Why Deregulate Labour Markets?


Book Description

With contributions from economists & political scientists, this text takes a hard look at the empirical connections between unemployment & regulation in Europe today, utilising both in-depth nation analyses & broader international comparisons.




Challenging the Market


Book Description

For two decades economic and social policy in most of the world has been guided by the notion that economies function best when they are fully exposed to competitive market forces. In labour market policy, this approach is reflected in the widespread emphasis on flexibility - a euphemism for the retrenchment of income support and social security, the relaxation of labour market regulations, and the enhanced power of private actors to determine the terms of the employment relationship. These strategies have had marked effects on labour market outcomes, leading to greater vulnerability and polarization - and not always in ways that enhance worker-centred flexibility. The authors offer a more balanced analysis of the functioning and effects of labour market regulation and deregulation. By questioning the underpinnings of the flexibility paradigm, and revealing its often damaging impacts (on different countries, sectors, and constituencies), they challenge the conclusion that unregulated market forces produce optimal labour market outcomes. The authors conclude with several suggestions for how labour policy could be reformulated to promote both efficiency and equity.




Why Deregulate Labour Markets?


Book Description

Europe's mass unemployment and the call for extensive labour market de-regulation have, perhaps more than any other contemporary issue, impassioned political debate and academic research. With contributions from economists, political scientists and sociologists, Why Deregulate Labour Markets? takes a hard look at the empirical connections between unemployment and regulation in Europe today, utilizing both in-depth nation analyses and broader-based international comparisons. The book demonstrates that Europe's mass unemployment cannot be directly ascribed to excessive worker protection. Labour market rigidities can, however, be harmful for particular groups. The weight of the evidence suggests that a radical strategy of de-regulation would probably cause more harm than benefits for European economic performance.




Labour Market Deregulation and the Decline of Labour Power in North America and Western Europe


Book Description

The goal of this article is to provide a critical evaluation of what has happened to organized labour and labour markets since 1980. It examines the impacts of labour market deregulation on wage share and pay standardization. It also explores how recent economic changes have weakened organized labour and eroded wage setting and social corporatism. The argument is made that contemporary institutional and 'Varieties of Capitalism' perspectives on labour market reform have overstated the power of states, institutions, and organized interests in deflecting global economic pressures. Drawing on a range of recent OECD statistics and qualitative studies, it is claimed that current labour deregulation policies and labour market reforms mark a fundamental break with post-war developments, and represent a reassertion of the power of capital ownership over organized labour and labour markets across North America and Western Europe. It assesses how far this reversal in power has gone by focusing on changes in four key variables: (i) job quality, (ii) wage share, (iii) pay standardization and income equality, and (iv) the effectiveness of wage setting institutions in allowing unions to bring bargaining pressure on capital. This is the first study to report on comparative changes and qualitative reforms to these labour market variables in 13 OECD countries between 1970 and the 25-year period 1980-2005.




Political, Economic And Social Dimensions Of Labour Markets: A Global Insight


Book Description

Why and how do politics, society and economics shape the growth and failure of labour markets? Does government intervention help or harm labour market reforms/adjustments in times of economic downturn? What forces drive such government intervention and do they differ from society to society?In addressing these big-picture questions, this book's analytical scope is heavily centred around the topic of labour markets' performance. The book argues that performance in labour markets across countries are influenced by their labour market policies. In turn, these policies are shaped, in varying degrees, by the country's politics. Each chapter in this book dives into the labour market experiences in various countries to demonstrate why in some countries, labour markets perform better than in other countries. Major findings from this book suggest that countries can produce better economic and social outcomes (e.g. lower socio-economic inequality) if their labour market policies are aimed at fostering a socially and politically stable society via greater equity in wealth distribution across various socio-cultural and income groups.This book is an essential read for any public policy researchers, policy practitioners and undergraduate/graduate students who are interested or vested in the topic of labour markets' performance in the political, social and economic dimensions. Particularly, this book provides a critical synthesis of the labour market experiences in many countries. Hence, the book serves as an ideational tool to advance future labour market research and policy.




Greening Industries and Creating Jobs


Book Description

How the objective of a resource-efficient low carbon economy is to be reached and how the transition is managed are the key issues addressed by this publication. The two main focuses are industrial policy and employment prospects on the road to a green economy that retains its industrial base. Any lasting recovery of the real economy will necessarily take the shape of a more resource-efficient production model. While we argue that only a more ambitious and comprehensive European climate policy framework would have a chance of delivering the broader 2050 climate targets, this does not mean that Europe has to give up its industrial base and its related competences. Several chapters of this book argue that the option of attaining a low-carbon economy through ‘deindustrialisation’ would prevent Europe from preserving its competitiveness and knowledge base, which are also essential for exploiting the potential of the emerging eco-industry. While decoupling economic growth from resource use is also possible with an industrial base that is more energy-and resource-efficient, this does require a fundamental shift in terms of how the economy is managed and how business decisions are made. Sustainable industrial and structural policies are needed also in order to ensure that this revolutionary process takes place in a socially balanced manner.










The Distributional Effects of Labour Market Deregulation


Book Description

Since the 1980s, most of the advanced economies have massively 'flexibilized' their labour markets by reducing protection against layoffs or introducing temporary and flexible contractual forms. Meanwhile, a stylized fact of economic theory has come undone, namely the stability of the wage share of income. Indeed, despite some criticism of possible measurement errors, there is a substantial consensus on the decreasing trends in the labour share. In this contribution, we empirically evaluate whether the two phenomena are causally linked, by investigating the impact of changes in the regulation of fixed-term contracts on functional distribution. Using Jorda's local projection method in a panel of 18 advanced countries in the period 1985-2019, we find that reforms that deregulate fixed-term contracts consistently reduce the wage share.




Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies


Book Description

Labor market deregulation, intended to boost productivity and employment, is one plausible, yet little studied, driver of the decline in labor shares that took place across most advanced economies since the early 1990s. This paper assesses the impact of job protection deregulation in a sample of 26 advanced economies over the period 1970-2015, using a newly constructed dataset of major reforms to employment protection legislation for regular contracts. We apply the local projection method to estimate the dynamic response of the labor share to our reform events at both the country and the country-industry levels. For the latter, we employ a differences-in-differences identification strategy using two identifying assumptions grounded in theory—namely that job protection deregulation should have larger negative effects in industries characterized by (i) a higher “natural” propensity to adjust the workforce, and (ii) a lower elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. We find a statistically significant, economically large and robust negative effect of deregulation on the labor share. In particular, illustrative back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that job protection deregulation may have contributed about 15 percent to the average labor share decline in advanced economies. Together with existing evidence regarding the macroeconomic gains from job protection and other labor market reforms, our results also point to the need for policymakers to address efficiency-equity trade-offs when designing such reforms.