IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/22120.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The global crisis and the Peruvian labor market: impact and policy options

Author

Listed:
  • Moron, Eduardo
  • Castro, Juan F.
  • Villacorta, Lucciano

Abstract

After almost 20 years of prudent macro policies, Peru seems in better shape than before to withstand the effects of a financial crisis. Progress, however, has left some policy areas unscathed and the labor market is one of them. In this paper we analyze the potential effects of the crisis on labor market outcomes, and discuss policy options to address short run and structural considerations. We review stylized facts from this and previous crisis to account for potential transmission mechanisms, review policy options and results from past and existing labor market interventions, and build a DSGE model to provide further insight regarding labor market outcomes and the effects of transitory and permanent policy measures. On the countercyclical front, our analysis reveals that the main risk that the policymaker should aim to mitigate is a surge in informality and underemployment. For this, job protection alternatives (as temporary payroll tax holidays already implemented) have to be accompanied by a strengthened and better focalized reemployment service, especially if the shock transpires into the nontradable sector. On the more structural side, policy should aim at the prime drivers of informality in our country: low productivity and high formal labor costs. For the latter, progressive access to labor benefits for small firms (already introduced via a special labor regime) could be complemented by introducing different minimum wage levels according to firm size and a generalized reduction in firing costs. Low productivity issues, on the other hand, can be addressed by strengthening and integrating existing training programs and information networks which have already proven successful in terms of formal job creation. Simulations reveal that permanent non-wage cost reductions (like those introduced via the special labor regime) can increase formal employment and formal GDP participation by 2 percentage points. Structural policy interventions also exhibit a large countercyclical potential due to their permanent nature. This implies that we should not wait for the crisis to be over to start their implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Moron, Eduardo & Castro, Juan F. & Villacorta, Lucciano, 2009. "The global crisis and the Peruvian labor market: impact and policy options," MPRA Paper 22120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:22120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22120/1/MPRA_paper_22120.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juan Díaz & Miguel Jaramillo, 2006. "An Evaluation of the Peruvian "Youth Labor Training Program"-PROJOVEN," OVE Working Papers 1006, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    2. Gustavo Yamada, 2008. "Reinserción laboral adecuada: dificultades e implicancias de política," Diagnóstico y propuesta, Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social.
    3. Bosch, Mariano & Maloney, William F., 2008. "Cyclical Movements in Unemployment and Informality in Developing Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 3514, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Juan F. Castro & Eduardo Morón & Cynthia Sanborn, 2009. "Helping Reforms Deliver Inclusive Growth in Peru," Chapters of Books, in: L. Rojas-Suarez (ed.),Growing Pains in Latin America, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 236-293, Fondo Editorial, Universidad del Pacífico.
    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. Guillermo Cruces & Gary S. Fields & David Jaume & Mariana Viollaz, 2015. "The growth-employment-poverty nexus in Latin America in the 2000s: Peru country study," WIDER Working Paper Series 082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Guillermo Cruces & Gary S. Fields & David Jaume & Mariana Viollaz, 2015. "The growth-employment-poverty nexus in Latin America in the 2000s: Peru country study," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. repec:ilo:ilowps:478309 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Guerra, Maria Lucia., 2012. "Implications of the recent macroeconomic policies on employment and labour market outcomes in Peru," ILO Working Papers 994783093402676, International Labour Organization.

    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. Owolabi, Adegboyega O. & Berdiev, Aziz N. & Saunoris, James W., 2022. "Is the shadow economy procyclical or countercyclical over the business cycle? International evidence," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 257-270.
    2. Sumru Altug & Serdar Kabaca & Meltem Poyraz, 2011. "Search Frictions, Financial Frictions and Labor Market Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1136, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    3. Andres Fernandez & Felipe Meza, 2015. "Informal Employment and Business Cycles in Emerging Economies: The Case of Mexico," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 381-405, April.
    4. Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Norbert Schady, 2009. "Social Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis in Latin America : Some Preliminary, and Surprisingly Optimistic, Conjectures," World Bank Publications - Reports 10957, The World Bank Group.
    5. Carlos Salas-Páez & Luis Quintana-Romero & Miguel A. Mendoza-González & José Álvarez-García, 2022. "Analysis of Job Transitions in Mexico with Markov Chains in Discrete Time," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-13, May.
    6. de Crombrugghe, D.P.I. & Espinoza, H. & Heijke, J.A.M., 2010. "Job-training programmes with low completion rates: the case of Projoven-Peru," ROA Research Memorandum 004, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    7. John P. Haisken-DeNew & Maren M. Michaelsen, 2011. "Migration Magnet: The Role of Work Experience in Rural-Urban Wage Diff erentials in Mexico," Ruhr Economic Papers 0263, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Search, migration, and urban land use: The case of transportation policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 174-187, November.
    9. Epstein, Brendan & Finkelstein Shapiro, Alan, 2017. "Employment and firm heterogeneity, capital allocation, and countercyclical labor market policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 25-41.
    10. Alan Finkelstein Shapiro & Andres Gonzalez, 2015. "Macroprudential Policy and Labor Market Dynamics in Emerging Economies," IMF Working Papers 2015/078, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Groh, Matthew & McKenzie, David, 2016. "Macroinsurance for microenterprises: A randomized experiment in post-revolution Egypt," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 13-25.
    12. Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Biavaschi, Costanza & Eichhorst, Werner & Giulietti, Corrado & Kendzia, Michael J. & Muravyev, Alexander & Pieters, Janneke & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria & Schmidl, Ricarda, 2013. "Youth Unemployment and Vocational Training," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 9(1–2), pages 1-157, December.
    13. Leyva, Gustavo & Urrutia, Carlos, 2020. "Informality, labor regulation, and the business cycle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    14. Werner Eichhorst & Núria Rodríguez-Planas & Ricarda Schmidl & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2015. "A Road Map to Vocational Education and Training in Industrialized Countries," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(2), pages 314-337, March.
    15. Pia Peeters & Wendy Cunningham & Gayatri Acharya & Arvil Van Adams, 2009. "Youth Employment in Sierra Leone : Sustainable Livelihood Opportunities in a Post-conflict Setting," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2599, December.
    16. Ruy Lama & Carlos Urrutia, 2011. "Employment Protection and Business Cycles in Emerging Economies," Working Papers 1105, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    17. Olivier Bargain & Prudence Kwenda, 2014. "The Informal Sector Wage Gap: New Evidence Using Quantile Estimations on Panel Data," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 117-153.
    18. Epstein, Brendan & Finkelstein Shapiro, Alan, 2019. "Financial development, unemployment volatility, and sectoral dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 82-102.
    19. Epstein, Brendan & Finkelstein Shapiro, Alan & González Gómez, Andrés, 2019. "Global financial risk, aggregate fluctuations, and unemployment dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 351-418.
    20. Manuel Fernández & Gabriela Serrano, 2022. "New Perspectives on Inequality in Latin America," Documentos CEDE 20295, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Global crisis; labor markets; Peru;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models

    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:22120. 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.