Reputation indexes of employment protection have proven popular constructs in studies of the covariation of labor market institutions and macroeconomic outcomes. Portugal occupies an unenviable rank order in such measures of the stringency of employment protection. We critique this reputation in...

This paper discusses free immigration to regulated labour markets (as in Europe) and to unregulated labour markets (as in the US), and explores the implications for migration flows of collective agreements, employment protection laws, product market regulations etc. It is argued that the...

The paper studies the major institutional changes that are at the root of the increase in the west European unemployment rate in the last quartercentury from below 3 percent to 11 percent. The institutional characteristics of wage bargaining, the tax wedge and the legal rules hamper the...

In the first part of this project the Labor Code (LC) in Panama was analyzed with respect to its impact on the demand for labor. This entailed firms (i.e., employers) being surveyed in connection with their views about the implications of the LC. Specifically they were requested to respond to...

How does enforcement of labor regulations shape the labor market effects of trade? Does the informal sector introduce greater de facto flexibility, reducing employment losses during bad times? To tackle these questions, we exploit local economic shocks generated by trade liberalization and...