This paper tests whether the job security offered by stricter employment protection legislation (EPL) undermines positive compensating wage differentials that would otherwise be paid. Specifically, we ask whether industries with relatively more need for layoffs and labour flexibility have lower...

Using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data for 21 countries, I study the impact of employment protection laws (EPL) on job content. Economic theories predict that stricter protection increases workers' willingness to make firm-specific investments. These...

This paper analyses the optimal design of a single open-ended contract (SOEC) and studies the political economy of moving towards such a SOEC in a labour market where employment protection is highly discontinuous. We develop a computationally tractable approach to compare two economic...

Job insecurity can have wide-ranging consequences outside of the labour market. We here argue that it reduces fertility amongst the employed. The 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax, paid by large private firms when they laid off workers aged over 50, produced an exogenous rise in job...