Assessing the political viability of labor market reform : the case of employment protection

Labor market

Does the Welfare State Make Older Workers Unemployable?

This paper discusses the specificities of the labor market for older workers. It discusses the implications of those specificities for the effect of labor market institutions on the employability of those workers. It shows that while unemployment benefits indexed backwards and hiring costs are likely to harm these workers more than the average worker, the converse is true for employment protection, provided it is uniform across workers and not specifically higher for older workers. It provides some evidence on the impact of labor market institutions on older workers by comparing their outcome in the United States and France. It discusses how the welfare state can be reformed in order to improve outcomes for older workers.older workers, labor market institutions, employment, employment protection, welfare state, pensions, retirement

The political consequences of unemployment

We analyze the channels by which an ill-functioning labor market changes the preferences of the people for public policy and therefore the decisions that are made. We not only discuss labour market reform but other important aspects of policy making such as the size and structure of government spending. The class of mechanisms that we highlight can be summarized as the very existence of unemployment generating political support for "sclerosis". This may help to explain the timid pace of reform, in particular the fact that any recovery sends them at the backfront of the political agenda, and the sometimes violent opposition generated by some measures, as we have seen mostly in France.Unemployment, rigidities, employment protection, political economy, european labour markets