Labor markets and institutions

Institutions have important consequences for the performance of households, companies, governments, and entire markets—they determine the welfare of nations. Contributions to this subject area explore the underlying mechanisms and the politico-economic determinants of such structures. Many provide background analyses that offer evidence on how new institutions and policies would affect labor markets.

  • How responsive is the labor market to tax policy?

    When applied to the most responsive segments of the labor market, tax policy can increase lifetime earnings and employment

    Richard Blundell, May 2014
    With aging populations and increased demands on government revenue, countries need to boost employment and earnings. Tax policy should focus on labor market entry and retirement. Those are the points where labor supply is most responsive to tax incentives, which can enhance the flow into work of people leaving school and women with young children and can prolong employment among older workers. Human capital policy has a complementary role in improving the payoff to work and ensuring that earnings hold up longer over a lifetime.
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  • Employment protection

    Policymakers need to find the right balance between protecting workers and promoting efficient resource allocation and productivity growth

    Stefano Scarpetta, May 2014
    Laws on hiring and firing are intended to protect workers from unfair behavior by employers, to counter imperfections in financial markets that limit workers’ ability to insure themselves against job loss, and to preserve firm-specific human capital. But by imposing costs on firms’ adaptation to changes in demand and technology, employment protection legislation may reduce not only job destruction but also job creation, hindering the efficient allocation of labor and productivity growth.
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  • The internet as a labor market matchmaker

    How effective are online methods of worker recruitment and job search?

    Peter J. Kuhn, May 2014
    Since the internet’s earliest days, firms and workers have used various online methods to advertise and find jobs. Until recently there has been little evidence that any internet-based tool has had a measurable effect on job search or recruitment outcomes. However, recent studies, and the growing use of social networking as a business tool, suggest workers and firms are at last developing ways to use the internet as an effective matchmaking tool. In addition, job boards are also emerging as important for the statistical study of labor markets, yielding useful data for firms, workers, and policymakers.
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  • Can government policies reverse undesirable declines in fertility?

    Government policies can have a modest effect on raising fertility—but broader social changes lowering fertility are stronger

    Elizabeth Brainerd, May 2014
    Since 1989 fertility and family formation have declined sharply in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Fertility rates are converging on—and sometimes falling below—rates in Western Europe, most of which are below replacement levels. Concerned about a shrinking and aging population and strains on pension systems, governments are using incentives to encourage people to have more children. These policies seem only modestly effective in countering the impacts of widespread social changes, including new work opportunities for women and stronger incentives to invest in education.
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  • Temporary agency work

    Temporary agency work is not generally a stepping-stone to regular employment

    Susan N. Houseman, May 2014
    Temporary agency work has expanded in most advanced economies since the 1990s, but its growth has been controversial. Some argue that these jobs offer experience and contact with potential employers, serving as a path to regular employment, particularly for low-skilled workers. Others view them as traps, fostering low-wage, unstable employment and providing little experience and few contacts.
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  • Fixed-term contracts

    Are fixed-term contracts a stepping stone to a permanent job or a dead end?

    Werner Eichhorst, May 2014
    Fixed-term contracts have become a major form of employment in Europe. Available evidence about whether temporary jobs are a stepping stone to a permanent employment or are a dead end is mixed. The usefulness of these jobs depends on the institutional and economic environment. Fixed-term contracts can be a pathway from unemployment to employment, but their potential as a stepping stone to permanent employment is undercut if there is a strong degree of segmentation in labor markets. If that is the case, the labor flexibility motive of employers ends up dominating the screening function in offering a fixed-term contract.
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  • Introducing a statutory minimum wage in middle and low income countries

    Successful implementation of a statutory minimum wage depends on context, capacity, and institutional design

    David N. Margolis, May 2014
    Motivations for introducing a statutory minimum wage in developing countries include reducing poverty, advancing social justice, and accelerating growth. Attaining these goals depends on the national context and policy choices. Institutional capacity tends to be limited, so institutional arrangements must be adapted. Nevertheless, a statutory minimum wage could help developing countries advance their development objectives, even where enforcement capacity is weak and informality is pervasive.
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  • Tuning unemployment insurance to the business cycle

    Unemployment insurance generosity should be greater when unemployment is high—and vice versa

    Torben M. Andersen, May 2014
    High unemployment and its social and economic consequences have lent urgency to the question of how to improve unemployment insurance in bad times without jeopardizing incentives to work or public finances in the medium term. A possible solution is a rule-based system that improves the generosity of unemployment insurance (replacement rate, benefit duration, eligibility conditions) when unemployment is high and reduces the generosity when it is low.
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  • Union wage effects

    What are the economic implications of union wage bargaining for workers, firms, and society?

    Alex Bryson, July 2014
    Despite declining bargaining power, unions continue to generate a wage premium. Some feel collective bargaining has had its day. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have recently called for the removal of bargaining rights from workers in the name of wage and employment flexibility, yet unions often work in tandem with employers for mutual gain based on productivity growth. If this is where the premium originates, then firms and workers benefit. Without unions bargaining successfully to raise worker wages, income inequality would almost certainly be higher than it is.
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  • Unemployment benefits and job match quality

    Do unemployment benefits help those seeking work to obtain better jobs?

    Unemployment insurance schemes face a well-known trade-off between providing income support to those out of work and reducing their incentive to look for work. This trade-off between benefits and incentives is central to the public debate about extending benefit periods during the recent economic crisis. Often overlooked in this debate is that such support can increase the quality of the work found by the unemployed. This quality rise, in terms of both wages and duration, can be achieved by increasing the time and resources available to an individual to obtain a better job.
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