It is commonly argued that labor market institutions such as employment protection worsen an economy's performance and particularly so, if product markets become more competitive. Empirical evidence, however, has difficulties to detect a robust negative correlation between employment protection...

In this paper we analyse the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firms' entry and exit rates for a large sample of industries of thirteen countries selected from the most recent version of the OECD Structural and Business Statistics Database. Using a differences-in-differences...

In this study, we leverage on Italy's size-contingent firing restrictions to identify the causal effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on firm-provided training using a regression discontinuity design. Our analysis demonstrates that higher levels of EPL reduce incentives for firms to...

We present a model in which two of the most important features of the long-run growth process are reconciled: the massive changes in the structure of production and employment; and the Kaldor facts of economic growth. We assume that households expand their consumption along a hierarchy of needs...

Theory predicts that the wage effects of government-mandated severance payments depend on workers' and firms' relative bargaining power. This paper estimates the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on workers' individual wages in a quasi-experimental setting, exploiting a reform...

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...

According to French law, employers have to pay at least six months salary to employees whose seniority exceeds two years in case of unfair dismissal. We show, relying on data, that this regulation entails a hike in severance payments at two-year seniority which induces a significant rise in the...

We study the effect of a reduction in employment protection on fertility decisions. Using data from the Italian Labor Force Survey for the years 2013-2018, we analyze how the propensity to have a child has been affected by the 2015 Labor Market Reform, the so-called "Jobs Act", which has...

In 2012, a labour market reform in Italy known as the Fornero Law substantially reduced firing restrictions for open-ended contracts in the case of firms with more than 15 employees. The results from a difference in regression discontinuities design that compares firms below versus those above...