Since formal laws can be observed or ignored to varying degrees, the actual enforcement regime shapes incentives and constraints. Most of the studies exploring EPL effects on labour market performance implicitly assume that EPL compliance is near to complete and therefore all firms bear full...

The efficiency of the labour market critically depends on the design of its institutions with employment protection legislation (EPL) playing a special role here. However, since formal laws can be observed or ignored to varying degrees, the actual enforcement regime shapes incentives and...

The paper comments on new estimates of EPL stringency for Russia which implies that labor regulation in Russia is de jure very flexible. Alternative estimates presented in the paper suggest that by stringency of EPL Russia exceeds even those OECD countries whose labor markets are considered...