Labour Market Flexibility Research Articles

사회안전망이 혁신저항에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether the social security system can alleviate the resistance of workers in existing industries in a situation where resistance is increasing as technological innovation occurs in all industries. In particular, we will focus on looking at labor market policies such as retirement income security systems such as ‘pensions’ and ‘unemployment benefits and vocational training’ that are directly related to the lives of workers in existing industries that have declined due to technological innovation and new growth industries. For the analysis, 17 major industrially advanced OECD countries were set as the analysis target, and the analysis period was set from 2000 to 2021, when globalization, digitalization, and resistance to technological innovation resulting from the Fourth Industrial Revolution began in earnest, and panel data was constructed. did. As an analysis method, in addition to the existing panel regression analysis, fuzzy set analysis was performed to complement the limitations of regression analysis. As a result of the regression analysis, it was found that passive labor market policies centered on unemployment benefits alleviated resistance. As a result of the fuzzy set combined factor analysis, it was revealed that a high level of active labor market policy is still needed, and that a passive labor market policy with a short period but strong guarantees and a flexible labor market environment are needed.

Climate policy and inequality in urban areas: Beyond incomes

Opposition to climate policies is partly due to their impacts on inequality. But with most economic studies focused on income inequalities, the quantitative spatial effect of economic climate policy instruments is poorly understood. Here, using a model derived from the standard urban model of urban economics, we simulate a fuel tax in Cape Town, South Africa, decomposing its impacts by income class, housing type, and location, and over different timeframes, assuming that agents gradually adapt. We find that in the short term, there are both income and spatial inequalities, with low-income households or suburban dwellers more negatively impacted. These inequalities persist in the medium and long terms, as the poorest households, living in informal or subsidized housing, have few or no ways to adapt to fuel price increases by changing housing type, size or location, or transportation mode. Low-income households living in formal housing are also impacted by the tax over the long term due to complex effects driven by competition with richer households in the housing market. Complementary policies promoting a flexible labor market, affordable public transportation, or subsidies that help low-income households live closer to employment centers will be key to the social acceptability of climate policies.

Hustle: Experiences of making work ‘work’ for non-standard and precariously employed workers in New York City

Non-standard employment (NSE) has negative implications for workers' health. As part of a larger comparative case study, this article explores US-based workers' experiences in NSE and its influences on their health and well-being in a context of a shrinking social safety net and individualistic cultural values. We conducted interviews with workers in NSE in various occupations in the New York City area (N = 40). We used deductive and inductive thematic analysis and considered variations across levels of employment precarity. All participants experienced the ‘hustle of NSE,’ a dynamic frame comprising: i) tension between payoffs (flexibility, opportunity to work for more pay, and satisfaction with their work) and tradeoffs (job instability and insecurity, and having to work more) that both implicate participants' health and well-being in mostly negative ways; ii) reliance on personal and family resources and opportunities to manage NSE; and iii) low expectations for improvements in employer-based practices and policies or basic worker and social protections despite having clarity about problems and desires. Workers assessed their work and life circumstances and behaved in a way to try to obtain the best results for themselves and their families. When comparing across employment precarity levels, workers' health and well-being experiences varied by participants' immigration status. Understanding health and well-being consequences of NSE contributes to examining individual costs of labor market flexibility. Achieving health equity must include labor, employment and welfare state policies that are more inclusive of gaps created by NSE and precarious employment, especially for workers in marginalized social locations.

Target2: The Silent Bailout System That Keeps the Euro Afloat

Target2 is the Eurozone’s cross-border payment system, which is mandatory for the settlement of euro transactions involving Eurozone central banks. It is being used to save the Eurozone from imploding. A key underlying problem is that the Eurozone does not satisfy the economic conditions for being an Optimal Currency Area, i.e., a geographical area over which a single currency and monetary policy can operate on a sustainable, long-term basis. The different business cycles in the Eurozone, combined with poor labour and capital market flexibility, mean that systematic trade surpluses and deficits will build up because inter-regional exchange rates can no longer be changed. Surplus regions need to recycle the surpluses back into deficit regions via transfers to keep the Eurozone economies in balance. But the largest surplus country—Germany—refuses to formally accept that the European Union is a ‘transfer union’. However, deficit countries, including the largest of these—Italy—are using Target2 for this purpose. Target2 has become a giant credit card for Eurozone members that import more than they export to other members, but with two differences compared with normal credit card debt: neither the debt nor the interest that accrues on the debt ever needs to be repaid. Furthermore, the size of the deficits being built up is causing citizens in deficit countries to lose confidence in their banking systems, leading them to transfer their funds to banks in surplus countries. Target2 is also being used to facilitate this capital flight. However, these are not viable long-term solutions to systemic Eurozone trade imbalances and weakening national banking systems. There are only two realistic outcomes. The first is a full fiscal and political union, with Brussels determining the levels of tax and public expenditure in each member state—which has long been the objective of Europe’s political establishment. The second outcome is that the Eurozone breaks up.

Labor Market Flexibility and General and Firm-specific Skills

Labor Market Flexibility and General and Firm-specific Skills

The social impact of labour market flexibilization and its fertility consequences in Italy

Very low fertility in Italy is a social problem as it is largely involuntary and represents a threat to the continuity of the society and to welfare state accounts. Rising economic uncertainty is considered in the literature as one of the driving forces behind the postponement of childbearing and the reduction in fertility rates in contemporary Europe. Understanding whether employment instability causally and negatively impacts fertility decisions is of fundamental importance to providing clear recommendations to policymakers. To the best of our knowledge, the only study applying a counterfactual approach to the impact of temporary employment on parenthood is an article by Vignoli et al. [11]. The present study replicates such a paper utilizing more recent data for Italy (2016, instead of 2009), thus covering a period encompassing the Great Recession. We adopt the potential outcome approach to causal inference so as to quantify the net effect of having a first job with a temporary vs. permanent contract on the propensity to first-child conception. Our findings confirm a clear-cut causal effect of temporary employment on first-birth postponement. Largely overlapping previous results, we demonstrate how precarious work has become a structural factor discouraging the transition to parenthood among young Italians.

Labour laws in India: history, evolution and critical analysis

ABSTRACT This study carries out a comprehensive examination of the evolving landscape of labour laws in India, with a particular focus on the recent labour codes introduced in 2020. Through a historical analysis of labour regulations, we contextualize the present labour regulatory framework, emphasizing the influence of the Indian state on the shifting dynamics of labour relations. Our analysis reveals that over the years the government has significantly enhanced labour market flexibility through less conspicuous channels and backdoor policy adjustments, instead of outright amending the ‘protectionist’ labour legislations. We argue that the new labour codes are an addition to the series of ‘reforms by stealth’ carried out by the government, to enhance flexibility in the labour market in the guise of promoting employment generation and economic growth. The new codes continue to exclude the bulk of the workforce engaged in the unorganized sector and have limited applicability in the organized sector. They dilute the bargaining power of trade unions and ‘juridify’ industrial relations and the provisions for exemptions in the OSHWCC further subject workers to precarious and subpar working conditions.

Labor market institutions and technology-induced labor adjustment along the extensive and intensive margins

What is the composition of total hours response to a technology shock in countries with different labor market institutions in terms of extensive and intensive margin movements? To answer this question, I identify technology shocks using structural vector autoregressions (SVARs) and decompose the responses of hours into adjustments along the extensive and intensive margins. I compare the adjustments along the two margins between groups of countries with strict and flexible labor market institutions. I find that both margins play a large role in accommodating technology shocks, with adjustments along the intensive margin being more important. Furthermore, countries with flexible labor market institutions display a larger drop in employment, whereas the results for the intensive margin are mixed. Finally, the cross-country differences in fluctuations along the two margins can be linked to the strictness of institutions that target quantity and price adjustments in the labor market.

INVESTIGATING THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF LABOUR MARKET TRENDS ON BUSINESS HIRING PRACTICES

Labour is a unique and vital resource for a business. Every countrys regulations, or the institutional mechanisms that make up its labour market, establish the framework for all labour contracts. The main focus of our research is the criticism of the increasing gap between the requirements of businesses and the actual implementation of employment contracts under present regulations. Whether the labour market and the firms regulatory institutional mechanism design are appropriate for the needs of the particular firm and the nations economy is the main economic matter at hand. The flexibility of contract between employers and employees was diminished during the 20th century as a result of the majority of employment regulations being tightened under the pretext of increased worker protection. The exact opposite was what businesses required and demanded: more flexible employment contracts. Because it controls employment relationships and establishes the parameters of contract flexibility, employment regulation is a crucial component of the legal business framework. These factors affect a firms ability to compete internationally as well as the overall health of the economy. We hypothesised that because regulations cause businesses to put off hiring, an employment climate that is less flexible will be less beneficial. We look into the labour markets challenges and the regulatory practises in a few areas of Vellore District. Flexibility in the labour market is a composite measure of a few chosen variables that are thought to eventually affect a countrys economic performance. Finding the variables that affect labour market flexibility and the chosen output variables like employment and productivity, among others is our goal. KEY WORDS: Labour, Economic conditions, Market, Chi-square, Employment

Перспективы и направления исследований в области сравнительного трудового права

Comparative law is irreplaceable in labor law because of its capabilities as a tool for a deeper understanding of various labor systems, supporting political decisions and strengthening the protection of labor rights. Investigat-ing how labor legislation functions in various national legal systems, researchers identify and explain how cer-tain areas of legislation development will help the development of effective and fair labor relations in the coun-try, in accordance with international practice. The aim of the article is to identify the prospects for research in the field of comparative labor law at the present stage. This branch of legal science contributes to a deeper under-standing of different labor systems and strengthening the protection of workers’ rights around the world. The analysis of research directions allowed to identify the main ways of further development of legislation in the field of labor law. It appears that they will focus on increasing labor mobility as part of ongoing globalization; ensuring measures to protect workers’ rights, analyzing the possibilities of creating a flexible labor market, re-forming this branch of the law, complying with international labor standards, and introducing legal innovations in practice while maintaining the principles of social justice and equality.

Rethinking Post-Pandemic Labor Policies: Insights from Precarious Workers in Indonesia

The current study aims at finding evidence of the impacts of economic shocks on the labor markets in Indonesia. Based on the findings, the study would like to revisit the feasibility of the current labor markets policy in the country that is currently moving towards labor market flexibility. To study the topic, this study used a dataset from the 2021 Inter-Regional Input-Output Table for East Java Province, Indonesia. In the analysis, econometric techniques were employed to: (i) identify vulnerable economic sectors to the economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, (ii) determine the economic losses resulting from the reduction of outputs, and (iii) determine the impacts on the labor markets that resulted from the reduction in the final demand of the economic sectors. The findings of this study reveal that the sectors that had been most affected by the economic shocks are those that make a significant contribution to the gross domestic product and are heavily dependent on labor. Upon simulating the impacts of economic shocks on the labor markets, the labor-intensive service sectors are the most impacted and succeeded by labor-intensive manufacturing sectors and capital-intensive sectors. Hence, in opposition to the current labor markets policy, the findings suggest policymakers to adopt appropriate labor market policies that promote decent work while sustaining economic growth.

What reduces unemployment rates in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries: growth, flexible labor markets, or social contract?

ABSTRACT In this research, we empirically examine the structural and macroeconomic determinants of unemployment rates in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, distinguished by age and gender. We examine several hypotheses regarding the influence of long-run economic growth, labour market flexibility, and the social contract on unemployment rates. Using panel data for the period 2000–2020 and country and time fixed effects estimation methodology, empirical evidence shows that long-run growth reduces unemployment rates regardless of age and gender (except for female youth unemployment rate). Wage flexibility reduces most unemployment rates. Urbanization reduces total and male unemployment rates, while population density reduces total and female unemployment rates. In contrast to these determinants, linking pay to productivity, increases female, total youth, and male youth unemployment rates. Openness ratio increases total, total youth, male and male youth unemployment rates but not female and female youth unemployment rates. The paper has important policy implications for reducing unemployment rates in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Identifying Resilient and Non-Resilient Labour Conditions in Europe Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Abstract Based on the concept of labour market resilience, this paper is aimed to determine the combination of initial conditions behind resilient and non-resilient labour markets after the financial crisis in 2008 in Europe. We start from the assumption that some initial conditions in 2007 are crucial to achieve a specific labour result when a shock appears. In this sense, the effect of temporary employment in cyclical sectors, labour market flexibility, the level of education among the workforce, and the expenditure on Labour Market Policies (LMP) have been tested using crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) in 25 European countries. Whilst our results do not explain labour market resilience in its entirety, we have found a model explaining 85% of the non-resilient cases. These findings suggest that the different levels of initial conditions may have prompted dissimilar labour adjustments with varying success rates in dealing with the job losses.

Financial crisis, labor market frictions, and economic volatility.

This article analyzes cross-country data encompassing 130 countries and regions from 2000 to 2019 to investigate the correlation between financial crises, labor market frictions, and economic volatility. The empirical findings demonstrate that financial crises have a milder impact on real gross domestic product (GDP) in developing countries with flexible labor markets. This trend also applies to non-eurozone developed countries, where labor market flexibility aids crisis mitigation. However, this pattern doesn't hold for eurozone countries. Further examination of developing nations reveals that those with heightened labor market flexibility tend to experience reduced adverse effects on non-tradable sectors, thereby mitigating the impact on real GDP.

Can we all be Denmark? The role of civic attitudes in welfare state reforms

Research has demonstrated the economic effectiveness of welfare state reforms that follow the Danish flexicurity model, broadly specifying the combination of highly flexible labor market policies and generous protection schemes. Notwithstanding, it has also been argued that large and generous welfare states may erode civic attitudes, defined here as people’s willingness to cheat on taxes and claim transfers to which they are not entitled. Combining data from all available waves of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study with a self-constructed flexicurity index, this paper finds that welfare state reforms involving a combination of higher benefits, lower labor market regulations, and active labor market policies are not significantly associated with an erosion of civic attitudes.

Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, and Stock Returns Around the World

Studying 30 countries, we find that the link between employee satisfaction and stock returns is significantly increasing in a country’s labor market flexibility. This result is consistent with employee satisfaction having greater recruitment, retention, and motivation benefits where firms face fewer hiring and firing constraints and employees have greater ability to respond to satisfaction. Labor market flexibility also increases the link between employee satisfaction and current valuation ratios, future profitability, and future earnings surprises, inconsistent with omitted risk factors and identifying channels through which employee satisfaction may affect stock returns. The findings have implications for the differential profitability of socially responsible investing strategies around the world—in particular, the importance of considering institutional factors when forming such strategies. This paper was accepted by Lin William Cong, finance. Funding: This work was supported by Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4889 .

Labor mobility and the Affordable Care Act: Heterogeneous impacts of the preexisting conditions provision

AbstractThe Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) preexisting conditions provision ensures that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage, charge higher premiums, or exclude coverage due to a preexisting health condition. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the provision on labor mobility. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for years 2009 through 2019 and estimate difference‐in‐differences models to determine whether the provision improved labor mobility for individuals with chronic conditions. While females respond along the extensive margin by being less likely to work, males experience broader labor mobility improvements. Men are more likely to start a new job, become employed in a different industry, and move to a different state in the post‐policy period. Labor mobility improvements are largest among males with household incomes greater than 138% of the federal poverty level, males ages 35 to 49, and males with conditions first diagnosed more than 10 years ago. Last, we show that the policy improved access to health insurance coverage and reduced the likelihood that health impacts the amount or type of work, which ultimately increased labor market flexibility. Our results highlight the heterogenous impacts of the provision on different subgroups of the population.

Working time variation and mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in China

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a significant shift in labor market dynamics, leading to a notable increase in labor market flexibilization. One prominent aspect of this transformation is the growing variation in working time patterns. The irregular and unpredictable nature of working time may contribute to increased stress levels, difficulty in establishing routines, and challenges in maintaining work-life boundaries. Drawing on China General Social survey 2021, this study aims to examine (1) the relationship between working time variation and mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in China; (2) whether the relationship can be mediated by work-family conflict; (3) to what extent the relationship varies across occupations. We find that working time variation is associated with significantly worse mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in China, and around half of the negative effect can be mediated by increased work-family conflict. Moreover, the negative association is more pronounced among non-professional occupations than professional occupations. Overall, these findings shed light on the detrimental impact of working time variation on mental health and its potential mechanism, highlighting how novel work paradigm may interact with existing labor market inequalities to shape workers’ mental health.

Estimating labor supply responses to Danish tax reforms

This paper estimates the elasticity of labor supply at the intensive margin by applying the latest estimation strategies from the elasticity of taxable income literature to administrative register data on performed hours of work. Performed hours of work are contract hours plus paid overtime, minus paid absence, vacation, and holiday leave. I estimate elasticities of labor supply at the intensive margin (ELS), labor income (ELI), and taxable income (ETI) of 0.08, 0.06, and 0.1. The results show that the high ratio of ELI to ETI can be attributed to changes in labor supply for wage earners, capturing inherent labor responses. As a result, I explicitly connect the labor supply and ETI literatures. The labor supply response is driven by changes in contract hours, paid absence, and individuals switching between main and secondary employment. These results suggest that contextual factors such as labor market fluidity and flexibility are important to facilitate real responses to taxation and that labor supply responses are core underlying drivers of total responses to taxation.

The winner’s curse? Temporal and spatial impacts of higher education expansion on graduate employment and social mobility

ABSTRACT The massification of higher education has dramatically changed the association between credentials and jobs in advanced countries, while its impacts in transitional economies have received less academic attention. To address this research lacuna, the paper utilizes rich information from China’s national surveys of college graduates from 2003 to 2019 and multiple waves of census data to explore the temporal and spatial effects of tertiary education expansion on college graduates’ job sorting. Regression results from the fixed effects model and the two-stage least-squares model indicate that, on the temporal dimension, the higher education expansion has weakened ties between college credentials and quality jobs over the past 20 years. Recent graduates are more likely to work in informal, non-urban, and non-public sectors, and the college earnings premium has also declined. There is a persistent gap in employment outcomes between bachelor’s and associate degree holders. On the spatial dimension, the growing enrolment size leads to skill sorting towards low skilled regions. The study argues that the dynamic effects of college credentials may be explained by labour market flexibility and cohort crowding after higher education expansion. This paper calls for a critical reflection on the merit of further massification of higher education in developing economies, regarding its potential impacts on intergenerational inequality and regional inequality.