IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5335.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Pays for It? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation

Author

Listed:
  • Leonardi, Marco

    (University of Milan)

  • Pica, Giovanni

    (USI Università della Svizzera Italiana)

Abstract

Theory predicts that the wage effects of government-mandated severance payments depend on workers' and firms' relative bargaining power. This paper estimates the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on workers' individual wages in a quasi-experimental setting, exploiting a reform that introduced unjust-dismissal costs in Italy for firms below 15 employees and left firing costs unchanged for bigger firms. Accounting for the endogeneity of the treatment status, we find that high-bargaining power workers (stayers, white collar and workers above 45) are almost left unaffected by the increase in EPL, while low-bargaining power workers (movers, blue collar and young workers) suffer a drop both in the wage level and its growth rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonardi, Marco & Pica, Giovanni, 2010. "Who Pays for It? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation," IZA Discussion Papers 5335, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5335.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June.
    2. Bertola, Giuseppe & Rogerson, Richard, 1997. "Institutions and labor reallocation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1147-1171, June.
    3. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2010. "Shirking and employment protection legislation: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 276-280, May.
    4. Giulio Fella & Gianluca Violante & Marco Cozzi, 2010. "The Non-neutrality of Severance Payments with Incomplete Markets," 2010 Meeting Papers 644, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Thomas K. Bauer & Stefan Bender & Holger Bonin, 2007. "Dismissal Protection and Worker Flows in Small Establishments," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 804-821, November.
    6. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    7. David H. Autor & William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler, 2007. "Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States," NBER Working Papers 12860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David Card & Francesco Devicienti & Agata Maida, 2014. "Rent-sharing, Holdup, and Wages: Evidence from Matched Panel Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 84-111.
    9. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 621-654, October.
    10. Micco, Alejandro & Pagés, Carmen, 2006. "The Economic Effects of Employment Protection: Evidence from International Industry-Level Data," IZA Discussion Papers 2433, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    12. Samuel Bentolila & Giuseppe Bertola, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad is Eurosclerosis?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402.
    13. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2008. "Effects of employment protection on worker and job flows: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 78-95, February.
    14. Prifti, Ervin & Vuri, Daniela, 2013. "Employment protection and fertility: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 77-88.
    15. Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2005. "Insurance within the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1054-1087, October.
    16. Pietro Garibaldi & Lia Pacelli & Andrea Borgarello, 2004. "Employment Protection Legislation and the Size of Firms," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 63(1), pages 33-68, April.
    17. Battistin, Erich & Rettore, Enrico, 2008. "Ineligibles and eligible non-participants as a double comparison group in regression-discontinuity designs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 715-730, February.
    18. Federico Cingano & Marco Leonardi & Julián Messina & Giovanni Pica, 2010. "The effects of employment protection legislation and financial market imperfections on investment: evidence from a firm-level panel of EU countries [Technology and labour regulations]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(61), pages 117-163.
    19. 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.
    20. van der Wiel, Karen, 2010. "Better protected, better paid: Evidence on how employment protection affects wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 16-26, January.
    21. Schivardi, Fabiano & Torrini, Roberto, 2008. "Identifying the effects of firing restrictions through size-contingent differences in regulation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 482-511, June.
    22. Adriana D. Kugler & Gilles Saint-Paul, 2004. "How Do Firing Costs Affect Worker Flows in a World with Adverse Selection?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 553-584, July.
    23. Dolado Juan & Jansen Marcel & Jimeno Serrano Juan, 2007. "A Positive Analysis of Targeted Employment Protection Legislation," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, July.
    24. David H. Autor, 2003. "Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-42, January.
    25. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    26. David H. Autor & John J. Donohue & Stewart J. Schwab, 2006. "The Costs of Wrongful-Discharge Laws," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 211-231, May.
    27. Boeri, Tito & Jimeno, Juan F., 2005. "The effects of employment protection: Learning from variable enforcement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2057-2077, November.
    28. Marco Leonardi & Giovanni Pica, 2007. "Employment Protection Legislation and Wages," CSEF Working Papers 175, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    29. Julián Messina & Claudio Michelacci & Jarkko Turunen & Gylfi Zoega (ed.), 2006. "Labour Market Adjustments in Europe," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4013.
    30. Massimiliano Bratti & Emilia Del Bono & Daniela Vuri, 2005. "New Mothers’ Labour Force Participation in Italy: The Role of Job Characteristics," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(s1), pages 79-121, December.
    31. Pedro S. Martins, 2009. "Dismissals for Cause: The Difference That Just Eight Paragraphs Can Make," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 257-279, April.
    32. Christopher Erickson & Andrea Ichino, 1995. "Wage Differentials in Italy: Market Forces, Institutions, and Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Differences and Changes in Wage Structures, pages 265-306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Cervini-Plá, María & Ramos, Xavier & Ignacio Silva, José, 2014. "Wage effects of non-wage labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 113-137.
    34. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    35. Giuseppe Tattara & Marco Valentini, 2005. "Job flows, worker flows and mismatching in Veneto manufacturing. 1982-1996," Labor and Demography 0511013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    36. Belzil, Christian, 2000. "Job Creation and Job Destruction, Worker Reallocation, and Wages," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 183-203, April.
    37. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2003. "The effects of employment protection and product market regulations on the Italian labor market," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0310, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    38. 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, March.
    39. repec:fth:prinin:433 is not listed on IDEAS
    40. Pietro Garibaldi & Giovanni L. Violante, 2005. "The Employment Effects of Severance Payments with Wage Rigidities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 799-832, October.
    41. Francesco Devicienti & Agata Maida & Paolo Sestito, 2007. "Downward Wage Rigidity in Italy: Micro-Based Measures and Implications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(524), pages 530-552, November.
    42. Freeman, Richard B. & Katz, Lawrence F. (ed.), 1995. "Differences and Changes in Wage Structures," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226261607, December.
    43. 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.
    44. Jose E. Galdon-Sanchez & Maia Guell, 2000. "Let's Go To Court! Firing Costs and Dismissal Conflicts," Working Papers 823, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    45. Maia Guell, 2000. "Fixed-term Contracts and Unemployment: an Efficiency Wage Analysis," Working Papers 812, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    46. Schivardi, Fabiano & Torrini, Roberto, 2004. "Threshold effects and firm size: the case of firing costs," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19956, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    47. Adriano Paggiaro & Enrico Rettore & Ugo Trivellato, 2009. "The Effect of a Longer Eligibility to a Labour Market Programme for Dismissed Workers," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(1), pages 37-66, March.
    48. Heckman, James J. & Pages, Carmen (ed.), 2004. "Law and Employment," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226322827, December.
    49. Guell, Maia, 2000. "Fixed-term contracts and unemployment: an efficiency wage analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20181, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    50. Maia Guell, 2000. "Fixed-term Contracts and Unemployment: an Efficiency Wage Analysis," Working Papers 812, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    51. 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.
    52. Robert C. Bird & John D. Knopf, 2009. "Do Wrongful-Discharge Laws Impair Firm Performance?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 197-222, May.
    53. Mortensen, Dale T. & Pissarides, Christopher A., 1999. "New developments in models of search in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 39, pages 2567-2627, Elsevier.
    54. Pierre Cahuc & Winfried Koeniger, 2007. "Feature: Employment Protection Legislation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(521), pages 185-188, June.
    55. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    56. David H. Autor & John J. Donohue & Stewart J. Schwab, 2004. "The Employment Consequences of Wrongful-Discharge Laws: Large, Small, or None at All?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 440-446, May.
    57. Richard B. Freeman & Lawrence F. Katz, 1995. "Differences and Changes in Wage Structures," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number free95-1, March.
    58. Wagner, Joachim & Schnabel, Claus & Kölling, Arnd, 2001. "Threshold Values in German Labor Law and Job Dynamics in Small Firms: The Case of the Disability Law," IZA Discussion Papers 386, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    59. Pissarides, Christopher A., 2001. "Employment protection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 131-159, May.
    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. Marco Leonardi & Giovanni Pica, 2007. "Employment Protection Legislation and Wages," CSEF Working Papers 175, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    2. Federico Cingano & Marco Leonardi & Julián Messina & Giovanni Pica, 2016. "Employment Protection Legislation, Capital Investment and Access to Credit: Evidence from Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(595), pages 1798-1822, September.
    3. von Below, David & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2010. "Last in, first out?: Estimating the effect of seniority rules in Sweden," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 987-997, December.
    4. Pedro S. Martins, 2009. "Dismissals for Cause: The Difference That Just Eight Paragraphs Can Make," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 257-279, April.
    5. Parsons, Donald O., 2011. "Mandated Severance Pay and Firing Cost Distortions: A Critical Review of the Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 5776, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Maria De Paola & Roberto Nisticò & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2020. "Fertility Decisions And Employment Protection: The Unintended Consequences Of The Italian Jobs Act," Working Papers 202003, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    7. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    8. Andrea Bassanini & Luca Nunziata & Danielle Venn, 2009. "Job protection legislation and productivity growth in OECD countries [Appropriate growth policy: a unifying framework]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 24(58), pages 349-402.
    9. 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.
    10. Bendicta Marzinotto & Ladislav Wintr, 2019. "Employment protection and firm-level job reallocation: Adjusting for coverage," BCL working papers 131, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    11. John Martin & Stefano Scarpetta, 2012. "Setting It Right: Employment Protection, Labour Reallocation and Productivity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 89-116, June.
    12. Anders Bornhäll & Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Niklas Rudholm, 2017. "Employment protection legislation and firm growth: evidence from a natural experiment," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 169-185.
    13. 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.
    14. Cervini-Plá, María & Ramos, Xavier & Ignacio Silva, José, 2014. "Wage effects of non-wage labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 113-137.
    15. Per Skedinger, 2010. "Employment Protection Legislation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13686.
    16. van der Wiel, Karen, 2010. "Better protected, better paid: Evidence on how employment protection affects wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 16-26, January.
    17. O’Higgins Niall & Pica Giovanni, 2020. "Complementarities between Labour Market Institutions and their Causal Impact on Youth Labour Market Outcomes," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 1-37, July.
    18. Alexander Hijzen & Leopoldo Mondauto & Stefano Scarpetta, 2013. "The Perverse Effects of Job-security Provisions on Job Security in Italy: Results from a Regression Discontinuity Design," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 151, OECD Publishing.
    19. 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).
    20. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2008. "Effects of employment protection on worker and job flows: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 78-95, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    endogeneity of treatment status; policy evaluation; severance payments; costs of unjust dismissals;
    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
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    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:iza:izadps:dp5335. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.