This study examines the extent and influence of occupational licensing in the U.S. using a specially designed national labor force survey. Specifically, we provide new ways of measuring occupational licensing and consider what types of regulatory requirements and what level of government...

This chapter reviews the literature on employment and labor law. The goal of the review is to understand why every jurisdiction in the world has extensive employment law, particularly employment protection law, while most economic analysis of the law suggests that less employment protection...

European Social Survey data on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009, are used to look into joint institutional [and other macro] determinants of the rates of dependent employment without a contract, informal self-employment, and unemployment (secondary jobs are not accounted for). Consistently...

According to the aims of the labour market reforms of the 90s implemented in many European countries, workers may stay at their first job for a shorter time, but should be able to switch jobs easily. This would generate a trade-off between job opportunities and job stability. This paper...

Why should floors be set under wages and working conditions by labour market regulations? This paper finds that efficiency arguments are questionable, because of the disemployment effects of strict regulation. Regulation is better explained in terms of the choices of the employed semi- and...

This paper offers an eclectic survey of the political economy of labor regulation in the United States at federal and state levels along the dimensions of occupational health and safety, unjust dismissal, right-to-work, workplace safety and workers' compensation, living wages, and prevailing...

How does enforcement of labor regulations shape the labor market effects of trade? To tackle this question, we exploit the Brazilian trade liberalization episode and exogenous variation in the intensity of both the trade shock and enforcement across local labor markets. Regions with stricter...

While trade unions have been studied in detail, there is virtually no economics research on employer associations (EAs), their counterparts in many countries. Here we argue that EAs are important economic agents as they provide sectoral public goods such as collective bargaining, training, and...

Graduating from a school during a time of adverse economic conditions has a persistent, harmful effect on workers' subsequent employment opportunities. An analysis of panel data from OECD countries during the 1960-2010 periods reveals that a worker who experiences a one-percentage-point higher...

Drawing upon data from the largest cross-country study of labor market concentration to date, this paper analyzes the level of concentration of labor input markets in Europe and North America and provides a comparative perspective on employers' monopsony power. It explores the characteristics of...