[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7594.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Perverse Effects of Job-Security Provisions on Job Security in Italy: Results from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Author

Listed:
  • Hijzen, Alexander

    (OECD)

  • Mondauto, Leopoldo

    (IMT Lucca)

  • Scarpetta, Stefano

    (OECD)

Abstract
This paper analyses the impact of employment protection (EP) on the composition of the workforce and worker turnover using a unique firm-level dataset for Italy. The impact of employment protection is analyzed by means of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) that exploits the variation in EP provisions across firms below and above a size threshold. Using our RDD approach, we show that EP increases worker reallocation, suggesting that EP tends to reduce rather to increase worker security on average. We further show that this can be entirely explained by the fact that firms facing more stringent EP make a greater use of workers on temporary contracts. Our preferred estimates suggest that the discontinuity in EP increases the incidence of temporary work by 2-2.5 percentage points around the threshold. Moreover, further analysis suggests that the effect of employment protection persists among larger firms well beyond the threshold and may account for about 20% of the overall incidence of temporary work. There is also evidence that EP reduces labour productivity and this effect is to an important extent due to the impact of EP on worker reallocation and the incidence of temporary work.

Suggested Citation

  • Hijzen, Alexander & Mondauto, Leopoldo & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2013. "The Perverse Effects of Job-Security Provisions on Job Security in Italy: Results from a Regression Discontinuity Design," IZA Discussion Papers 7594, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7594.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raffaello Bronzini & Eleonora Iachini, 2014. "Are Incentives for R&D Effective? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 100-134, November.
    2. 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.
    3. David H. Autor & William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler, 2007. "Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States," NBER Working Papers 12860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Adriana Kugler & Juan F. Jimeno & Virginia Hernanz, "undated". "Employment Consequences of Restrictive Permanent Contracts: Evidence from Spanish Labor Market Reforms," Working Papers 2003-14, FEDEA.
    5. Micco, Alejandro & Pagés, Carmen, 2006. "The Economic Effects of Employment Protection: Evidence from International Industry-Level Data," IZA Discussion Papers 2433, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Jens Ludwig & Douglas L. Miller, 2007. "Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 159-208.
    7. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2008. "Effects of employment protection on worker and job flows: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 78-95, February.
    8. Haltiwanger, John & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schweiger, Helena, 2006. "Assessing job flows across countries : the role of industry, firm size, and regulations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4070, The World Bank.
    9. Tito Boeri & Pietro Garibaldi, 2007. "Two Tier Reforms of Employment Protection: a Honeymoon Effect?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(521), pages 357-385, June.
    10. Pietro Garibaldi & Lia Pacelli & Andrea Borgarello, 2004. "Employment Protection Legislation and the Size of Firms," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 63(1), pages 33-68, April.
    11. Samuel Bentolila & Juan Jose Dolado & Juan F. Jimeno, 2008. "Two-tier Employment Protection Reforms: The Spanish Experience," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 6(4), pages 49-56, December.
    12. Federico Cingano & Marco Leonardi & Julián Messina & Giovanni Pica, 2010. "The effects of employment protection legislation and financial market imperfections on investment: evidence from a firm-level panel of EU countries [Technology and labour regulations]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(61), pages 117-163.
    13. Schivardi, Fabiano & Torrini, Roberto, 2008. "Identifying the effects of firing restrictions through size-contingent differences in regulation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 482-511, June.
    14. John Martin & Stefano Scarpetta, 2012. "Setting It Right: Employment Protection, Labour Reallocation and Productivity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 89-116, June.
    15. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    16. Boeri, Tito & Jimeno, Juan F., 2005. "The effects of employment protection: Learning from variable enforcement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2057-2077, November.
    17. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2011. "Policy Responses to Fiscal Restraints: A Difference-in-Discontinuities Design," Working Papers 397, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. Jinyong Hahn & Petra Todd & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 1999. "Evaluating the Effect of an Antidiscrimination Law Using a Regression-Discontinuity Design," NBER Working Papers 7131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    20. Danielle Venn, 2009. "Legislation, Collective Bargaining and Enforcement: Updating the OECD Employment Protection Indicators," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 89, OECD Publishing.
    21. Adriana D. Kugler, 2004. "The Effect of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility. Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 183-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. 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.
    23. Fiori, Giuseppe & Nicoletti, Giuseppe & Scarpetta, Stefano & Schiantarelli, Fabio, 2007. "Employment Outcomes and the Interaction Between Product and Labor Market Deregulation: Are They Substitutes or Complements?," IZA Discussion Papers 2770, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    24. Peter Gal & Alexander Hijzen & Zoltan Wolf, 2012. "The Role of Institutions and Firm Heterogeneity for Labour Market Adjustment: Cross-Country Firm-Level Evidence," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 134, OECD Publishing.
    25. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    26. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    27. Zweimüller, Josef & Lalive, Rafael & Wuellrich, Jean-Philippe, 2009. "Do Financial Incentives for Firms Promote Employment of Disabled Workers? A Regression Discontinuity Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7373, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    28. Skedinger, Per, 2011. "Employment Consequences of Employment Protection Legislation," Working Paper Series 865, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    29. Heckman, James J. & Pages, Carmen (ed.), 2004. "Law and Employment," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226322827, August.
    30. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2009. "Unemployment, institutions, and reform complementarities: re-assessing the aggregate evidence for OECD countries," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(1), pages 40-59, Spring.
    31. Joshua Angrist & Miikka Rokkanen, 2012. "Wanna Get Away? RD Identification Away from the Cutoff," NBER Working Papers 18662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Justin McCrary, 2007. "Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test," NBER Technical Working Papers 0334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Patrick Kline, 2011. "Oaxaca-Blinder as a Reweighting Estimator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 532-537, May.
    34. Dean Baker & Andrew Glyn & David Howell & John Schmitt, 2002. "Labor Market Institutions and Unemployment: A Critical Assessment of the Cross-Country Evidence," SCEPA working paper series. 2002-17, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    35. Oecd, 2009. "Employment and Social Protection," OECD Journal on Development, OECD Publishing, vol. 9(4), pages 7-54.
    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. Giuseppina Gianfreda & Giovanna Vallanti, 2017. "Informality and productivity: do firms escape EPL through shadow employment? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Working Papers 2017-01, Universita' di Cassino, Dipartimento di Economia e Giurisprudenza.
    2. Stefano Scarpetta, 2014. "Employment protection," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-12, May.
    3. Boeri, Tito & Garibaldi, Pietro, 2019. "A tale of comprehensive labor market reforms: Evidence from the Italian jobs act," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 33-48.
    4. Álvaro A. Novo & Mário Centeno, 2013. "Segmenting wages," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    5. repec:idb:brikps:7203 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Pierre Cahuc & Olivier Charlot & Franck Malherbet, 2016. "Explaining The Spread Of Temporary Jobs And Its Impact On Labor Turnover," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(2), pages 533-572, May.
    7. Peter Gal & Alexander Hijzen & Zoltan Wolf, 2012. "The Role of Institutions and Firm Heterogeneity for Labour Market Adjustment: Cross-Country Firm-Level Evidence," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 134, OECD Publishing.
    8. Giuseppina Gianfreda & Giovanna Vallanti, 2017. "Informality and productivity: do firms escape EPL through shadow employment? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Working Papers 2017-01, Universita' di Cassino, Dipartimento di Economia e Giurisprudenza.
    9. Jaramillo, Miguel, 2019. "The unprotecting effects of employment protection: the impact of the 2001 labor reform in Peru," GLO Discussion Paper Series 299, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Bacci, Silvia & Bartolucci, Francesco & Pigini, Claudia & Signorelli, Marcello, 2014. "A finite mixture latent trajectory model for hirings and separations in the labor market," MPRA Paper 59730, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Bolli, Thomas & Kemper, Johanna, 2015. "Evaluating the Impact of Employment Protection on Firm-Provided Training in an RDD Framework," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112895, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Jaramillo, Miguel, 2018. "Los efectos desprotectores de la protección del empleo: El impacto de la reforma del contrato laboral de 2001," Revista Moneda, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, issue 173, pages 31-36.
    13. Lenzu, Simone & Manaresi, Francesco, 2018. "Do Marginal Products Differ from User Costs? Micro-Level Evidence from Italian Firms," Working Papers 276, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    14. Elena Bastianelli & Raffaele Guetto & Daniele Vignoli, 2022. "The impact of labour market deregulation reforms on fertility in Europe," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2022_04, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    15. Federico Cingano & Marco Leonardi & Julián Messina & Giovanni Pica, 2016. "Employment Protection Legislation, Capital Investment and Access to Credit: Evidence from Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(595), pages 1798-1822, September.
    16. Damas de Matos, Ana & Parent, Daniel, 2016. "Which firms create fixed-term employment? Evidence from Portugal," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 348-362.
    17. Hijzen, Alexander & Mondauto, Leopoldo & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2017. "The impact of employment protection on temporary employment: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 64-76.
    18. Simone Lenzu & Francesco Manaresi, 2019. "Sources and implications of resource misallocation: new evidence from firm-level marginal products and user costs," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 485, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Bofinger, Peter & Buch, Claudia M. & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2013. "Gegen eine rückwärtsgewandte Wirtschaftspolitik. Jahresgutachten 2013/14 [Against a backward-looking economic policy. Annual Report 2013/14]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201314, February.
    20. Elena Bastianelli & Raffaele Guetto & Daniele Vignoli, 2023. "Employment Protection Legislation, Labour Market Dualism, and Fertility in Europe," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-27, December.
    21. Verónica Alaimo & Mariano Bosch & David S. Kaplan & Carmen Pagés & Laura Ripani, 2015. "Jobs for Growth," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 90977, February.

    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. Hijzen, Alexander & Mondauto, Leopoldo & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2017. "The impact of employment protection on temporary employment: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 64-76.
    2. John Martin & Stefano Scarpetta, 2012. "Setting It Right: Employment Protection, Labour Reallocation and Productivity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 89-116, June.
    3. Bassanini, Andrea & Garnero, Andrea, 2013. "Dismissal protection and worker flows in OECD countries: Evidence from cross-country/cross-industry data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 25-41.
    4. Bendicta Marzinotto & Ladislav Wintr, 2019. "Employment protection and firm-level job reallocation: Adjusting for coverage," BCL working papers 131, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    5. Per Skedinger, 2010. "Employment Protection Legislation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13686.
    6. Marco Leonardi & Giovanni Pica, 2013. "Who Pays for it? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1236-1278, December.
    7. Parsons, Donald O., 2011. "Mandated Severance Pay and Firing Cost Distortions: A Critical Review of the Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 5776, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Andrea Bassanini & Luca Nunziata & Danielle Venn, 2009. "Job protection legislation and productivity growth in OECD countries [Appropriate growth policy: a unifying framework]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 24(58), pages 349-402.
    9. Boeri, Tito & Garibaldi, Pietro, 2019. "A tale of comprehensive labor market reforms: Evidence from the Italian jobs act," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 33-48.
    10. Holzmann, Robert & Pouget, Yann & Vodopivec, Milan & Weber, Michael, 2011. "Severance Pay Programs around the World: History, Rationale, Status, and Reforms," IZA Discussion Papers 5731, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Betcherman, Gordon, 2014. "Labor market regulations : what do we know about their impacts in developing countries ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6819, The World Bank.
    12. Bratti, Massimiliano & Conti, Maurizio & Sulis, Giovanni, 2021. "Employment protection and firm-provided training in dual labour markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    13. Anders Bornhäll & Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Niklas Rudholm, 2017. "Employment protection legislation and firm growth: evidence from a natural experiment," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 169-185.
    14. Djankov, Simeon & Ramalho, Rita, 2009. "Employment laws in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-13, March.
    15. Boeri, Tito & Garibaldi, Pietro & Moen, Espen R., 2017. "Inside severance pay," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 211-225.
    16. von Below, David & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2010. "Last in, first out?: Estimating the effect of seniority rules in Sweden," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 987-997, December.
    17. Bratti, Massimiliano & Conti, Maurizio & Sulis, Giovanni, 2019. "Employment Protection and Firm-Provided Training: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Labour Market Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 12773, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Lorenzo Cappellari & Carlo Dell’Aringa & Marco Leonardi, 2012. "Temporary Employment, Job Flows and Productivity: A Tale of Two Reforms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(562), pages 188-215, August.
    19. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    20. Romain Duval & Davide Furceri & Joao Jalles, 2020. "Job protection deregulation in good and bad times," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 370-390.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    temporary contracts; worker reallocation; employment protection legislation; labour market duality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    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:iza:izadps:dp7594. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.