Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Netherlands experienced a strong increase in the labourforce participation of women. This study investigates the increase of participation over thesuccessive generations of women, and produces an educated guess for future participation.For this purpose, we...

Using European Community Household Panel data for nine countries for 1996-2001, Iinvestigate the impact of reforms of employment protection systems on employment and ontemporary jobs for wage and salary workers. Individual fixed effects models are estimated,with the inclusion of country-specific...

Labor markets in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe underwent adramatic transformation. Notably, this transformation took place within just a few years. Untilthe mid-2000s job opportunities were scarce and unemployment was high. But since thenlabor demand has picked up and...

Recent empirical evidence has found that employment services and small-businessassistance programmes are often successful at getting the unemployed back to work. Oneimportant concern of policy makers is to decide which of these two programmes is moreeffective and for whom...

Census data show that since 1980 low-skill workers in the United States have beenincreasingly employed in the provision of non-tradeable time-intensive services - such asfood preparation and cleaning - that can be broadly thought as substitutes of homeproduction activities. Meanwhile the wage...

According to the Hutchens (1999) model, early retirement is not explained as a result ofmaximizing expected individual utility but rather as a demand-side phenomenon arising froma firm’s profit-maximizing behaviour...

We develop a structural multi-factor labour demand model which distinguishes between eightlabour categories including non-standard types of employment such as marginalemployment. The model is estimated for both the number of workers and total working hoursusing a new panel data set...

Based on a German representative sample of employees we explore the relevance anddevelopment of further training in private sector firms. We focus on formal training andexplore possible individual and job-based determinants of its incidence. We also showchanges over time during a 20 year...

Market imperfections may cause firms and workers to under-invest in specific training. Thispaper shows that profit sharing may be a suitable instrument to enhance specific traininginvestments, either by enhancing wage flexibility or by increasing the returns to training...