Laws on hiring and firing are intended to protect workers from unfair behavior by employers, to counter imperfections in financial markets that limit workers' ability to insure themselves against job loss, and to preserve firm-specific human capital. But by imposing costs on firms' adaptation to...

Over the past decade, the share of jobs not controlled by the state has increased considerably, whilst employment in agriculture has declined, against the backdrop of ongoing urbanisation. Over 200 million people have been drawn into urban areas through official or unofficial migration, despite...

Licensed workers could be shielded from unemployment during recession since occupational licensing laws are asymmetric--making unlicensed workers an illegal substitute for licensed workers but not the reverse. We test our hypothesis using a difference-in-differences event study research design...

The Greek industrial relations system for the past decades, mainly in the private sector, has been based on Law 1876 of 1990, which introduced free collective bargaining and independent dispute resolution. Due to the financial crisis, new legislation modified the existing legal framework and led...

Legal rules governing the employer-employee relationship are many and varied. Economic analysis has illuminated both the efficiency and the effects on employee welfare of such rules, as described in this chapter. Topics addressed below include workplace safety mandates, compensation systems for...

The paper examines changes in wage and hour labor regulation between 1898 and 1938. Many see the 1905 Lochner Supreme Court decision striking down hours limits for men as the beginning of 30 years in which labor regulation was stymied by the doctrine of "freedom of contract." That issue played a...