IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejmac/vtopics.4y2004i1n5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labor Market Performance and Flexibility: Which Comes First?

Author

Listed:
  • Saltari Enrico

    (University of Rome La Sapienza. Italy)

  • Tilli Riccardo

    (University of Rome La Sapienza. Italy)

Abstract

We use a matching framework to explore the hypothesis that firing costs are a decreasing function of labor market tightness. Conventional wisdom suggests that differences in employment protection legislation (EPL) cause differences in labor market performance. Our hypothesis suggests a reverse causality nexus: it is labor market tightness which causes labor market rigidities. The endogeneity of firing costs produces a positive externality. We show that if this externality offsets the standard search externality, the model generates multiple equilibria. which reflect a trade off between wage moderation and the strictness of EPL. We demonstrate that the equilibria are not Pareto ranked. The analysis of local stability shows that, when firing costs externality offsets the search cost externality, the equilibrium is a stable node; vice versa, the equilibrium is an unstable saddle point. Finally, we investigate the question of social efficiency, obtaining a generalization of the Hosios (1990) condition.

Suggested Citation

  • Saltari Enrico & Tilli Riccardo, 2004. "Labor Market Performance and Flexibility: Which Comes First?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:topics.4:y:2004:i:1:n:5
    DOI: 10.2202/1534-5998.1174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1534-5998.1174
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1534-5998.1174?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chia-hui Lu, 2020. "Labor participation externalities and unemployment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1002-1010.
    2. Saltari, Enrico & Tilli, Riccardo, 2011. "Firing costs and labor market tightness: Is there any relationship?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-4, March.
    3. Riccardo Tilli, 2015. "High speed and low speed structural reforms in the italian goods and labor market," QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(103), pages 67-82.
    4. Riccardo Tilli & Enrico Saltari, 2008. "Do labor market conditions affect the strictness of employment protection legislation?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 10(4), pages 1-9.
    5. Saltari, Enrico & Tilli, Riccardo, 2009. "The role and significance of endogenous firing costs in a matching model with endogenous job destruction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 799-808, October.
    6. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:4:p:1-9 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:topics.4:y:2004:i:1:n:5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.