IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3104.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does strict employment protection discourage job creation? Evidence from Croatia

Author

Listed:
  • Rutkowski, Jan

Abstract

Employment protection legislation in Croatia is among the most strict in Europe. Firing is difficult and costly, and flexible forms of employment are limited. Is this apparent rigidity reflected-as one would expect based on standard economic theory-in low labor market dynamics? Is job creation low and hiring limited? Is the job security of insiders achieved at the cost of outsiders not being able to enter thelabor market? The author attempts to answer these questions by examining job flows. If the employment protection legislation is binding, then job and worker turnover should be low. He shows that this is indeed the case. Hiring is limited and the average job tenure is very long in Croatia. Job destruction is low, however job creation is still lower. The result is accumulation of unemployment, in large part due to new labor market entrants not being able to find a job. The high degree of job protection also seems to strengthen the bargaining position of insiders and results in relatively high wages. So, wages in Croatia are higher than among its competitors, even after adjusting for productivity. These high labor costs are likely to contribute to limited job creation in existing firms, but also are likely to discourage the entry of-and thus job creation in-new firms. The author presents evidence that firm growth has been indeed limited in Croatia, contributing to the low employment level. The author examines other potential causes of high unemployment in Croatia (the unemployment benefit system, labor taxation, the wage structure, and skill and spatial mismatches). He argues that they do not play a substantial part in accounting for poor labor market outcomes in Croatia. The author concludes that the stringent employment protection legislation is the key labor market institution behind low job creation and high unemployment. Based on this he recommends specific measures aimed at liberalizing the labor market to foster job creation and employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Rutkowski, Jan, 2003. "Does strict employment protection discourage job creation? Evidence from Croatia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3104, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2003/08/30/000094946_03082104020549/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giuseppe Bertola & Francine Blau & Lawrence Kahn, 2007. "Labor market institutions and demographic employment patterns," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 833-867, October.
    2. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Juan J Dolado & Carlos Garcia--Serrano & Juan F. Jimeno, 2002. "Drawing Lessons From The Boom Of Temporary Jobs In Spain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(721), pages 270-295, June.
    4. Dominik H. Enste & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 77-114, March.
    5. C.J. Krizan & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2002. "The Link Between Aggregate and Micro Productivity Growth: Evidence from Retail Trade," Working Papers 02-18, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. Mark Doms & Eric J. Bartelsman, 2000. "Understanding Productivity: Lessons from Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 569-594, September.
    7. Riboud, Michelle & Sanchez-Paramo, Carolina & Silva-Jauregui, Carlos, 2002. "Does eurosclerosis matter ? - institutional reform and labor market performance in Central and Eastern European countries in the 1990s," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 24083, The World Bank.
    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. World Bank, 2010. "Croatia : Social Impact of the Crisis and Building Resilience," World Bank Publications - Reports 2903, The World Bank Group.
    2. Rutkowski, Jan, 2006. "Labor market developments during economic transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3894, The World Bank.
    3. World Bank, 2004. "Serbia and Montenegro : An Agenda for Economic Growth and Employment," World Bank Publications - Reports 14487, The World Bank Group.
    4. Tyrowicz, Joanna & van der Velde, Lucas, 2018. "Labor reallocation and demographics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 381-412.
    5. Maja Micevska, 2004. "Unemployment and Labour Market Rigidities in Southeast Europe," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 49, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    6. Maja Micevska, 2008. "The Labour Market in Macedonia: A Labour Demand Analysis," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(2), pages 345-368, June.
    7. World Bank, 2011. "Employment Protection Legislation and Labor Market Outcomes : Theory, Evidence and Lessons for Croatia," World Bank Publications - Reports 12902, The World Bank Group.
    8. Mejra Festic & Dejan Romih, 2007. "Flexicurity As A Forward-Looking Model: Evidence From Nms-12," Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, Faculty of Financial Management and Accounting Craiova, vol. 2(1(2)_Fall).
    9. Rutkowski, Jan, 2004. "Firms, jobs, and employment in Moldova," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3253, The World Bank.
    10. World Bank, 2005. "The Quest for Equitable Growth in the Slovak Republic : A World Bank Living Standards Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 8312, The World Bank Group.
    11. International Monetary Fund, 2004. "Republic of Croatia: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix," IMF Staff Country Reports 2004/251, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Alexander Krauss, 2015. "Creating and destroying jobs across East Asia Pacific: a country-level analysis on wages, exports, finance, regulation and infrastructure," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, December.
    13. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2014. "Can We Really Explain Worker Flows in Transition Economies?," Working Papers 2014-28, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

    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. Markus Poschke, 2010. "The Regulation of Entry and Aggregate Productivity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(549), pages 1175-1200, December.
    2. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & Helen Simpson, 2009. "Technological Catch‐Up And Geographic Proximity," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 689-720, October.
    3. Kox, Henk L.M. & Leeuwen, George van & Wiel, Henry van der, 2010. "Competitive, but too small - productivity and entry-exit determinants in European business services," MPRA Paper 24389, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Leora Klapper & Raphael Amit & Mauro F. Guillén, 2010. "Entrepreneurship and Firm Formation across Countries," NBER Chapters, in: International Differences in Entrepreneurship, pages 129-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Fabiano Schivardi & Eliana Viviano, 2007. "Entry barriers in Italian retail trade," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 616, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Benno Torgler, 2003. "Tax Morale in Transition Countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 357-381.
    7. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Howitt, Peter, 2014. "What Do We Learn From Schumpeterian Growth Theory?," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 515-563, Elsevier.
    8. Doraszelski, Ulrich & Jaumandreu, Jordi, 2006. "R&D and productivity: Estimating production functions when productivity is endogenous," MPRA Paper 1246, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Cuéllar Martín, Jaime & Martín-Román, Ángel L. & Moral, Alfonso, 2017. "A composed error model decomposition and spatial analysis of local unemployment," MPRA Paper 79783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Sameeksha Desai, 2009. "Measuring Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-10, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Jacob Holm, 2014. "The significance of structural transformation to productivity growth," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 1009-1036, November.
    12. Coad, Alex & Segarra, Agustí & Teruel, Mercedes, 2016. "Innovation and firm growth: Does firm age play a role?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 387-400.
    13. Hazans, Mihails, 2011. "What explains prevalence of informal employment in European countries : the role of labor institutions, governance, immigrants, and growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5917, The World Bank.
    14. Axel Dreher & Christos Kotsogiannis & Steve McCorriston, 2009. "How do institutions affect corruption and the shadow economy?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(6), pages 773-796, December.
    15. Mitton, Todd, 2008. "Institutions and concentration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 367-394, June.
    16. Richard Dion & Robert Fay, 2008. "Understanding Productivity: A Review of Recent Technical Research," Discussion Papers 08-3, Bank of Canada.
    17. Axel Dreher & Friedrich Schneider, 2010. "Corruption and the shadow economy: an empirical analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 215-238, July.
    18. Breton, Theodore R., 2004. "Can institutions or education explain world poverty? An augmented Solow model provides some insights," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 45-69, March.
    19. Dreher, Axel & Kotsogiannis, Christos & McCorriston, Steve, 2007. "Corruption around the world: Evidence from a structural model," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 443-466, September.
    20. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Chad Syverson, 2008. "Reallocation, Firm Turnover, and Efficiency: Selection on Productivity or Profitability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 394-425, March.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:3104. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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.