Reformas laborales de mercado y desempleo: enseñanzas de la experiencia de los países de la OCDE

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) El mercado laboral de la OCDE ha experimentado cambios importantes en las últimas dos décadas. El más evidente de esos cambios ha sido el aumento del número de personas en busca de empleo. En 1997 hubo más de 35 millones de personas desempleadas en la zona de la OCDE en total; alrededor de seis millones más que a mediados de los 80 y casi 25 millones más que a comienzos de los 70. Estas cifras ocultan profundas diferencias de un país a otro. En los principales países europeos, el desempleo ha aumentado considerablemente en las últimas dos décadas y en algunos de ellos, incluidos Italia, España y Francia, incrementos que en un principio fueron cíclicos han tendido a hacerse estructurales con el tiempo.

The Driving Forces of Economic Growth: Panel Data Evidence for the OECD Countries

This paper discusses links between policy settings, institutions and economic growth in OECD countries on the basis of pooled cross-country time-series regressions. The novel econometric approach used in the paper allows short-term adjustments and convergence speeds to vary across countries, in accordance with most theoretical models, while imposing restrictions only on the long-run coefficients. In addition to the "primary" influences of physical and human capital accumulation, the results confirm the importance for growth of R&D activity, the macroeconomic environment, trade openness and well developed financial markets. They also confirm that many of the policy influences operate not only via the overall efficiency of factor use but also indirectly via the mobilisation of resources for fixed investment.Growth; Institutions

Boosting productivity via innovation and adoption of new technologies : any role for labor market institutions?

The authors present empirical evidence on the determinants of industry-level multifactor productivity growth. They focus on"traditional factors,"including the process of technological catch up, human capital, and research and development (R&D), as well as institutional factors affecting labor adjustment costs. Their analysis is based on harmonized data for 17 manufacturing industries in 18 industrial economies over the past two decades. The disaggregated analysis reveals that the process of technological convergence takes place mainly in low-tech industries, while in high-tech industries, country leaders tend to pull ahead of the others. The link between R&D activity and productivity also depends on technological characteristics of the industries: while there is no evidence of R&D boosting productivity in low-tech industries, the effect is strong in high-tech industries, but the technology leaders tend to enjoy higher returns on R&D expenditure compared with followers. There is also evidence in the data that high labor adjustment costs (proxied by the strictness of employment protection legislation) can have a strong negative impact on productivity. In particular, when institutional settings do not allow wages or internal training to offset high hiring and firing costs, the latter reduce incentives for innovation and adoption of new technologies, and lead to lower productivity performance. Albeit drawn from the experience of industrial countries, this result may have relevant implications for many developing economies characterized by low relative wage flexibility and high labor adjustment costs.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Growth

Regulation, productivity, and growth : OECD evidence

The authors look at differences in the scope and depth of pro-competitive regulatory reforms and privatization policies as a possible source of cross-country dispersion in growth outcomes. They suggest that, despite extensive liberalization and privatization in the OECD area, the cross-country variation of regulatory settings has increased in recent years, lining up with the increasing dispersion in growth. The authors then investigate empirically the regulation-growth link using data that cover a large set of manufacturing and service industries in OECD countries over the past two decades and focusing on multifactor productivity (MFP), which plays a crucial role in GDP growth and accounts for a significant share of its cross-country variance. Regressing MFP on both economywide indicators of regulation and privatization and industry-level indicators of entry liberalization, the authors find evidence that reforms promoting private governance and competition (where these are viable) tend to boost productivity. In manufacturing the gains to be expected from lower entry barriers are greater the further a given country is from the technology leader. So, regulation limiting entry may hinder the adoption of existing technologies, possibly by reducing competitive pressures, technology spillovers, or the entry of new high technology firms. At the same time, both privatization and entry liberalization are estimated to have a positive impact on productivity in all sectors. These results offer an interpretation to the observed recent differences in growth patterns across OECD countries, in particular between large continental European economies and the United States. Strict product market regulations-and lack of regulatory reforms-are likely to underlie the relatively poorer productivity performance of some European countries, especially in those industries where Europe has accumulated a technology gap (such as information and communication technology-related industries). These results also offer useful insights for non-OECD countries. In particular, they point to the potential benefits of regulatory reforms and privatization, especially in those countries with large technology gaps and strict regulatory settings that curb incentives to adopt new technologies.Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance

How labor market policies can combine workers'protection with job creation : a partial review of some key issues and policy options

To what extent have macro and structural reforms in many developing countries affected the labor market? Are current policy settings in the labor market adequate to cope with the current challenges of a more dynamic but also more risky economic environment? Are there examples of successful labor reforms that have combined greater adaptability with greater workers'protection? What can labor policy do when resources are scarce and informality looms large? These are some of the questions the authors address in this paper by presenting an in-depth review of formal policy and institutional settings in the labor market of many developing and emerging economies. They also report some evidence of the effects of policy reforms on job creation and on the ability of workers to cope with shocks.The structure of the paper is as follows. In Section 1, the authors review the evidence on the flexibility of the labor market in developing and emerging economies, and discuss how macro and structural changes have affected workers. In Section 2 they maps government laws and regulations in the labor market and assess their potential effects on workers as well as on firms'decision to invest and create jobs. Finally, in Section 3 they discuss the role of public policies in promoting the mobility of workers towards more productive jobs while also helping them to deal with labor adjustment and, more generally, unemployment risk.Labor Markets,Labor Policies,,Economic Theory&Research,Population Policies

Labour Market Reforms and Unemployment: Lessons from the Experience of the OECD Countries

The OECD labor market has undergone major changes over the past two decades. The most evident of these changes is the rise in the number of job-seekers. In 1997, there were more than 35 million people unemployed in the OECD area as a whole, some 6 million more than in the mid-1980s and almost 25 million more than in the early 1970s. These figures hide profound differences across countries. In the major European countries, unemployment has increased dramatically over the past two decades and in some of them, including Italy, Spain, and France, increases that were initially cyclical have tended to become structural over time

Employment protection

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

How OECD countries can address the migration backlash

As European policymakers attempt to respond to the migration crisis, they face a challenge in terms of public opinion, with many proposed solutions, such as refugee quota systems, proving deeply unpopular in several countries. Based on a new report by the OECD, Stefano Scarpetta outlines how these challenges can be met by states dealing with large inflows of refugees

Setting It Right: Employment Protection, Labour Reallocation and Productivity

This paper provides a critical review of the recent empirical evidence on the links between regulations affecting the hiring and firing of workers, labour reallocation and productivity growth. It also reviews how workers affected by labour mobility fare and discusses policy options to support them. The upshot is that employment protection has a sizeable effect on labour market flows and these flows, in turn, have significant impacts on productivity growth. At the same time, the evidence also shows that while greater labour market reallocation benefits many workers through higher real wages and better careers, some displaced workers lose out via longer unemployment durations and/or lower real wages in post-displacement jobs. In this context, reforms of employment protection should be considered as part of a comprehensive package that also includes an adequate safety net for the unemployed and effective re-employment services.job and worker flows, employment protection, productivity

"Knowledge, technology and economic growth: an OECD perspective"

In this paper we present an international comparison of growth trends with special attention given to developments in labour productivity, allowing for human capital accumulation, and multifactor productivity (MFP), allowing for changes in the composition of fixed capital. In this context an attempt is made, where possible, to identify both the embodied (in particular in ICT equipment) and disembodied components of technical progress. The possible relation between improvements in MFP and the accumulation of knowledge (as proxied by R&D expenditures) is also discussed, and some tentative policy considerations are advanced, mainly with reference to general framework conditions that might have a bearing in fostering technological changes