IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v20y2006i3p453-474.html

The Determinants of Contract Length in Temporary Help Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Nannicini

Abstract

. This paper investigates the determinants of labor contract duration in the case of temporary help employment. A simple theoretical model is developed, in order to depict the choice of contract length made by a firm that recruits temporary agency workers to deal with activity peaks. Assuming that the hiring of a new worker is associated with selection and training costs, longer contracts have an option value in face of a greater persistence of positive shocks. The model has two testable implications. First, the degree of serial correlation in market demand positively affects contract length. Second, the shortage of alternative employment opportunities negatively affects contract length. Using data on Italian temporary agency workers, both implications are confirmed by the econometric analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Nannicini, 2006. "The Determinants of Contract Length in Temporary Help Employment," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(3), pages 453-474, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:20:y:2006:i:3:p:453-474
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9914.2006.00350.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2006.00350.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2006.00350.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tommaso NANNICINI, 2004. "The Take-off of Temporary Employment in the Italian Labor Market," Economics Working Papers ECO2004/09, European University Institute.
    2. Susan Houseman & Machiko Osawa (ed.), 2003. "Nonstandard Work in Developed Economies: Causes and Consequences," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number nwde.
    3. Marcello Estevao & Saul Lach, 1999. "The evolution of the demand for temporary help supply employment in the United States," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-58, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Lewis M. Segal & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1997. "Temporary services employment durations: evidence from state UI data," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues WP-97-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    5. Miguel A. Malo & Fernando Munoz-Bullón, "undated". "Temporary help agencies and the labour market biography: A sequences-oriented approach," Studies on the Spanish Economy 132, FEDEA.
    6. Kvasnicka, Michael, 2005. "Does temporary agency work provide a stepping stone to regular employment?," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2005-031, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    7. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2005-031 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Florian Baumann & Mario Mechtel & Nikolai Stähler, 2011. "Employment Protection and Temporary Work Agencies," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 25(3), pages 308-329, September.
    2. Leandro Elia, 2010. "Temporary/Permanent Workers' Wage Gap: A Brand‐new Form of Wage Inequality?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 178-200, June.

    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. Andrea Ichino & Fabrizia Mealli & Tommaso Nannicini, 2008. "From temporary help jobs to permanent employment: what can we learn from matching estimators and their sensitivity?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 305-327.
    2. Andrea Ichino & Fabrizia Mealli & Tommaso Nannicini, 2005. "Temporary Work Agencies in Italy: A Springboard Toward Permanent Employment?," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 64(1), pages 1-27, September.
    3. John T. Addison & Christopher J. Surfield, 2008. "Atypical Work and Employment Continuity," Working Paper series 12_08, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, revised Jan 2008.
    4. Antoni, Manfred & Jahn, Elke J., 2006. "Do Changes in Regulation Affect Employment Duration in Temporary Work Agencies?," IZA Discussion Papers 2343, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2005-031 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kvasnicka, Michael, 2005. "Does temporary agency work provide a stepping stone to regular employment?," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2005-031, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    7. Mariagiovanna Baccara, 2007. "Outsourcing, information leakage, and consulting firms," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 269-289, March.
    8. Xavier ST‐DENIS, 2021. "The changing importance of lifetime jobs in the United Kingdom," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(2), pages 243-269, June.
    9. Fagan, Colette. & Norman, Helen. & Smith, Mark. & Gonzalez Menendez, María C., 2014. "In search of good quality part-time employment," ILO Working Papers 994839683402676, International Labour Organization.
    10. Sergio Destefanis & Raquel Fonseca, 2006. "Labour-Market Reforms and the Beveridge Curve. Some Macro Evidence for Italy," CSEF Working Papers 168, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    11. Gary Benedetto & John Haltiwanger & Julia Lane & Kevin McKinney, 2003. "Using Worker Flows in the Analysis of the Firm," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2003-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised May 2004.
    12. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Peter R. Mueser & Kenneth R. Troske, 2009. "The Role of Temporary Help Employment in Low-Wage Worker Advancement," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 399-436, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2002. "12 Million Salaried Workers are Missing," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(4), pages 649-666, July.
    14. Annette Bernhardt & Rosemary L. Batt & Susan Houseman & Eileen Appelbaum, 2016. "Domestic Outsourcing in the United States: A Research Agenda to Assess Trends and Effects on Job Quality," Upjohn Working Papers 16-253, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    15. Böheim, René & Cardoso, Ana Rute, 2007. "Temporary Agency Work in Portugal, 1995–2000," IZA Discussion Papers 3144, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Siv Gustafsson & Eiko Kenjoh, 2004. "New evidence on work among new mothers. What can trade unions do?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 10(1), pages 034-047, February.
    17. Chiara Benassi & Lisa Dorigatti, 2015. "Straight to the Core — Explaining Union Responses to the Casualization of Work: The IG Metall Campaign for Agency Workers," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 533-555, September.
    18. Yukako Ono & Daniel Sullivan, 2013. "Manufacturing Plants' Use of Temporary Workers: An Analysis Using Census Microdata," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 419-443, April.
    19. Sojung Lim, 2021. "Socioeconomic differentials in fertility in South Korea," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(39), pages 941-978.
    20. Tealdi, Cristina, 2011. "Typical and atypical employment contracts: the case of Italy," MPRA Paper 39456, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Abe, Yukiko, 2011. "The Equal Employment Opportunity Law and labor force behavior of women in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 39-55, March.

    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:bla:labour:v:20:y:2006:i:3:p:453-474. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.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.