We investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment laws, collective bargaining laws, and social security laws in 85 countries. We find that richer countries regulate labor less than poorer countries do, although they have more generous social security systems. The political power...

Implementation of workplace policies--whether through enforcement of laws or administration of programs--raises the question of the interaction between institutions created to carry out laws and the activities of workplace based agents that directly (e.g. unions) or indirectly (e.g. insurance...

This paper examines the effect of the different legal environments for bargaining faced by public employees across the states on wage and employment outcomes for union and nonunion employees, and also on the extent of bargaining, using cross-section, within-city, and longitudinal analyses based...

Using Canadian data on large, private-sector contract negotiations from January 1967 to March 1993, we find that wages and strikes are substantially influenced by labor policy. In particular, we find that prohibiting the use of replacement workers during strikes is associated with significantly...

This paper questions the link between the establishment of a common currency among several countries and the necessity of political coordination. It begins by discussing why conducting a single monetary policy is thought to be easier within a single political unit. It then proceeds to enquire...

The Great Recession tested the ability of the "great U.S. jobs machine" to limit the severity of unemployment in a major economic downturn and to restore full employment quickly afterward. In the crisis the American labor market failed to live up to expectations. The level and duration of...

I study the aggregate effects of labor market frictions in a small open economy where firms grow slowly and make fixed export investments. The model features interactions between dynamic investments in exporting and search frictions with job-to-job mobility. A calibration to Argentina's economy...

We estimate the effect of immigrant flows on native employment in Western Europe, and then ask whether the employment consequences of immigration vary with institutions that affect labor market flexibility. Reduced flexibility may protect natives from immigrant competition in the near term, but...

This paper deals with the reform to labor market regulation implemented by Chile during the last twenty years. We concentrate on the reform to job security, on the decentralization of the wage bargaining process, and on the reduction in payroll taxes. Our interest is to understand to what extent...

This paper investigates whether a larger public sector limits labor market adjustment, using data from the United States and the United Kingdom, two countries with quite different public/private employment trends. The results indicate that the two countries have a similar mix of occupations and...