IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_707_22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Temporary contracts: an analysis of the North-South gap in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Camussi

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Fabrizio Colonna

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Francesca Modena

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

In Italy the incidence of temporary employment significantly varies across areas, being on average significantly higher in southern regions. Using a unique source of administrative data we show that the gap doesn't accrue from differences in firms' hiring strategies: as a matter of fact workers are initially hired on a temporary basis more often in the North. The largest share of fixed-term contracts in the South reflects instead (i) the lower probability that they are eventually converted into an open-ended one and (ii) the lower duration of permanent positions.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Camussi & Fabrizio Colonna & Francesca Modena, 2022. "Temporary contracts: an analysis of the North-South gap in Italy," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 707, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_707_22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2022-0707/QEF_707_22.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June.
    2. Andrea Ichino & Fabrizia Mealli & Tommaso Nannicini, 2008. "From temporary help jobs to permanent employment: what can we learn from matching estimators and their sensitivity?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 305-327.
    3. David H. Autor & Susan N. Houseman, 2010. "Do Temporary-Help Jobs Improve Labor Market Outcomes for Low-Skilled Workers? Evidence from "Work First"," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 96-128, July.
    4. Yun, Myeong-Su, 2004. "Decomposing differences in the first moment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 275-280, February.
    5. Jenkins, Stephen P, 1995. "Easy Estimation Methods for Discrete-Time Duration Models," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 57(1), pages 129-138, February.
    6. Emanuele Ciani & Adele Grompone & Elisabetta Olivieri, 2019. "Long-term unemployment and subsidies for permanent employment," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1249, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Fabrizio Colonna & Giulia Giupponi, 2015. "Why do firms hire on a fixed-term basis? Evidence from longitudinal data," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 297, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Ham, John C & Svejnar, Jan & Terrell, Katherine, 1998. "Unemployment and the Social Safety Net during Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1117-1142, December.
    9. Guido Bulligan & Eliana Viviano, 2017. "Has the wage Phillips curve changed in the euro area?," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, December.
    10. Matteo Picchio, 2008. "Temporary Contracts and Transitions to Stable Jobs in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(s1), pages 147-174, June.
    11. Gianna Barbieri & Paolo Sestito, 2008. "Temporary Workers in Italy: Who Are They and Where They End Up," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(1), pages 127-166, March.
    12. Gagliarducci, Stefano, 2005. "The dynamics of repeated temporary jobs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 429-448, August.
    13. Fabio Berton & Pietro Garibaldi, 2012. "Workers and Firms Sorting into Temporary Jobs," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(562), pages 125-154, August.
    14. Fabio Berton & Francesco Devicienti & Lia Pacelli, 2011. "Are temporary jobs a port of entry into permanent employment?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(8), pages 879-899, November.
    15. D'Addio, Anna Cristina & Rosholm, Michael, 2005. "Exits from temporary jobs in Europe: A competing risks analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 449-468, August.
    16. Marco Lilla & Stefano Staffolani, 2012. "Young Entrants, Temporary Jobs and Career Opportunities: Short-Term Perspectives of Young Italian Workers," Rivista di statistica ufficiale, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY), vol. 14(1), pages 50-60, October.
    17. Paolo Sestito & Eliana Viviano, 2016. "Hiring incentives and/or firing cost reduction? Evaluating the impact of the 2015 policies on the Italian labour market," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 325, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matteo Picchio & Mattia Filomena, 2021. "Are Temporary Jobs Stepping Stones Or Dead Ends? A Meta-Analytical Review Of The Literature," Working Papers 455, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    2. Matteo Picchio & Stefano Staffolani, 2019. "Does apprenticeship improve job opportunities? A regression discontinuity approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 23-60, January.
    3. Giovanni S.F. Bruno & Floro E. Caroleo & Orietta Dessy, 2013. "Stepping stones versus dead end jobs: exits from temporary contracts in Italy after the 2003 reform," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 121(1), pages 31-62.
    4. repec:tur:wpaper:6 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fabio Berton & Francesco Devicienti & Lia Pacelli, 2009. "Are Temporary Jobs a Port of Entry into Permanent Employment? Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data," Working papers 06, Former Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato", University of Torino.
    6. Lia Pacelli & Silvia Pasqua & Claudia Villosio, 2007. "What Does the Stork Bring to Women’s Working Career?," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 58, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    7. Diego Daruich & Sabrina Di Addario & Raffaele Saggio, 2023. "The Effects of Partial Employment Protection Reforms: Evidence from Italy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2880-2942.
    8. Marco Bee & Julien Hambuckers, 2020. "Modeling multivariate operational losses via copula-based distributions with g-and-h marginals," DEM Working Papers 2020/3, Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Berton, Fabio & Migheli Matteo, 2015. "Estimating the marginal rate of substitution between wage and employment protection," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201529, University of Turin.
    10. Albanese, Andrea & Gallo, Giovanni, 2020. "Buy flexible, pay more: The role of temporary contracts on wage inequality," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Maria Giovanna Bosco & Elisa Valeriani, 2017. "From temporary to permanent jobs: a stepping stone analysis for Emilia Romagna," EcoMod2017 10474, EcoMod.
    12. Gnocato, Nicolò & Modena, Francesca & Tomasi, Chiara, 2020. "Labor market reforms and allocative efficiency in Italy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Sara Flisi & Marcello Morciano, 2011. "Trends and dynamics in the Italian labour market. An empirical evaluation using RFL data, 1993-2007," Center for the Analysis of Public Policies (CAPP) 0091, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    14. Mussida Chiara & Sciulli Dario, 2015. "Flexibility Policies and Re-employment Probabilities in Italy," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 621-651, April.
    15. Pauline Givord & Lionel Wilner, 2015. "When Does the Stepping‐Stone Work? Fixed‐Term Contracts Versus Temporary Agency Work in Changing Economic Conditions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 787-805, August.
    16. Emanuele Ciani & Guido de Blasio, 2015. "Getting stable: an evaluation of the incentives for permanent contracts in Italy," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-29, December.
    17. Pollio, Chiara & Landini, Fabio & Prodi, Elena & Arrighetti, Alessandro, 2023. "Does Temporary Employment undermine the Quality of Permanent Jobs?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1273, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Tealdi, Cristina, 2011. "Typical and atypical employment contracts: the case of Italy," MPRA Paper 39456, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Bachmann, Ronald & Beimann, Boris & Bredtmann, Julia & David, Peggy & Ehlert, Christoph & Kassenböhmer, Sonja & Schaffner, Sandra & Siemers, Lars, 2011. "Studies on flexicurity Lot 1: Study on various aspects of labour market performance using micro data from the European Union statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC). Contract No. VC/2010/," RWI Projektberichte, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, number 72620.
    20. Luca Zanin & Raffaella Calabrese, 2017. "Interaction effects of region-level GDP per capita and age on labour market transition rates in Italy," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-29, December.
    21. Floro Ernesto Caroleo & Francesco Pastore, 2009. "Le cause del(l') (in)successo lavorativo dei giovani," Economia & lavoro, Carocci editore, issue 3, pages 107-107.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    temporary contracts; contract duration; transformation rate; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_707_22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.