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Estimating the marginal rate of substitution between wage and employment protection

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  • Fabio Berton
  • Matteo Migheli

Abstract

Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that workers have a strong preference for job security. Building on this, the empirical research focused so far on the analysis of the “port-of-entry hypothesis” – namely on testing whether temporary jobs may act as a springboard towards standard employment relationships – underexploring the issue of what would make workers indifferent between the two options. This is the aim of the present paper. Using a dedicated survey on a random sample of workers from the Italian public employment service, we find that: i) workers actually require a monetary compensation to trade a non-standard job for a standard one; ii) moreover, they display lexicographic preferences over contracts, inasmuch as when they have to compare an open-ended contract to a freelance contract (chosen as the epitome of precariousness in Italy), the compensation they ask for does not depend on contract duration; on the opposite, when they compare open-ended jobs to fixed-term jobs (where only expected duration actually matters) the required compensation does not depend on the type of contract, but only on its planned duration; iii) the estimated MRS between wage and contract duration is 257 more Euros per month to accept a one-year shorter employment relationship.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Berton & Matteo Migheli, 2015. "Estimating the marginal rate of substitution between wage and employment protection," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 143, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:cca:wplabo:143
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    temporary work; compensation; preferences; marginal rate of substitution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

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