The "Transitional Labour Markets" Approach : Theory, history and Future Research Agenda

This contribution aims at presenting a critical and synthetic overview of the researches done, since 1995, under the aegis of the "Transitional Labour Markets" current. In its first part, the survey focuses on the positive theoretical bases of this current. They come from diverse theories of the labour market and of organisations, and are integrated into a systemic perspective. The second part deals with the normative consequences stemming from this approach. The third part presents and discusses recent developments, identifying unsolved problems.Transitional Labour Markets, employment, labour market policies.

Contingent Employment in the Netherlands

In the last decade the Dutch labour market has demonstrated an admirable capacity to generate jobs. Consequently, the unemployment rate has significantly decreased. However, the newly generated jobs are a-typical in the sense that they are not full-time jobs based on open-ended contracts. Instead, the job growth has relied on the growth of part-time and contingent jobs. While the creation of part-time jobs seems to be employee-driven, contingent employment, in contrast, seems to be driven by motives of employers to gain numerical flexibility. Data from the Netherlands show that, with the exception of student workers, contingent work is predominantly involuntary.This paper analyses the growth of contingent employment in the Netherlands.flexibility;'temps';contingent employment;labour market policies;temporary work agencies

Hybrid Entrepreneurship

In contrast to previous efforts to model the individual’s movement from wage work into entrepreneurship, we consider that individuals might transition incrementally by retaining their wage job while entering into self-employment. We show that these hybrid entrepreneurs represent a significant share of all entrepreneurial activity. Theoretical arguments are proposed to suggest why hybrid entrants are distinct from self-employment entrants, and why hybrid entry may facilitate subsequent entry into full self-employment. We demonstrate that there are significant theoretical and empirical consequences for this group and our understanding of self-employment entry and labor market dynamics. Using matched employee-employer data over eight years, we test the model on a population of Swedish wage earners in the knowledge-intensive sector.Hybrid entrepreneurship; Self-employment; Labour market dynamics; Transition determinants; Employee-employer data

On Short-Term Contracts Regulations

We present a theoretical as well as empirical analysis of the impact of employment regulations on permanent and temporary employment. We consider three different forms of such regulations, namely insider protection, fixed term contract regulations, and legislation on temporary work agencies, and we present some empirical evidence as regards total, female and young employees based on a panel of nine European countries. We show that these three types of regulations have different impacts on the employment performances of those countries. Moreover, these institutions act asymmetrically along the business cycle. The most notable findings are that lower employment protection leads to the substitution of permanent employees by termporary ones with an insignificant net effect on the total; more flexible regulations on fixed term contracts have a beneficial effect on temporary as well as permanent employment among young people; flexible regulations on temporary work agencies have a positive impact on temporary employment, while they may reduce permanent employment.Fixed Term Contracts, Temporary Work Agencies, Temporary Employment, Labour Market Institutions, Employment Protection

The Labour Market Effects of Immigration

This briefing discusses the impacts of immigration on the labour market in the UK, focusing on wages and employment

From Disability Benefits to Gainful Employment: Sub-regional Conference Report, 6-8 Oct. 2005, Reumal Center, Fojnica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

In 2004, ILO SRO Budapest asked the Austrian Government to co-fund a sub-regional seminar on disability pension reform to bring together all ILO constituents from all SEE countries (the former Yugoslavia, except Slovenia; but Albania, Moldova; and some representatives of NGOs from the host country). The purpose was to focus on detailed problems regarding the transition from benefit regimes to job integration. This request was positively received by the Austrian Government, and its funding was supplemented by French project resources, used for the disability policy survey described above. For policymakers, a meaningful reintegration of persons with disabilities into the workplace should entail the following goals brought into focus at this conference:• to come to a common understanding of the linkages – both mutually reinforcingand tensions – among employment, labour market, and social protection (benefits) policies• to evaluate the incentive/disincentive functions of disability benefit systems with regard to the labour market integration of beneficiaries• to identify the potential benefits of shifting from benefit-based approaches to labour market integration approaches in disability policy• to understand how persons with disabilities perceive their own needs for support in seeking to enter or reenter employment• to develop a set of next steps for disability policy reform towards employment integration. These were the goals of the conference “From Disability Benefits to GainfulEmployment”, held in Fojnica, BiH in October 2005 with the support of the Austrian Government. The participants included over 30 participants from federal, regional entity, and municipal levels of government in BiH as well as two representatives each from Albania, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, and Serbia – who are either policymakers, senior civil servants at labour market and social security/assistance institutions, managers of service delivery and rehabilitation institutions in the area of disability policy or subsequent fields, or NGOs working for disability rights in BiH and other SEE countries

Making work pay? The labour market effects of capping child benefits in larger families

Child benefits are typically paid on a per-child basis, without restrictions on family size. In this paper we generate unique evidence on the effects of capping child benefits by family size by examining the introduction of the UK’s ‘two-child limit’, which restricts means-tested child benefits to just two children per family. The UK government justified this policy on grounds that it would incentivise employment among larger families. We use mixed methods – combining quasi-experimental quantitative techniques and qualitative longitudinal research – to investigate the policy’s employment effects. We find no evidence that capping child benefits increases employment. Labour market activity among larger families seem to be particularly ‘sticky’ in response to reductions in benefits income, likely due to parents’ commitment to unpaid care, the scale of caregiving responsibilities and barriers to paid work. Our qualitative evidence also indicates that the effects of negative income shocks can render such policies counter-productive by pushing people further away from the labour market

Okun’s Law, unemployment and informal employment: The impact of labour market policies in Algeria since 1997

The paper tackles the job creation issue with respect to the framework of labour market policies implemented in Algeria since the late 1990s, in particular in 1997 and 2008. First, the sharp decline in unemployment rate and high elasticity vis-à-vis the GDP growth rate question the relevance of Okun's law. Second, the quantitative impact in terms of job creation is assessed as regards three employment schemes: intermediation on the labour market, safety net job creation and the effect of entrepreneurship promotion upon employment within SMEs. Third, the interplay between rising informal employment and unemployment decline before and after 2008, is addressed thanks to a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) experiment testing informal wage employment as well as informal businesses. The overall impact of employment policy schemes proves weak upon both the unemployment rate and informal employment. Informal employment stands as a cheap substitute for formal employment.Keywords: Algeria; DiD; Informal employment; Labour market policies; Okun’s law; Unemployment

Residential Peer Effects in Higher Education: Does the Field of Study Matter?

Economists have a poor understanding of the mechanisms underlying reduced-form college peer effects. In this paper we explore a candidate mechanism, the provision of school effort. We show that, when earnings reflect individual educational performance as well as the field of study selected at college, and individual effort is a function of expected earnings, the size of the peer effect varies by field. Using data from a middle-sized public university located in Southern Italy and exploiting the random assignment of first year students to college accommodation, we find evidence that peer effects are positive and statistically significant for students enrolled in the fields of Engineering, Maths and Natural Sciences – which are expected to generate higher earnings after college – and not different from zero for students enrolled in the Humanities, Social and Life Sciences, which give access to lower payoffs. An implication of our model is that shocks affecting college wage premia may alter the size of peer effects.optimal effort, fields of study, Italy, random assignment, peer effects