We investigate the microeconomic effects of labor regulations that protect employment and are expected to increase rigidity in labor markets. We exploit a unique outlet-level dataset obtained from a multinational food chain operating about 2,840 retail outlets in 43 countries outside the United...

This dissertation explores the microeconomic and aggregate implications of an array of employmentadjustment frictions. Chapter 1 investigates the JOBS Bank, a unique employment adjustment cost that prevailed in the domestic automobile industry for nearly 20 years. The JOBS Bank required...

This dissertation consists of three essays in LaborEconomics. The first chapter estimates the costs for establishments of hires andseparations for a panel of German establishments. The panel records the start and thetermination of the employment of all employees in the surveyed establishments,...

Recent developments in intra-industry trade (IIT) literature focus on the relationships between IIT and adjustment costs associated with changes in trade pattern. The effects of trade liberalisation depend, inter alia, on whether trade is of an inter-industry or intra-industry nature. The belief...

Microeconomic flexibility, by facilitating the process of creative-destruction, is at the core of economic growth in modern market economies. The main reason for why this process is not infinitely fast is the presence of adjustment costs, some of them technological, others institutional. Chief...

Horticultural firms are dependent on energy to produce, while policy makers focus on reducingthe use of energy and investment in energy-saving technologies. The paper aimed to assesDutch greenhouse farmers‘ responses to policies that would affect prices of different energyinputs. The...

The paper analyses the efficiency and the distributional effects of eliminating a tariff in a protected sector, in a Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade with costs of adjustment. The tariff can be eliminated at the onset or after a while. In case of postponing it the government may pre-announce the...

Farmland and capital are an important and rapidly expanding component of the agriculturaleconomy, and empirical evidence suggests that these assets are quasi-fixed in that adjustment costs are incurred when holdings are altered. Increased interest in the rate of return for investing in farmland...

The paper analyzes investment behavior of industrial enterprises in the period immediately following price and foreign trade liberalization in the Czech Republic. It also focuses on the effect of "soft" macroeconomic environment on the microeconomic decisions. A dynamic investment function with...