IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cesifo/v62y2016i3p453-490..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment Protection and Misallocation of Resources Across Plants: International Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Addisu A. Lashitew

Abstract

Employment protection affects aggregate productivity via several channels in potentially contradicting ways, which makes it difficult to establish the relationship between the two. This study focuses on the misallocation of production factors across plants, which has been shown in past studies to substantially reduce aggregate productivity. The study provides new evidence on the effect of employment protection on resource misallocation using a large data set of manufacturing plants covering more than 90 countries. For measuring misallocation, I use the within-industry dispersion of the marginal product of labor and total factor productivity. The results show that higher cost of dismissing redundant workers is positively associated with misallocation. This effect appears to be larger in industries that have greater demand for adjusting labor, that is, in industries with intrinsically high layoff rates, and in expanding or shrinking industries. (JEL codes: O40, J08, L60, D24)

Suggested Citation

  • Addisu A. Lashitew, 2016. "Employment Protection and Misallocation of Resources Across Plants: International Evidence," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 62(3), pages 453-490.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:62:y:2016:i:3:p:453-490.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifv023
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haltiwanger, John C. & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schweiger, Helena, 2006. "Assessing Job Flows across Countries: The Role of Industry, Firm Size and Regulations," IZA Discussion Papers 2450, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Laura Alfaro & Andrew Charlton & Fabio Kanczuk, 2009. "Plant Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2008, pages 243-272, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lucia Foster & John C. Haltiwanger & C. J. Krizan, 2001. "Aggregate Productivity Growth: Lessons from Microeconomic Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 303-372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Choi, Sangyup & Furceri, Davide & Yoo, Seung Yong, 2024. "Heterogeneity in the effects of uncertainty shocks on labor market dynamics and extensive vs. intensive margins of adjustment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    2. Nadav Ben Zeev & Tomer Ifergane, 2022. "Firing Restrictions and Economic Resilience: Protect and Survive?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 93-124, January.
    3. Tosapol Apaitan & Nasha Ananchotikul & Piti Disyatat, 2017. "Structural Transformation in Thailand: A Perspective Through Product Innovation," PIER Discussion Papers 72, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Nadav Ben Zeev & Tomer Ifergane, 2019. "Employment Protection Legislation and Economic Resilience: Protect and Survive?," Working Papers 1910, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.

    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. 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.
    2. Hernan Moscoso Boedo & Toshihiko Mukoyama, 2012. "Evaluating the effects of entry regulations and firing costs on international income differences," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 143-170, June.
    3. Alexander Hijzen & Richard Upward & Peter W. Wright, 2010. "Job Creation, Job Destruction and the Role of Small Firms: Firm‐Level Evidence for the UK," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(5), pages 621-647, October.
    4. Pierella Paci & Pieter Serneels, 2007. "Employment and Shared Growth : Rethinking the Role of Labor Mobility for Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6765.
    5. Poschke, Markus, 2009. "Employment protection, firm selection, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1074-1085, November.
    6. Haltiwanger, John & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schweiger, Helena, 2014. "Cross country differences in job reallocation: The role of industry, firm size and regulations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 11-25.
    7. Haltiwanger, John C. & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schweiger, Helena, 2006. "Assessing Job Flows across Countries: The Role of Industry, Firm Size and Regulations," IZA Discussion Papers 2450, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Daniel A. Dias & Carlos Robalo Marques, 2021. "Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining: Cleansing Effects of the Portuguese Financial Crisis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 352-376, April.
    9. Mary Hallward-Driemeier & Bob Rijkers, 2013. "Do Crises Catalyze Creative Destruction? Firm-level Evidence from Indonesia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1788-1810, December.
    10. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2013. "Misallocation and productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, January.
    11. Tanja Kosi & Štefan Bojnec, 2013. "Institutional barriers to business entry in advanced economies," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 317-329, April.
    12. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    13. Philippe Aghion & Thibault Fally & Stefano Scarpetta, 2007. "Credit constraints as a barrier to the entry and post-entry growth of firms [‘Dualism and macroeconomic volatility’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 22(52), pages 732-779.
    14. Eric Manes, 2009. "Pakistan's Investment Climate : Laying the Foundation for Growth, Volume 2. Annexes," World Bank Publications - Reports 12411, The World Bank Group.
    15. Young Eun Kim & Norman V. Loayza, 2019. "Productivity Growth: Patterns and Determinants across the World," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 42(84), pages 36-93.
    16. Eric Bartelsman & John Haltiwanger & Stefano Scarpetta, 2013. "Cross-Country Differences in Productivity: The Role of Allocation and Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 305-334, February.
    17. D'Erasmo, Pablo N. & Moscoso Boedo, Hernan J., 2012. "Financial structure, informality and development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 286-302.
    18. Guasch, J. Luis & Orte, Manuel De & Pena, Jorge, 2008. "Investment climate assessment based on demean Olley and Pakes decompositions: methodology and application to Turkey's investment climate survey," UC3M Working papers. Economics we082012, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    19. Giovanni Dosi & Sébastien Lechevalier & Angelo Secchi, 2010. "Interfirm heterogeneity: nature, sources and consequences for industrial dynamics. An introduction," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00642680, HAL.
    20. John Martin & Stefano Scarpetta, 2012. "Setting It Right: Employment Protection, Labour Reallocation and Productivity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 89-116, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    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:oup:cesifo:v:62:y:2016:i:3:p:453-490.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.