IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/200915.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Regulation and the Legal System

Author

Listed:
  • Carsten Hefeker

    () (University of Siegen)

  • Michael Neugart

    () (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano)

Abstract

When enacting labor market regulation governments face courts that interpret and implement the legal code. We show that the incentives for governments for labor market reform increase with the uncertainty that is involved in the implementation of legal codes through courts. Given that judges have more discretion in common as opposed to civil law systems more reform activity as a response to crises should be observed in the former system. This finding is backed by evidence from a panel of OECD countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Carsten Hefeker & Michael Neugart, 2009. "Labor Market Regulation and the Legal System," MAGKS Papers on Economics 200915, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:200915
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb02/makro/forschung/magkspapers/15-2009_hefeker.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilat Levy, 2005. "Careerist Judges," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 275-297, Summer.
    2. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. " Unemployment and Labor-Market Reform: A Contract Theoretic Approach," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(4), pages 641-656, December.
    4. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Judicial Checks and Balances," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 445-470, April.
    5. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Overruling and the instability of law," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 309-328, June.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Legal Origins," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1193-1229.
    7. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "The Evolution of Common Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 43-68.
    8. 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.
    9. Davin Chor & Richard B. Freeman, 2005. "The 2004 Global Labor Survey: Workplace Institutions and Practices Around the World," NBER Working Papers 11598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Berger, Helge & Neugart, Michael, 2011. "Labor courts, nomination bias, and unemployment in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 659-673.
    11. Anne C. Sibert & Alan Sutherland, "undated". "Monetary Regimes and Labour Market Reform," Discussion Papers 97/14, Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    13. repec:hrv:faseco:30747190 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2002. "Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661314, January.
    15. Ichino, Andrea & Polo, Michele & Rettore, Enrico, 2003. "Are judges biased by labor market conditions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 913-944, October.
    16. Gérard Roland, 2002. "The Political Economy of Transition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 29-50, Winter.
    17. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2000. "The Political Economy of Labour Market Institutions," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198293323.
    18. 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.
    19. Klerman, Daniel & Mahoney, Paul G., 2007. "Legal origin?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 278-293, June.
    20. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    21. Calmfors, Lars, 2001. "Unemployment, Labor Market Reform, and Monetary Union," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 265-289, April.
    22. Plümper, Thomas & Troeger, Vera E., 2007. "Efficient Estimation of Time-Invariant and Rarely Changing Variables in Finite Sample Panel Analyses with Unit Fixed Effects," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(02), pages 124-139, March.
    23. Olivier Blanchard, 2006. "European unemployment: the evolution of facts and ideas," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 21(45), pages 5-59, January.
    24. Richard Freeman, 2005. "Labour market institutions without blinders: The debate over flexibility and labour market performance," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 129-145.
    25. repec:cup:apsrev:v:86:y:1992:i:02:p:323-337_08 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    27. Hefeker, Carsten, 2001. "Labor Market Rigidities and EMU," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 16, pages 229-244.
    28. Roe, Mark J., 2007. "Juries and the political economy of legal origin," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 294-308, June.
    29. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    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. Potrafke, Niklas, 2013. "Globalization and labor market institutions: International empirical evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 829-842.
    2. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Freedom Across Canadian Provinces," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 143-166.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6913 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Belkhir, Mohamed & Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Boubaker, Sabri, 2016. "Labor protection and corporate Debt maturity: International evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 134-149.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor market regulation; labor courts; uncertainty; unemployment;

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

    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:mar:magkse:200915. 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: (Bernd Hayo). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.html .

    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 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.

    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.