IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/127377.html

Legal Origins, Labor Regulations, and Labor Market Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Estephane, Pauline Fady
  • Haidar, Jamal Ibrahim

Abstract

Using data from 50 economies, we re-examine the role of legal origins in shaping labor regulations and explore the consequences of these regulations on labor market outcomes. We find that civil law countries tend to adopt more protective labor regulations while common law countries emphasize flexible employment regulations. We document that de jure protective labor regulations create barriers to labor market entry while de facto flexible employment regulations have adverse informal employment and labor productivity consequences. Our results suggest that flexible employment regulations without adequate labor protection laws can encourage labor exploitation, reduce labor productivity, and are insufficient to draw firms and workers into the formal sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Estephane, Pauline Fady & Haidar, Jamal Ibrahim, 2025. "Legal Origins, Labor Regulations, and Labor Market Outcomes," MPRA Paper 127377, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:127377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/127377/1/MPRA_paper_127377.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/127945/1/MPRA_paper_127377.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Rafael La Porta & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Informality and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 109-126, Summer.
    3. Mohammad Amin & Jamal Haidar, 2012. "The cost of registering property: does legal origin matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 1035-1050, June.
    4. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December.
    5. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    7. S. Deakin, 2001. "The Contract of Employment: A Study in Legal Evolution," Working Papers wp203, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    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. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624, December.
    2. Kuzmina, Olga & Volchkova, Natalya & Zueva, Tatiana, 2014. "Foreign direct investment and governance quality in Russia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 874-891.
    3. Aldashev, Gani & Zanarone, Giorgio, 2017. "Endogenous enforcement institutions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 49-64.
    4. Davis, Lewis S. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2016. "Culture and the regulation of entry," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 1055-1083.
    5. ROUGIER Eric, 2015. ""The parts and the whole”: Unbundling and re-bundling institutional systems and their effect on economic development," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    6. D’Amico, Daniel J. & Williamson, Claudia, 2015. "Do legal origins affect cross-country incarceration rates?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 595-612.
    7. Fredriksson, Per G. & Sharma, Swati & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2025. "Legal traditions and the ratification of the Paris agreement," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    8. Cline, Brandon N. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2016. "Trust and the regulation of corporate self-dealing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 572-590.
    9. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    10. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2018. "Inefficient Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(2).
    11. Deakin, Simon & Sarkar, Prabirjit & Singh, Ajit, 2010. "An End to Consensus? The (Non) Impact of Legal Reforms on Financial Development," MPRA Paper 53352, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/8883 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lewis Davis & Claudia R. Williamson, 2018. "Open Borders for Business? Causes and Consequences of the Regulation of Foreign Entry," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(2), pages 508-536, October.
    14. Milan Žák & Petr Vymětal, 2006. "Institucionální aspekty nové komparativní ekonomie: ČR a EU [Institutional aspects of new comparative economy: Czech republic and European union]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2006(5), pages 583-609.
    15. Emanuela Carbonara & Enrico Santarelli & Hien Thu Tran, 2016. "De jure determinants of new firm formation: how the pillars of constitutions influence entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 139-162, June.
    16. Sazzadul Arefin, 2019. "Geographic Endowment, Corruption, and Economic Development," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, March.
    17. Rohini Pande & Christopher Udry, 2005. "Institutions and Development:A View from Below," Working Papers 928, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    18. Philippe Aghion & Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Regulation and Distrust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1015-1049.
    19. Deakin, Simon & Sarkar, Prabirjit & Singh, Ajit, 2011. "An end to consensus? the selective impact of corporate law reform on financial development," MPRA Paper 39047, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Christopher J. Boudreaux & Boris Nikolaev, 2019. "Capital is not enough: opportunity entrepreneurship and formal institutions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 709-738, October.
    21. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2005. "Unbundling Institutions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 949-995, October.

    More about this item

    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
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation
    • J83 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Workers' Rights
    • K1 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law
    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
    • K3 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of 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:pra:mprapa:127377. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.