Adjusting employment protection legislation to the economic cycle: do transition countries differ from mature democracies?

Although the transition period for post-socialist countries began almost thirty years ago, still little is known about the determinants of changes in labour market institutions during that time. This study is focused on one of these institutions, i.e. employment protection legislation and analyses whether it is adapted differently to the economic cycle in countries that offer various levels of political freedom. The proposed theoretical model predicts that in countries where political freedom is unlimited and law violations are rare, after the positive (negative) macroeconomic shock the formal protection of employees will, on average, be increased (decreased), while in countries where there is no political freedom and law violations are frequent, the formal protection of employees will be rather reduced (extended). Although the main empirical analysis conducted for 43 OECD and post-socialist countries for the years 1993–2009 does not fully support the theoretical model, it confirms that the mechanism of shaping the employment protection legislation in democratic, highly-developed and transition countries has been different than in non-democratic post-socialist states.