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The Political Economy of Flexicurity

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Author Info
Tito Boeri
J. Ignacio Conde-Ruiz
Vincenzo Galasso

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Abstract

We document the presence of a trade-off between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labor market risk. Different countries' locations along this trade-off represent stable, hard to modify, politico-economic equilibria. We develop a model in which individuals determine the strictness of EPL and the size of a redistributive UB system in two distinct political environments. Agents are heterogeneous along two dimensions: employment status -insiders and outsiders - and skills - low and high. Unlike previous work on EPL, we model employment protection as an institution redistributing also among insiders, notably in favour of the low-skill workers. A key implication of the model is that flexicurity configurations with low EPL and high UB should emerge in presence of dispersed wage structures and progressive UB systems. Micro data on wage dispersion display correlations consistent with our results. The analysis of the experience of EPL reformers yields results which are in line with the relation between EPL and progressiveness of the UB system implied by our model.

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Paper provided by FEDEA in its series Working Papers with number 2006-15.

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Date of creation: Jul 2006
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Handle: RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2006-15

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  1. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1999. "The Political Economy of Employment Protection," CEPR Discussion Papers 2109, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1999. "Assessing the political viability of labor market reform : the case of employment protection," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 73-87. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 1999. "Productivity Gains from Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 7352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Ioana Marinescu, 2008. "Are Judges Sensitive to Economic Conditions? Evidence from UK Employment Tribunals," Working Papers 0802, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  6. Acemoglu, Daron & Aghion, Philippe & Violante, Giovanni L., 2001. "Deunionization, technical change and inequality," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 229-264, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Lazear, Edward P, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. John E. Roemer, 1999. "The Democratic Political Economy of Progressive Income Taxation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 1-20, January.
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  9. Andrew E. Clark & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2004. "Job security and job protection," DELTA Working Papers 2004-16, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
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  10. Boeri, Tito, 1998. "Enforcement of Employment Security Regulations, On-The-Job Search and Unemployment Duration," CEPR Discussion Papers 1850, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Ljungqvist, Lars & Sargent, Thomas J, 2002. "The European Employment Experience," CEPR Discussion Papers 3543, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2002. "Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661314.
  13. Bentolila, Samuel & Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad Is Eurosclerosis?," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Pissarides, Christopher A., 2001. "Employment protection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 131-159, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Bertola, Giuseppe & Rogerson, Richard, 1996. "Institutions and Labour Reallocation," CEPR Discussion Papers 1519, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Conde-Ruiz, Jose Ignacio & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2005. "Positive arithmetic of the welfare state," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 933-955, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. J. Ignacio Conde-Ruiz & Vincenzo Galasso, . "Early retirement," Working Papers 2003-03, FEDEA. [Downloadable!]
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  18. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Tito Boeri & Pietro Garibaldi, 2007. "Two Tier Reforms of Employment Protection: A Honeymoon Effect?," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 37, Collegio Carlo Alberto. [Downloadable!]
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  20. Tito Boeri & Axel Börsch-Supan & Guido Tabellini, 2001. "Would you like to shrink the welfare state? A survey of European citizens," Economic Policy, CEPR, CES, MSH, vol. 16(32), pages 7-50, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume, 2007. "Technology resistance and globalisation with trade unions: the choice between employment protection and flexicurity," NIPE Working Papers 25/2007, NIPE - Universidade do Minho. [Downloadable!]
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