected from imitators (e.g., by strong patent rights). Competition in R&D can s...

This paper investigates theoretical and empirical links between jobtenure and short-term mobility wage gains. Standard theoretical approaches examining this subject (search theory, job-matching and on-the-job training models) predict a negative correlation between these variables. Furthermore, this result has been confirmed in different applied researches for US. However, European labour market institutions appear to be quite different from US ones, especially