IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/11078.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employment Protection and Productivity: Evidence from firm-level panel data in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • OKUDAIRA Hiroko
  • TAKIZAWA Miho
  • TSURU Kotaro

Abstract

Recent developments in the literature on employment protection legislation (EPL) have revealed that changing the stringency of employment protection can lead to extensive consequences outside of the labour market, by affecting firms' production decisions or workers' commitment levels. This paper provides the first empirical evaluation of the comprehensive effect of restrictions on firing employees in Japan, by exploiting the variations in court decisions. We find that judgments lenient to workers significantly reduce firms' total-factor productivity growth rate. The effect on capital is mixed and inconclusive, although we obtain modest evidence that an increase in firing costs induces a negative scale effect on capital inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • OKUDAIRA Hiroko & TAKIZAWA Miho & TSURU Kotaro, 2011. "Employment Protection and Productivity: Evidence from firm-level panel data in Japan," Discussion papers 11078, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:11078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/11e078.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghosal, Vivek & Loungani, Prakash, 1996. "Product Market Competition and the Impact of Price Uncertainty on Investment: Some Evidence from US Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 217-228, June.
    2. Julián Messina & Giovanna Vallanti, 2007. "Job Flow Dynamics and Firing Restrictions: Evidence from Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(521), pages 279-301, June.
    3. James J. Heckman & Carmen Pagés, 2004. "Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number heck04-1.
    4. Hiroko Okudaira, 2008. "The Economic Costs of Court Decisions Concerning Dismissals in Japan: Identification by Judge Transfers," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 08-08, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    5. Kazuo Ogawa & Kazuyuki Suzuki, 2000. "Uncertainty and Investment: Some Evidence from the Panel Data of Japanese Manufacturing Firms," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 170-192, June.
    6. Heckman, James J. & Pages, Carmen (ed.), 2004. "Law and Employment," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226322827, September.
    7. James J. Heckman & Carmen Pagés, 2004. "Introduction to "Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin American and the Caribbean"," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 1-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira, 2003. "The Economics of Employment Protection," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 24(1), pages 85-129, January.
    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. Francois J. Stofberg & Jan H. van Heerden & Heinrich R. Bohlmann, 2020. "A Fiscus for Better Economic and Social Development in South Africa," Working Papers 202072, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    2. Daniel Schwab, 2019. "Labor protection laws and the drain on productivity: Evidence from India," Working Papers 1906, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    3. Bjuggren, Carl Magnus, 2018. "Employment protection and labor productivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 138-157.
    4. Daniel Schwab, 2016. "Employment Protection and the Labor Informality of the Youth: Evidence from India," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-280, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    5. Alpysbayeva, Dinara & Vanormelingen, Stijn, 2022. "Labor market rigidities and misallocation: Evidence from a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Andrew E. Clark & Akiko Kamesaka & Teruyuki Tamura, 2015. "Rising aspirations dampen satisfaction," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 515-531, October.
    7. OKUDAIRA Hiroko & TAKIZAWA Miho & YAMANOUCHI Kenta, 2022. "Does Employee Downsizing Work? Evidence from Product Innovation at Manufacturing Plants," Discussion papers 22015, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. Li, Guangzhong & Fujiyama, Keishi & Wu, Cen & Zheng, Ying, 2024. "Employment protection, corporate governance, and labor productivity around the World," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. Daniel Schwab, 2020. "Labor protection laws and the drain on productivity: Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 383-401, May.
    10. Michele Capriati & Valeria Cirillo & Marialuisa Divella, 2024. "Productivity slowdown across European regions: does non-standard work matter?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(9), pages 1687-1709, September.
    11. Chaudhary,Sarur & Sharma,Siddharth, 2022. "The Impact of Lifting Firing Restrictions on Firms : Evidence from a State-Level Labor Law Amendment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10039, The World Bank.
    12. Stofberg, F.J. & van Heerden, J.H. & Horridge, M. & Roos, L., 2022. "A fiscus for better economic and social development in South Africa," Conference papers 333392, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    13. Guo, Jing & Tang, Qi & Jin, Guangzhu, 2021. "Labor protection and the efficiency of human capital investment," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 195-207.
    14. Jayakody, Shashitha & Morelli, David & Nica, Melania & Oberoi, Jaideep, 2024. "Trust and employment protection legislation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).

    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. Holzmann, Robert & Pouget, Yann & Vodopivec, Milan & Weber, Michael, 2011. "Severance Pay Programs around the World: History, Rationale, Status, and Reforms," IZA Discussion Papers 5731, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. González, Xulia & Miles-Touya, Daniel, 2012. "Labor market rigidities and economic efficiency: Evidence from Spain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 833-845.
    3. Zaveh, Fakhraldin, 2014. "Search, Rigidities and Unemployment Dynamics," EconStor Preprints 157661, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Schultz, T. Paul, 2009. "The Gender and Generational Consequences of the Demographic Transition and Population Policy: An Assessment of the Micro and Macro Linkages," Working Papers 71, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    5. Kaplan, David S., 2009. "Job creation and labor reform in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 91-105, March.
    6. Stefan Pahl & Marcel P. Timmer, 2020. "Do Global Value Chains Enhance Economic Upgrading? A Long View," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(9), pages 1683-1705, July.
    7. Marco Leonardi & Giovanni Pica, 2013. "Who Pays for it? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1236-1278, December.
    8. Djankov, Simeon & Ramalho, Rita, 2009. "Employment laws in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-13, March.
    9. Elizabeth M. King & Claudio E. Montenegro & Peter F. Orazem, 2012. "Economic Freedom, Human Rights, and the Returns to Human Capital: An Evaluation of the Schultz Hypothesis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(1), pages 39-72.
    10. Auerbach, Paula & Genoni, María Eugenia & Pagés, Carmen, 2005. "Social Security Coverage and the Labor Market in Developing Countries," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1111, Inter-American Development Bank.
    11. Bosch, Mariano & Manacorda, Marco, 2008. "Minimum wages and earnings inequality in urban Mexico. Revisiting the evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19561, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Arias, Omar & Blom, Andreas & Bosch, Mariano & Cunningham, Wendy & Fiszbein, Ariel & Lopez Acevedo, Gladys & Maloney, William & Saavedra, Jaime & Sanchez-Paramo, Carolina & Santamaria, Mauricio & Siga, 2005. "Pending issues in protection, productivity growth, and poverty reduction," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3799, The World Bank.
    13. Carmen Pagés-Serra & Alejandro Micco, 2008. "Efectos económicos de la protección del empleo: Elementos de juicio a partir de datos internacionales a nivel de actividad económica," Research Department Publications 4497, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    14. Andrei Shleifer & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Rafael La Porta, 2008. "The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 285-332, June.
    15. Reeg, Caroline, 2015. "Micro and small enterprises as drivers for job creation and decent work," IDOS Discussion Papers 10/2015, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    16. Ravi KANBUR & Lucas RONCONI, 2018. "Enforcement matters: The effective regulation of labour," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 157(3), pages 331-356, September.
    17. 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.
    18. A. Kerem Co?ar & Nezih Guner & James Tybout, 2016. "Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 625-663, March.
    19. Soraya Roman, 2011. "Labour costs, informal economy and labor law reforms in Bolivia," Development Research Working Paper Series 08/2011, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    20. Giovanna Vallanti & Giuseppina Gianfreda, 2021. "Informality, regulation and productivity: do small firms escape EPL through shadow employment?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1383-1412, October.

    More about this item

    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:eti:dpaper:11078. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.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.