IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-08j60003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do labor market conditions affect the strictness of employment protection legislation?

Author

Listed:
  • Riccardo Tilli

    (Department of Public Economics - Sapienza - University of Rome)

  • Enrico Saltari

    (Department of Public Economics - Sapienza - University of Rome)

Abstract

We provide a theoretical microfoundation for the negative relationship between firing costs and labor market tightness and its effects on labor market performance. The optimal level of firing costs is chosen by the employed worker i.e. the insider by maximizing her human capital. Performing a comparative statics exercise, we analyze the effects of labor market tightness on the optimal choice of firing costs. The results are clear cut and allow to obtain a decreasing firing costs function in the labor market tightness. Moreover, we show that this negative relationship can give rise to a labor market configuration characterized by multiple equilibria: prolonged average duration of unemployment will produce a labor market with low flows and high strictness of employment protection, and vice versa.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-08j60003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2008/Volume10/EB-08J60003A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ichino, Andrea & Polo, Michele & Rettore, Enrico, 2003. "Are judges biased by labor market conditions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 913-944, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Siegelman, Peter & Donohue, John J, III, 1995. "The Selection of Employment Discrimination Disputes for Litigation: Using Business Cycle Effects to Test the Priest-Klein Hypothesis," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 427-462, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Enrico Saltari, 2012. "The role of ICT and Business Services in Italy," Working Papers in Public Economics 152, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    2. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:4:p:1-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. 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.
    4. Enrico Saltari & Riccardo Tilli, 2005. "Endogenous Firing Costs and Labor Market Equilibrium," Working Papers in Public Economics 89, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    5. Álvaro Bustos & Pablo Bravo-Hurtado & Antonio Aninat, 2020. "The (Other) Effects of Restricting Access to Higher Courts: The Case of Wrongful Terminations in Labor Contracts in Chile," Documentos de Trabajo 534, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    6. Freyens, Benoit Pierre & Gong, Xiaodong, 2017. "Judicial decision making under changing legal standards: The case of dismissal arbitration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 108-126.
    7. Henri Fraisse & Francis Kramarz & Corinne Prost, 2015. "Labor Disputes and Job Flows," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(5), pages 1043-1077, October.
    8. Guido de Blasio & Daniela Vuri, 2019. "Effects of the Joint Custody Law in Italy," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 479-514, September.
    9. Goerke, Laszlo & Neugart, Michael, 2015. "Lobbying and dismissal dispute resolution systems," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 50-62.
    10. Chopard, Bertrand & Langlais, Eric, 2009. "Défaut de paiement stratégique et loi sur les défaillances d'entreprises [Strategic default and bankruptcy law]," MPRA Paper 14366, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Albanese, Andrea & Picchio, Matteo & Ghirelli, Corinna, 2020. "Timed to Say Goodbye: Does Unemployment Benefit Eligibility Affect Worker Layoffs?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    12. Fabiano Schivardi & Roberto Torrini, 2004. "Firm size distribution and employment protection legislation in Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 504, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    13. Berger, Helge & Neugart, Michael, 2011. "Labor courts, nomination bias, and unemployment in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 659-673.
    14. Bassanini, Andrea & Garnero, Andrea, 2013. "Dismissal protection and worker flows in OECD countries: Evidence from cross-country/cross-industry data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 25-41.
    15. Boeri, Tito & Garibaldi, Pietro & Moen, Espen R., 2017. "Inside severance pay," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 211-225.
    16. Bratti, Massimiliano & Conti, Maurizio & Sulis, Giovanni, 2018. "Employment Protection, Temporary Contracts and Firm-Provided Training: Evidence from Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 11339, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Hefeker, Carsten & Neugart, Michael, 2010. "Labor market regulation and the legal system," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 218-225, September.
    18. Alan Marco & Shawn Miller, & Ted Sichelman, 2015. "Do Economic Downturns Dampen Patent Litigation?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 481-536, September.
    19. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/4jcok93a4m9d1qtc3vnp4bdefk is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Eric Langlais, 2008. "Le "risque judiciaire" et les licenciements en France : le point de vue de l’économie du risque," Cahiers du CEREFIGE 0807, CEREFIGE (Centre Europeen de Recherche en Economie Financiere et Gestion des Entreprises), Universite de Lorraine, revised 2008.
    21. Pierre, Gaëlle & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2004. "Employment Regulations through the Eyes of Employers: Do They Matter and How Do Firms Respond to Them?," IZA Discussion Papers 1424, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    22. Bignon, Vincent & Caroli, Eve & Galbiati, Roberto, 2011. "Stealing to Survive: Crime and Income Shocks in 19th Century France," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1111, CEPREMAP, revised Feb 2013.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Matching Models;

    JEL classification:

    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-08j60003. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.