IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5599.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Product Market Reforms, Labour Market Institutions and Unemployment

Author

Listed:
  • Griffith, Rachel
  • Harrison, Rupert
  • Macartney, Gareth

Abstract

We analyze the impact of product market competition on unemployment and wages, and how this depends on labour market institutions. We use differential changes in regulations across OECD countries over the 1980s and 1990s to identify the effects of competition. We find that increased product market competition reduces unemployment, and that it does so more in countries with labour market institutions that increase worker bargaining power. The theoretical intuition is that both firms with market power and unions with bargaining power are constrained in their behaviour by the elasticity of demand in the product market. We also find that the effect of increased competition on real wages is beneficial to workers, but less so when they have high bargaining power. Intuitively, real wages increase through a drop in the general price level, but workers with bargaining power lose out somewhat from a reduction in the rents that they had previously captured.

Suggested Citation

  • Griffith, Rachel & Harrison, Rupert & Macartney, Gareth, 2006. "Product Market Reforms, Labour Market Institutions and Unemployment," CEPR Discussion Papers 5599, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5599
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Belot, Michele & van Ours, Jan C., 2001. "Unemployment and Labor Market Institutions: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 403-418, December.
    2. Giuseppe Nicoletti & Stefano Scarpetta & Olivier Boylaud, 2000. "Summary Indicators of Product Market Regulation with an Extension to Employment Protection Legislation," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 226, OECD Publishing.
    3. Nickell, Stephen & Layard, Richard, 1999. "Labor market institutions and economic performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 46, pages 3029-3084, Elsevier.
    4. Stephen Nickell & Luca Nunziata & Wolfgang Ochel, 2005. "Unemployment in the OECD Since the 1960s. What Do We Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 1-27, January.
    5. Nickell, Stephen, 1999. "Product markets and labour markets1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, March.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Does Entry Regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence from the French Retail Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1369-1413.
    7. Torben M. Andersen & Niels Haldrup & Jan Rose Sørensen, 2000. "Labour market implications of EU product market integration," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 15(30), pages 106-133.
    8. Giuseppe Nicoletti & Stefano Scarpetta, 2005. "Product Market Reforms and Employment in OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 472, OECD Publishing.
    9. Andrea Bassanini & Ekkehard Ernst, 2002. "Labour Market Institutions, Product Market Regulation, and Innovation: Cross-Country Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 316, OECD Publishing.
    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. Jo Seldeslachts, 2008. "Synchronising Deregulation In Product And Labour Markets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(5), pages 591-617, November.
    2. Donatella Gatti & Christophe Rault & Anne-Gael Vaubourg, 2012. "Unemployment and finance: how do financial and labour market factors interact?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(3), pages 464-489, July.
    3. Borland, Jeff, 2005. "Impacts of Employment Regulation: Towards an Evaluation Framework," Occasional Papers 06/7, Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand.
    4. Monique Ebell & Christian Haefke, 2009. "Product Market Deregulation and the U.S. Employment Miracle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 479-504, July.
    5. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries," Post-Print halshs-00120584, HAL.
    6. Jo Seldeslachts, 2002. "Interactions Between Product and Labour Market Reforms," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 519.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    7. Feldmann, Horst, 2009. "Business regulation, labor force participation and employment in industrial countries," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 238-260.
    8. Donatella Gatti & Christophe Rault & Anne-Gael Vaubourg, 2012. "Unemployment and finance: how do financial and labour market factors interact?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(3), pages 464-489, July.
    9. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2003. "Unemployment in Britain: A European Success Story," CESifo Working Paper Series 981, CESifo.
    10. Zhiqi Chen & Bo Zhao, 2014. "Unemployment and product market competition in a Cournot model with efficiency wages," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(2), pages 555-579, May.
    11. Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann, 2009. "Pay-setting Systems in Europe: Ongoing Developments and Possible Reforms," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann (ed.), Designing the European Model, chapter 3, pages 82-121, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Eijffinger, S.C.W. & Rossi, A., 2006. "Structural Reforms and Growth : Product and Labor Market Deregulations," Discussion Paper 2006-112, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Sachs, Andreas, 2011. "Institutions and unemployment: Do interactions matter?," ZEW Discussion Papers 11-057, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Bertinelli, Luisito & Cardi, Olivier & Sen, Partha, 2013. "Deregulation shock in product market and unemployment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 711-734.
    15. Sebastian Weber, 2006. "Labor Market Structures, Trade and their Effect on Unemployment: A Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Investigation," IHEID Working Papers 22-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    16. Alfonso Arpaia & Gilles Mourre, 2012. "Institutions And Performance In European Labour Markets: Taking A Fresh Look At Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 1-41, February.
    17. Winfried Koeniger & Marco Leonardi & Luca Nunziata, 2007. "Labor Market Institutions and Wage Inequality," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 340-356, April.
    18. Robert Dixon & G. C. Lim & Jan C. van Ours, 2017. "Revisiting the Okun relationship," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(28), pages 2749-2765, June.
    19. Aparicio-Fenoll, Ainhoa, 2015. "The effect of product market competition on job security," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 145-159.
    20. Lars Calmfors & Giancarlo Corsetti & Michael P. Devereux & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Xavier Vives, 2008. "Chapter 3: The effect of globalisation on Western European jobs: curse or blessing?," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 71-104, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    competition; product market regulation; unemployment; wage bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:5599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.