Employment Protection Laws, Barriers to Entrepreneurship, Financial Markets and Firm Size

This paper provides new evidence on the institutional determinants of firm size. Using a comprehensive longitudinal database of firm characteristics across 29 industrial sectors in 15 OECD countries, the authors study how labor regulations and barriers to entrepreneurship affect industrial organization in the presence of credit market frictions. They show that strict employment protection laws and more barriers to entrepreneurship affect negatively firms in sectors that are dependent on external funds. Their findings show that the interaction between market regulations and financial imperfections help to explain some of the differences in firm structure across countries.