Labour Market Performance and Start-Up Costs: OECD Evidence

This paper is intended to make a contribution to the empirical literature explaining the rise ofunemployment since the 1970s in western economies by means of interactions betweenshocks and institutions. The contribution is twofold. First, the impact of a general feature ofdeveloped economies that has been surprisingly neglected in the literature is analyzed,namely, the employment shift from industry and agriculture to services. The secondcontribution of the paper is the focus on the interaction of that shock with the administrativeburdens on firm creation. The working hypothesis is that countries that impose high costs onthe creation of new companies are not able to create enough jobs in the service sector tosuccessfully absorb the workers released from the agriculture and industry sector. The resultis higher unemployment.Macroeconomics of unemployment, Panel data, Startup costs.

Business Environment and Labor Market Outcomes in European and Central Asian Countries

Firm entry has been proven to be fundamental for job creation in transition economies. The creation of new ventures as well as their survival and expansion depends on the business environment of the country. It is therefore important to adopt policies aimed at improving the framework conditions in which firms are created and operate. The aim of this paper is to assess which of those conditions are most important for private sector employment creation in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. For that purpose we run a multivariate regression where employment creation is explained by means of the interaction of a macroeconomic shock with the set of institutions shaping the business environment of the country. The rationale is that the investment climate determines the response of the labor market to the transition shock. We find that among European transition economies, the development of the financial sector is the most important variable. Market regulation (credit and labor regulation), start-up costs, and the tax burden are all found to significantly affect employment as well. Among those economies further away from a market economy, especially those in Central Asia, market regulation, corruption, and the (bad) quality of the legal system are found to be the most deterrent institutions for employment creation in the private sector. Next in line comes the access to the required financial means to create and expand a business

Labour Market Performance and Start-up Costs: OECD Evidence

This paper is intended to make a contribution to the empirical literature explaining the rise of unemployment since the 1970s in western economies by means of interactions between shocks and institutions. The contribution is twofold. First, the impact of a general feature of developed economies that has been surprisingly neglected in the literature is analyzed, namely, the employment shift from industry and agriculture to services. The second contribution of the paper is the focus on the interaction of that shock with the administrative burdens on firm creation. The working hypotheses is that countries that impose high costs on the creation of new companies are not able to create enough jobs in the service sector to successfully absorb the workers released from the agriculture and industry sector. The result is higher unemployment.macroeconomics of unemployment, panel data, start-up costs

Assessing European competitiveness: The new CompNet micro-based database. National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 279

Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets for 17 European countries (13 Euro-Area), the paper documents the newly expanded database of cross-country comparable competitivenessrelated indicators built by the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet). The new database provides information on the distribution of labour productivity, TFP, ULC or size of firms in detailed 2-digit industries but also within broad macro-sectors or considering the full economy. Most importantly, the expanded database includes detailed information on critical determinants of competitiveness such as the financial position of the firm, its exporting intensity, employment creation or price-cost margins. Both the distribution of all those variables, within each industry, but also their joint analysis with the productivity of the firm provides critical insights to both policymakers and researchers regarding aggregate trends dynamics. The current database comprises 17 EU countries, with information for 56 industries, including both manufacturing and services, over the period 1995-2012. The paper aims at analysing the structure and characteristics of this novel database, pointing out a number of results that are relevant to study productivity developments and its drivers. For instance, by using covariances between productivity and employment the paper shows that the drop in employment which occurred during the recent crisis appears to have had “cleansing effects” on EU economies, as it seems to have accelerated resource reallocation towards the most productive firms, particularly in economies under stress. Lastly, this paper will be complemented by four forthcoming papers, each providing an in-depth description and methodological overview of each of the main groups of CompNet indicators (financial, trade-related, product and labour market)

Assessing European competitiveness: The new CompNet micro-based database

Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets for 17 European countries (13 Euro-Area), the paper documents the newly expanded database of cross-country comparable competitivenessrelated indicators built by the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet). The new database provides information on the distribution of labour productivity, TFP, ULC or size of firms in detailed 2-digit industries but also within broad macro-sectors or considering the full economy. Most importantly, the expanded database includes detailed information on critical determinants of competitiveness such as the financial position of the firm, its exporting intensity, employment creation or price-cost margins. Both the distribution of all those variables, within each industry, but also their joint analysis with the productivity of the firm provides critical insights to both policymakers and researchers regarding aggregate trends dynamics. The current database comprises 17 EU countries, with information for 56 industries, including both manufacturing and services, over the period 1995-2012. The paper aims at analysing the structure and characteristics of this novel database, pointing out a number of results that are relevant to study productivity developments and its drivers. For instance, by using covariances between productivity and employment the paper shows that the drop in employment which occurred during the recent crisis appears to have had “cleansing effects” on EU economies, as it seems to have accelerated resource reallocation towards the most productive firms, particularly in economies under stress. Lastly, this paper will be complemented by four forthcoming papers, each providing an in-depth description and methodological overview of each of the main groups of CompNet indicators (financial, trade-related, product and labour market)

Assessing European competitiveness: the new CompNet microbased database

Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets for 17 European countries (13 Euro-Area), the paper documents the newly expanded database of cross-country comparable competitiveness-related indicators built by the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet). The new database provides information on the distribution of labour productivity, TFP, ULC or size of firms in detailed 2-digit industries but also within broad macrosectors or considering the full economy. Most importantly, the expanded database includes detailed information on critical determinants of competitiveness such as the financial position of the firm, its exporting intensity, employment creation or price-cost margins. Both the distribution of all those variables, within each industry, but also their joint analysis with the productivity of the firm provides critical insights to both policy-makers and researchers regarding aggregate trends dynamics. The current database comprises 17 EU countries, with information for 56 industries, including both manufacturing and services, over the period 1995-2012. The paper aims at analysing the structure and characteristics of this novel database, pointing out a number of results that are relevant to study productivity developments and its drivers. For instance, by using covariances between productivity and employment the paper shows that the drop in employment which occurred during the recent crisis appears to have had “cleansing effects” on EU economies, as it seems to have accelerated resource reallocation towards the most productive firms, particularly in economies under stress. Lastly, this paper will be complemented by four forthcoming papers, each providing an in-depth description and methodological overview of each of the main groups of CompNet indicators (financial, trade-related, product and labour market)

Entrepreneurial activity and aggregate employment performance: Theory and OECD evidence.

Abstract not available

Labour Reallocation in Recession and Recovery:Evidence for Europe

This paper builds upon Bartelsman, Lopez-Garcia, and Presidente (2018) and provides empirical evidence on the cyclical features of labour reallocation in a sample of European Union (EU) countries over the Great Recession and the slow recovery. The analysis makes use of cross-country micro-aggregated data on firm dynamics and productivity from release 6 of the ECB CompNet database. While productivity-enhancing reallocation generally is counter-cyclical, with a stronger effect providing a silver lining in downturns, it was weaker during the Great Recession in the EU, but reverted back to more normal patters in the most recent years

Is corruption efficiency-enhancing? A case study of nine Central and Eastern European countries

We investigate the role of corruption in the business environment in explaining the efficiency of within-sector production factor allocation across firms in nine Central and Eastern European countries in the period 2003-2012. Using a conditional convergence model, we find evidence of a positive relationship between corruption growth and both labour and capital misallocation dynamics, once country framework conditions are controlled for: the link between corruption and input misallocation dynamics is larger the smaller the country, the lower the degree of political stability and of civil liberties, and the weaker the quality of its regulations. As input misallocation is one of the determinants of productivity growth, we further show that the relationship between changes in corruption and TFP growth is indeed negative. Our results hold when we tackle a possible omitted variable bias by instrumenting corruption with two instrumental variables (the percentage of women in Parliament and freedom of the press)