Using a country-industry panel dataset (EUKLEMS) we uncover a robust empirical regularity, namely that high-risk innovative sectors are relatively smaller in countries with strict employment protection legislation (EPL). To understand the mechanism, we develop a two-sector matching model where...

This paper looks at the effects of the 'Great Recession' on young people's labour market experiences in the European Union. The paper documents some of the key characteristics of young people's labour market experiences during the current recession and then seeks to provide some explanations of...

This paper analyzes the joint effect of EPL and financial market imperfections on investment, capital-labour substitution, labour productivity and job reallocation in a cross-country framework. In the spirit of Rajan and Zingales (1998) and Ciccone and Papaioannou (2006), we exploit variation in...

High levels of employment protection reduce hiring and firing and have a theoretically ambiguous effect on the employment level. Immigrants, being new to the labor market, may be less aware of employment protection regulations and less likely to claim their rights, which may create a gap between...

Labour market segmentation currently is at the forefront of national and European policy debates. While the European Commission and the OECD try to promote what they see as more inclusive policies, academic observers remain skeptical. Particularly the dualisation literature points to stable...

This paper provides an overview of recent research on dual labour markets. Theoretical and empirical contributions on the labour-market effects of dual employment protection legislation are revisited, as well as factors behind its resilience and policies geared towards correcting its negative...

This paper studies the impact of an European-like labor market regulation on the return to schooling, equilibrium unemployment and welfare. We show that firing costs and temporary employment have opposite effects on educational choices. We furthermore demonstrate that a laissez faire economy...

The design of the employment protection legislation (EPL) is of a particular acuity in the European debate on the contours of the EPL reform. In this article we used an equilibrium unemployment model to investigate the virtue of an EPL reform whose modality is a lessening in the red tape and...

The most enduring measure of how individuals make personal decisions affecting their health and safety is the compensating wage differential for job safety risk revealed in the labor market via hedonic equilibrium outcomes. The decisions in turn reveal the value of a statistical life (VSL), the...

The current crisis, while of a global nature, has affected national labor markets to a varying extent. While some countries have experienced a steep increase in unemployment, employment in other developed economies has not fallen in parallel with a significant decline in GDP. Our analysis shows...