IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/168.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Institutions and Unemployment: A Critical Assessment of the Cross-Country Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Glyn
  • Dean Baker
  • Centre for Economic and Policy Research
  • Washington
  • David Howell
  • New School University
  • New York
  • John Schmitt

Abstract

This paper provides a critical view of the cross country literature on the impact of labour market institutions and policies on the evolving pattern of unemployment in OECD countries. Such widely used indicators as the generosity of unemployment insurance or the strength of trade unions are neither strongly correlated individually with unemployment nor contribute robust and well defined impacts on unemployment within increasingly sophisticated multivariate literature. Our own tests, with a comprehensive data set covering 1960-99, show how dependent the estimated effects are to the particular indicators used and periods covered and overall suggest that a relatively minor role for the institutions and policies in accounting for unemployment patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Glyn & Dean Baker & Centre for Economic and Policy Research & Washington & David Howell & New School University & New York & John Schmitt, 2003. "Labor Market Institutions and Unemployment: A Critical Assessment of the Cross-Country Evidence," Economics Series Working Papers 168, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:168
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e69b38bb-4177-4a88-9767-d5676fe035bb
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 1-33, March.
    2. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    3. Michael Bruno & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1985. "Economics of Worldwide Stagflation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number brun85-1, September.
    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. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2003. "Unemployment in Britain: A European Success Story," CESifo Working Paper Series 981, CESifo.
    2. Johannes Hörner & L. Rachel Ngai & Claudia Olivetti, 2007. "Public Enterprises And Labor Market Performance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(2), pages 363-384, May.
    3. Beissinger, Thomas, 2003. "Strukturelle Arbeitslosigkeit in Europa : eine Bestandsaufnahme (Structural unemployment in Europe * an inventory)," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 36(4), pages 411-427.
    4. Dragos Adascalitei & Sameer Khatiwada & Miguel Á. Malo & Pignatti Moran, 2015. "Employment protection and collective bargaining during the great recession: a comprehensive review of international evidence," Revista de Economía Laboral - Spanish Journal of Labour Economics, Asociación Española de Economía Laboral - AEET, vol. 12, pages 50-87.
    5. Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja) & Madsen, Jakob B., 2004. "Unemployment in the OECD: Models and Mysteries," IZA Discussion Papers 1168, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Antonia López‐Villavicencio & José Ignacio Silva, 2011. "Employment Protection And The Non‐Linear Relationship Between The Wage‐Productivity Gap And Unemployment," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(2), pages 200-220, May.
    7. Paloma Lopez-Garcia, 2002. "Labour Market Performance and Start-Up Costs: OECD Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp0565, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Timothy J. Hatton, 2007. "Can Productivity Growth Explain the NAIRU? Long‐Run Evidence from Britain, 1871–1999," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(295), pages 475-491, August.
    9. Bernal-Verdugo, Lorenzo E. & Furceri, Davide & Guillaume, Dominique, 2013. "Banking crises, labor reforms, and unemployment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1202-1219.
    10. Floro Ernesto Caroleo – Gianluigi Coppola & Gianluigi Coppola, 2005. "The Impact of the Institutions on Regional Unemployment Disparities," CELPE Discussion Papers 98, CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno, Italy.
    11. Charles Wyplosz, 2000. "Economic growth and the labor markets: Europe's challenge," Working Paper Research 08, National Bank of Belgium.
    12. Laurence Ball, 1999. "Aggregate demand and Long-Run Unemployment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 30(2), pages 189-252.
    13. Beissinger, Thomas, 2003. "Strukturelle Arbeitslosigkeit in Europa : eine Bestandsaufnahme (Structural unemployment in Europe * an inventory)," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 36(4), pages 411-427.
    14. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Carlo Altavilla & Floro E. Caroleo, 2006. "Evaluating the Dynamic Effects of Active Labour Policies in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(2), pages 349-382, June.
    16. Potrafke, Niklas, 2013. "Globalization and labor market institutions: International empirical evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 829-842.
    17. Sunde, Uwe, 2001. "Human Capital Accumulation, Education and Earnings Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 310, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Mario Larch & Wolfgang Lechthaler, 2013. "Unemployment in an Interdependent World," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 262-301, February.
    19. Horst Feldmann, 2013. "Technological unemployment in industrial countries," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1099-1126, November.
    20. Richard B. Freeman, 2007. "Labor Market Institutions Around the World," NBER Working Papers 13242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Card, David E. & De la Rica Goiricelaya, Sara, 2004. "The effect of firm-level contracts on the structure of wages: evidence from matched employer-employee data," DFAEII Working Papers 2004-06, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; institutions; OECD;
    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
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    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:oxf:wpaper:168. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.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 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: Anne Pouliquen The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Anne Pouliquen to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    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.