IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aeq/aeqaeq/v54_y2008_i3_q3_p217-227.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutional Rigidities and Employment Rigidity on the Italian Labour Market

Author

Listed:
  • Rebeca Jiménez-Rodríguez
  • Giuseppe Russo

Abstract

A well-established result in the theoretical literature on labour market flexibility is that the employment should be more volatile in “flexible” labour markets. Over the last 35 years, Italy gives a good example of a transition from an over-regulated labour market into a quite more flexible one. According to the theory, the deregulation is expected to increase the employment variance. Despite the anecdotal evidence reported in the press, the literature hardly finds any evidence for such an effect. This paper exploits time-series of several employment indicators since 1980, allowing us to compare decades with different labour market regulation. All the considered series show evidence of a structural break with an increase in their variance after the deregulation, confirming the expected pattern. This gives some support to the concerns for increased job insecurity.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebeca Jiménez-Rodríguez & Giuseppe Russo, 2008. "Institutional Rigidities and Employment Rigidity on the Italian Labour Market," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 54(3), pages 217-227.
    • Handle: RePEc:aeq:aeqaeq:v54_y2008_i3_q3_p217-227
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June.
    2. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    3. Rainer Winkelmann & Klaus Zimmermann, 1998. "Is job stability declining in Germany? Evidence from count data models," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(11), pages 1413-1420.
    4. Katharine G. Abraham & Susan N. Houseman, 1994. "Does Employment Protection Inhibit Labor Market Flexibility? Lessons from Germany, France, and Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Social Protection versus Economic Flexibility: Is There a Trade-Off?, pages 59-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    6. Samuel Bentolila & Giuseppe Bertola, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad is Eurosclerosis?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402.
    7. Wang, Jiahui & Zivot, Eric, 2000. "A Bayesian Time Series Model of Multiple Structural Changes in Level, Trend, and Variance," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 374-386, July.
    8. Yannick L’Horty, 2004. "Instabilité de l’emploi : quelles ruptures de tendance?," Documents de recherche 04-01, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    9. Gabriel Perez-Quiros & Margaret M. McConnell, 2000. "Output Fluctuations in the United States: What Has Changed since the Early 1980's?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1464-1476, December.
    10. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue mar.
    11. Herrera, Ana Maria & Pesavento, Elena, 2005. "The Decline in U.S. Output Volatility: Structural Changes and Inventory Investment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 462-472, October.
    12. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Rebeca Jimenez-Rodriguez & Amalia Morales-Zumaquero & Balazs Egert, 2010. "The VARying Effect of Foreign Shocks in Central and Eastern Europe," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp989, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    2. Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca & Morales-Zumaquero, Amalia & Égert, Balázs, 2010. "The effect of foreign shocks in Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 461-477, July.
    3. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2018. "Does The Great Recession Imply The End Of The Great Moderation? International Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 745-760, April.
    4. Pierre Perron & Yohei Yamamoto, 2022. "The great moderation: updated evidence with joint tests for multiple structural changes in variance and persistence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 1193-1218, March.
    5. Geweke, John & Jiang, Yu, 2011. "Inference and prediction in a multiple-structural-break model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 163(2), pages 172-185, August.
    6. WenShwo Fang & Stephen M. Miller, 2014. "Output Growth and its Volatility: The Gold Standard through the Great Moderation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(3), pages 728-751, January.
    7. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2018. "Does The Great Recession Imply The End Of The Great Moderation? International Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 745-760, April.
    8. Fang, WenShwo & Miller, Stephen M., 2009. "Modeling the volatility of real GDP growth: The case of Japan revisited," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 312-324, August.
    9. Erdenebat Bataa & Denise R. Osborn & Marianne Sensier & Dick van Dijk, 2014. "Identifying Changes in Mean, Seasonality, Persistence and Volatility for G7 and Euro Area Inflation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(3), pages 360-388, June.
    10. Steven Trypsteen, 2014. "Cross-Country Interactions, the Great Moderation and the Role of Output Volatility in Growth," Discussion Papers 2014/10, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    11. WenShwo Fang & Stephen M. Miller & ChunShen Lee, 2008. "Cross‐Country Evidence On Output Growth Volatility: Nonstationary Variance And Garch Models," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(4), pages 509-541, September.
    12. Benati, Luca, 2007. "Drift and breaks in labor productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2847-2877, August.
    13. Carmen Pagés-Serra, 2000. "The Cost of Job Security Regulation: Evidence from Latin American Labor Markets," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2000), pages 109-154.
    14. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2018. "On the interdependence of natural gas and stock markets under structural breaks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 149-161.
    15. Pierre Perron & Yohei Yamamoto & Jing Zhou, 2020. "Testing jointly for structural changes in the error variance and coefficients of a linear regression model," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), pages 1019-1057, July.
    16. João Pedro Pereira & Vasco Pesquita & Paulo M. M. Rodrigues & António Rua, 2019. "Market integration and the persistence of electricity prices," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 1495-1514, November.
    17. Esteve Vicente & Prats Maria A., 2021. "Structural Breaks and Explosive Behavior in the Long-Run: The Case of Australian Real House Prices, 1870–2020," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 72-84, January.
    18. Hännikäinen Jari, 2017. "Selection of an Estimation Window in the Presence of Data Revisions and Recent Structural Breaks," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, January.
    19. Mohitosh Kejriwal, 2020. "A Robust Sequential Procedure for Estimating the Number of Structural Changes in Persistence," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(3), pages 669-685, June.
    20. Yunjong Eo & James Morley, 2022. "Why Has the U.S. Economy Stagnated since the Great Recession?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 246-258, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    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:aeq:aeqaeq:v54_y2008_i3_q3_p217-227. 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: Deborah Anne Bowen The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Deborah Anne Bowen to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.duncker-humblot.de .

    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.