Labour market institutions and labour market performance: A survey of the literature

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.labour market performance, labour market institutions, redistributive policies, unemployment dynamics, Arpaia, Mourre

EU labour market behaviour during the Great Recession

This paper provides an analysis of the labour market adjustment to the 2008-2009 recession in terms of employment, unemployment, hours worked and wages. It highlights differences in the response of employment and unemployment across countries and different socioeconomic groups. For all EU Member States, it provides evidence of the developments during the crisis of the monthly job finding and separation rates. This helps to assess whether the increase in unemployment is due to an increase of job separation or to a decline in the job finding rate. The paper discusses the risks of jobless growth and compares the dynamics of unemployment and employment across different periods. It provides evidence of an asymmetric response over the cycle, with recessions being characterised by more job destruction than by job creation in the following recoveries. The analysis of the wage dynamics during the recession suggests that there has been an adjustment in the compensation per employee led by the variable component; yet, this has not been sufficient to avoid the increase in the nominal unit labour costs due to labour hoarding.Unemployment, Workers' flows, job separation, job finding rate, Okun's law,

EU labour market behaviour during the Great Recession

This paper provides an analysis of the labour market adjustment to the 2008-2009 recession. It highlights differences in the response of employment and unemployment across countries and different socioeconomic groups. For all EU Member States, it provides evidence of the developments during the crisis of the monthly job finding and separation rates. This helps to assess whether the increase in unemployment is due to an increase of job separation or to a decline in the job finding rate. The paper discusses the risks of jobless growth and compares the dynamics of unemployment and employment across different periods. It provides evidence of an asymmetric response over the cycle, with recessions being characterised by more job destruction than by job creation in the following recoveries. The analysis of the wage dynamics suggests that there has been an adjustment in the compensation per employee led by the variable component; yet, this has not been sufficient to avoid the increase in the nominal unit labour costs due to labour hoarding.european union eu recession labour markets unemeployment Workers' flows job separation job finding rate Okun's law arpaia curci

Institutions and performance in European labour markets: taking a fresh look at evidence

This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions and performance and offers new empirical EU-based evidence on the impact of labour market reforms on employment and labour market adjustment. While the literature traditionally treats labour market institutions as exogenous, attention shifted recently towards understanding the underlying causes of specific institutional arrangements. As a consequence, the literature highlights the great importance of an efficient policy design exploiting these interactions wisely and identifies general principles for achieving an efficient policy design at both macro and micro levels. While empirical evidence does no show a major change in terms of intensity of labour market reform after the setting of the Economic and Monetary Union and the creation of the euro, the reforms aiming at strengthening the labour market attachment of vulnerable groups tend to have been successful both in raising their employment and increasing labour market adjustment.'Institutions and Performance in European Labour Markets', 'labour market functioning; political economy; endogeneity; institutions; policy design'; Arpaïa, Mourre

Do labour taxes (and their composition) affect wages in the short and in the long run?

Measures aimed at reducing the tax burden on labour have been advocated to alleviate the EU unemployment problem. Most of the analyses document a relationship between the unemployment rate and the tax burden on labour. Hence, it is not possible to discern whether the effect on unemployment derives from labour demand, labour supply or through the wage formation mechanism. Moreover, the empirical analyses are usually static, and may be indicative of the steady-state determinants of the unemployment rate and do not reveal the features of the adjustment process. This paper studies the relationship between labour taxes and labour costs by modelling the wage formation mechanism in a dynamic context. We test if the composition of labour taxes affects labour costs in the short- and in the long-run and whether highly centralised bargaining systems have better employment performance than decentralised ones. We apply static and dynamic panel data techniques to a panel of EU countries. Our findings suggest that there is probably some wage resistance in the short-term but not in the long-term, although the transition to the long-term can be very long and therefore the short- term impact and the dynamics of adjustment can be long-lasting.Taxation, tax wedge, tax incidence, labour costs, wage resistance, employment, dynamic panel data, social security contributions.

EU labour market behaviour during the Great Recession

This paper provides an analysis of the labour market adjustment to the 2008-2009 recession in terms of employment, unemployment, hours worked and wages. It highlights differences in the response of employment and unemployment across countries and different socioeconomic groups. For all EU Member States, it provides evidence of the developments during the crisis of the monthly job finding and separation rates. This helps to assess whether the increase in unemployment is due to an increase of job separation or to a decline in the job finding rate. The paper discusses the risks of jobless growth and compares the dynamics of unemployment and employment across different periods. It provides evidence of an asymmetric response over the cycle, with recessions being characterised by more job destruction than by job creation in the following recoveries. The analysis of the wage dynamics during the recession suggests that there has been an adjustment in the compensation per employee led by the variable component; yet, this has not been sufficient to avoid the increase in the nominal unit labour costs due to labour hoarding.Unemployment, Workers’ flows, job separation, job finding rate, Okun’s law

Nominal and real wage flexibility in EMU

Both common macroeconomic shocks and country-specific developments have subjected the flexibility of wage setting mechanisms in the euro area to a stress test in recent years. Against this background, this paper takes a fresh look at wage flexibility in EMU and attempts to draw a few lessons from the experience of the early years. First, we set the stage for the analysis by providing a brief description of the stylised facts regarding nominal and real wage and unit labour cost developments in the euro area over the recent business cycle. Then, the paper presents an empirical assessment of wage inertia based on new econometric estimates of a Phillips-curve type wage equation across euro area countries and offers an interpretation of the main findings with respect to nominal and real wage flexibility. Finally, we investigate the cyclical responsiveness of relative competitive positions among euro area countries. We conclude that from a bird's eye perspective euro area wage and labour cost dynamics have been quite benign in the past couple of years. However, our estimates suggest that persistent cross-country differences in wage and labour cost developments have not always reflected warranted adjustment needs; they are rather indicative of an eventually insufficient degree of nominal and real wage flexibility in the euro area.wage, EMU, Wage flexibility, real wage, nominal wage, labour cost, Arpaia, Pichelmann

Assessing the short-term impact of pension reforms on older workers' participation rates in the EU: a diff-in-diff approach

After presenting an extensive overview of the reforms undertaken in the EU between 1990 and 2006, The paper assess with a diff-in-diff technique the short-term effects of pension reforms on the participation rates of individuals aged between 50 and 64 years. The analysis suggests that in the short-term pension reforms have different effects on the participation rate of men and women. First, reforms tightening the access to early retirement have a positive effect on female participation, but reduce somewhat male participation rates. Second, the results for non-fundamental reforms are more uncertain. Third, reforms that change the way of financing pensions or the eligibility conditions (what we dubbed fundamental reforms), usually with long phasing-in periods, may have unintended short-run effects on the female participation rate. Thus, our findings point at the importance of designing pension reforms and strategies to reform social security that reduce the risks of undesired effects on the decision to remain in the labour market. Workers' information about pension rules and uncertainties about long transition periods may influence in the short-term the retirement decision in a way which is not consistent with the intended effects of the reformDiff-in-Diff, pension reforms, participation rates, Arpaia, Dybczak, Pierini

Understanding Labour Income Share Dynamics in Europe

This paper seeks to understand labour share dynamics in Europe over the medium run. After documenting basic empirical regularities, we quantify the contribution of shifts in the sectoral and the employment composition of the economy to labour share movements. The findings from the shift-share analysis being on the descriptive side, we next identify the factors underlying labour share behaviour through a model-based approach. We proceed along the lines of Bentolila and Saint Paul (2003) but adopt a production function with capital-skill complementarity. We show that labour share movements are driven by a complex interplay of demand and supply conditions for capital and different skill categories of labour, the nature of technological progress and imperfect market structures.Based upon robust calibration, we show that most of the declining pattern in labour shares in nine EU15 Member States is governed by capital deepening in conjunction with capital-augmenting technical progress and labour substitution across skill categories. Although institutional factors also play a significant role, they appear to be of somewhat less importance.To illustrate the force of the technological explanation we quantitatively assess the dynamic impact of a permanent reduction in the fraction of unskilled employment on the labour share. We find that, for a given elasticity of substitution between the two categories of labour, the more skilled labour is complementary to capital, the more pronounced the decline in the labour share.   Labour income share, medium term, two-level CES technology, market institutions, Understanding Labour Income Share Dynamics in Europe, Alfonso Arpaia, Pérez, Pichelmann

Labour mobility and labour market adjustment in the EU

Estimation output of VAR models. (DOCX 26 kb