The labor market effects of payroll taxes in a middle-income country: evidence from Colombia

We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyze how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980’s and 1990’s affected the labor market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This “less-than-full-shifting†is likely to be the result of weak linkages between benefits and taxes and the presence of downward wage rigidities induced by a binding minimum wage in Colombia. Because the costs of taxation are only partly shifted from employers to employees, employment should also fall. Our results indicate that a 10% increase in payroll taxes lowered formal employment by between 4% and 5%. In addition, we find less shifting and larger disemployment effects for production than non-production workers. These results suggest that policies aimed at boosting the relative demand of low-skill workers by reducing social security taxes on those with low earnings may be effective in a country like Colombia, especially if tax cuts are targeted to indirect benefits. Keywords; payroll taxes, shifting, wage rigidity, minimum wages

The labor market effects of payroll taxes in a middle-income country: Evidence from Colombia

We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyze how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980’s and 1990’s affected the labor market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This 'less-than-full-shifting' is likely to be the result of weak linkages between benefits and taxes and the presence of downward wage rigidities induced by a binding minimum wage in Colombia. Because the costs of taxation are only partly shifted from employers to employees, employment should also fall. Our results indicate that a 10% increase in payroll taxes lowered formal employment by between 4% and 5%. In addition, we find less shifting and larger disemployment effects for production than non-production workers. These results suggest that policies aimed at boosting the relative demand of low-skill workers by reducing social security taxes on those with low earnings may be effective in a country like Colombia, especially if tax cuts are targeted to indirect benefits.Payroll taxes, shifting, wage rigidity, minimum wages

The impact of firing costs on turnover and unemployment: Evidence from the Colombian labour market reform

Reductions in firing costs are often advocated as a way of increasing the dynamism of labour markets in both developed and less developed countries. Evidence from Europe and the U.S. on the impact of firing costs has, however, been mixed. Moreover, legislative changes both in Europe and the U.S. have been limited. This paper, instead, examines the impact of the Colombian Labour Market Reform of 1990, which substantially reduced dismissal costs. I estimate the incidence of a reduction in firing costs on worker turnover by exploiting the temporal change in the Colombian labour legislation as well as the variability in coverage between formal and informal sector workers. Using a grouping estimator to control for common aggregate shocks and selection, I find that the exit hazard rates into and out of unemployment increased after the reform by over 1% for formal workers (covered by the legislation) relative to informal workers (uncovered). The increase of the hazards implies a net decrease in unemployment of a third of a percentage point, which accounts for about one quarter of the fall in unemployment during the period of study.Firing costs, worker turnover, exit hazard rates, grouping estimators, selection biases, labour market reform

From severance pay to self-insurance: Effects of severance payments savings accounts in Colombia

In 1990 Colombia replaced its traditional system of severance payments with a new system of severance payments savings accounts (SPSAs). Although severance payments often are justified on the grounds that they provide insurance against earnings loss, they also increase costs for employers and distort employment decisions. The impact of severance payments depends largely on how much of the costs to employers can be shifted to workers. The theoretical analysis in this paper shows that, in contrast to a traditional system of severance payments, the system of SPSAs facilitates the shifting of severance payments costs to workers in the form of lower wages. Empirical results using the Colombian National Household Surveys indicate that the introduction of SPSAs shifted around 80% of the total severance payments contributions to wages and had a positive effect on weekly hours. Results using the 1997 Colombian Living Standards Measurement Survey suggest that, although SPSAs in part replaced employer insurance with self-insurance, SPSAs continue to play a consumption smoothing role for the non-employed.Distortions, tax shifting, unemployment insurance, consumption smoothing, crowding out

The Effect of Structural Reforms on Productivity and Profitability Enhancing Reallocation: Evidence from Colombia

In the U.S., some sectoral evidence suggests that growth is driven mainly by productivity enhancing reallocation. In countries with greater barriers to entry and imperfect competition, the reallocation process may be inefficient. Therefore, for developing countries, an open question is whether reallocation is productivity enhancing. Using a unique plant-level longitudinal dataset for Colombia for the period 1982-1998 we examine the interaction between market allocation, productivity and profitability. Given the important trade, labor and financial market oriented reforms in Colombia in 1990, we explore whether and how the contribution of reallocation changed. Our data include plant-level quantities and prices. Using plant prices, we propose a sequential methodology to estimate productivity and demand shocks. First, with plant-level physical output data, we estimate total factor productivity (TFP) using downstream demand to instrument for inputs. Then, with plant-level price data, we estimate demand shocks and mark-ups in the inverse-demand equation, using TFP to instrument for output. We characterize the evolution of TFP and demand shock distributions. Market reforms are associated with rising overall productivity that is driven by reallocation away from low- and towards high-productivity businesses; and, the allocation of activity across businesses is less driven by demand factors.

Protective or Counter-Productive? European Labor Market Institutions and the Effect of Immigrants on EU Natives

We estimate the effect of immigrant flows on native employment in Western Europe, and then ask whether the employment consequences of immigration vary with institutions that affect labor market flexibility. Reduced flexibility may protect natives from immigrant competition in the near term, but our theoretical framework suggests that reduced flexibility is likely to increase the negative impact of immigration on equilibrium employment. In models without interactions, OLS estimates for a panel of European countries in the 1980s and 1990s show small, mostly negative immigration effects. To reduce bias from the possible endogeneity of immigration flows, we use the fact that many immigrants arriving after 1991 were refugees from the Balkan wars. An IV strategy based on variation in the number of immigrants from former Yugoslavia generates larger though mostly insignificant negative estimates. We then estimate models allowing interactions between the employment response to immigration and institutional characteristics including business entry costs. These results, limited to the sample of native men, generally suggest that reduced flexibility increases the negative impact of immigration. Many of the estimated interaction terms are significant, and imply a significant negative effect on employment in countries with restrictive institutions.

Effects of employment protection and product market regulations on the Italian labor market

Labor market regulations have often being blamed for high and persistent unemployment in Europe, but evidence on their impact remains mixed. More recently, attention has turned to the impact of product market regulations on employment growth. This paper analyzes how labor and product market regulations interact to affect turnover and employment. We present a matching model which illustrates how barriers to entry in the product market mitigate the impact of labor market deregulation. We, then, use the Italian Social Security employer-employee panel to study the interaction between barriers to entry and dismissal costs. We exploit the fact that costs for unjust dismissals in Italy increased for firms below 15 employees relative to bigger firms after 1990. We find that the increase in dismissal costs after 1990 decreased accessions and separations in small relative to big firms, especially for women. Moreover, consistent with our model, we find evidence that the increase in dismissal costs had smaller effects on turnover for women in sectors faced with strict product market regulations.Barriers to entry, costs of unjust dismissals, European Unemployment

Effects of Low-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Natives: Evidence from Hurricane Mitch

In the 1980s the composition of immigrants to the U.S. shifted towards less-skilled workers. Around this time, real wages and employment of younger and lesseducated U.S. workers fell. Some blame recent immigration shifts for the misfortunes of unskilled workers in the U.S. OLS estimates using Census data show instead that native wages are positively related to the recent influx of Latin Americans. However, these estimates are biased if demand shocks are positively related to immigration. An IV strategy, which deals with the endogeneity of immigration by exploiting a large influx of Central American immigrants towards U.S. Southern ports of entry after Hurricane Mitch, also generates positive wage effects but only for more educated native men. Yet, ignoring the flows of native and earlier immigrants in response to this exogeneous immigration is likely to generate upward biases in these estimates too. Native wage effects disappear and less-skilled employment of previous Latin American immigrants falls when controlling for outmigration. This highlights the importance of controlling for out-migration not only of natives but also of previous immigrants in regional studies of immigration.Immigration, Imperfect Substitution, Disemployment Effects, Natural Experiments, Outmigration

The effects of structural reforms on productivity and profitability enhancing reallocation: Evidence from Colombia

Estimates for the U.S. suggest that at least in some sectors productivity enhancing reallocation is the dominant factor in accounting for producitivity growth. An open question, particularly relevant for developing countries, is whether reallocation is always productivity enhancing. It may be that imperfect competition or other barriers to competitive environments imply that the reallocation process is not fully e?cient in these countries. Using a unique plant-level longitudinal dataset for Colombia for the period 1982-1998, we explore these issues by examining the interaction between market allocation, and productivity and profitability. Moreover, given the important trade, labor and financial market reforms in Colombia during the early 1990's, we explore whether and how the contribution of reallocation changed over the period of study. Our data permit measurement of plant-level quantities and prices. Taking advantage of the rich structure of our price data, we propose a sequential mehodology to estimate productivity and demand shocks at the plant level. First, we estimate total factor productivity (TFP) with plant-level physical output data, where we use downstream demand to instrument inputs. We then turn to estimating demand shocks and mark-ups with plant-level price data, using TFP to instrument for output in the inversedemand equation. We examine the evolution of the distributions of TFP and demand shocks in response to the market reforms in the 1990's. We find that market reforms are associated with rising overall productivity that is largely driven by reallocation away from low- and towards highproductivity businesses. In addition, we find that the allocation of activity across businesses is less driven by demand factors after reforms. We find that the increase in aggregate productivity post-reform is entirely accounted for by the improved allocation of activity.TFP measurement, productivity and demand decompositions, structural reforms