IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0135.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Working Time, Employment, and Work Sharing: Evidence from Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Jacobson, Tor

    (Department of Economic Statistics)

  • Ohlsson, Henry

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

We study three necessary conditions for work sharing to increase employment. First, there must exist a negative long-run relation between working time and employment. Second, hours per worker must be exogenous with respect to wages and employment. Third, policy makers must be able to influence actual hours per worker. We formulate a theoretical model for employment, hours peer worker, production, and real wages. A VAR system with cointegrating constraints is estimated by maximum likelihood using Swedish private sector data 1970-1- 1990:4 We find (I) no long-run relation between hours per worker and employment, (II) that hours per worker are endogenous with respect to the estimation of long-run parameters, and (III) that legislated working time and hours per worker are related to each other in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacobson, Tor & Ohlsson, Henry, 1996. "Working Time, Employment, and Work Sharing: Evidence from Sweden," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 135, Stockholm School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0135.ps
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0135.ps.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0135.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0135.pdf.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 1996. "The Response of Wages and Actual Hours Worked to the Reduction of Standard Hours in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 138, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    3. Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Has Work-Sharing Worked in Germany?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 117-148.
    4. Jennifer Hunt, 1996. "The Response of Wages and Actual Hours Worked to the Reductions of Standard Hours," NBER Working Papers 5716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Johansen, Soren, 1992. "Cointegration in partial systems and the efficiency of single-equation analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 389-402, June.
    6. Jennifer Hunt, 1998. "Hours Reductions as Work-Sharing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 339-381.
    7. Pencavel, John & Holmlund, Bertil, 1988. "The Determination of Wages, Employment, and Work Hours in an Economy with Centralised Wage-Setting: Sweden, 1950-83," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(393), pages 1105-1126, December.
    8. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1994. "Identification of the long-run and the short-run structure an application to the ISLM model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 7-36, July.
    9. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1991. "Stochastic Trends and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 819-840, September.
    10. G Houpis, 1993. "The Effect of Lower Hours of Work on Wages and Employment," CEP Discussion Papers dp0131, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Jacobson, Tor & Vredin, Anders & Warne, Anders, 1997. "Common trends and hysteresis in Scandinavian unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 1781-1816, December.
    12. Freeman, Richard B, 1995. "The Large Welfare State as a System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 16-21, May.
    13. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-1580, November.
    14. Johansen, Søren & Juselius, Katarina, 1992. "Testing structural hypotheses in a multivariate cointegration analysis of the PPP and the UIP for UK," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1-3), pages 211-244.
    15. Calmfors, Lars, 1985. "Work sharing, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 293-309.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henry Ohlsson & Michael Lundholm, 1998. "Wages, taxes and publicly provided day care," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 11(2), pages 185-204.
    2. Lonnie Golden & Stuart Glosser, 2013. "Work sharing as a potential policy tool for creating more and better employment: A review of the evidence," Chapters, in: Jon C. Messenger & Naj Ghosheh (ed.), Work Sharing during the Great Recession, chapter 7, pages 203-258, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Fang, Tony & Lin, Carl & Tang, Xueli, 2018. "How Has the Two-Day Weekend Policy Affected Labour Supply and Household Work in China?," IZA Discussion Papers 11698, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. M. J. Andrews & T. Schank & R. Simmons, 2005. "Does Worksharing Work? Some Empirical Evidence From The Iab‐Establishment Panel," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(2), pages 141-176, May.
    5. Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan & Zaidi, Asghar, 2004. "The myth of worksharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 293-313, June.
    6. de Regt, E.R., 2004. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Research Memorandum 028, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    7. Philippe Askenazy, 2013. "Working time regulation in France from 1996 to 2012," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(2), pages 323-347.
    8. Akram,Q.F. & Nymoen,R., 2001. "Employment behaviour in slack and tight labour markets," Memorandum 27/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    9. Stuart Glosser & Lonnie Golden, 2005. "Is labour becoming more or less flexible? Changing dynamic behaviour and asymmetries of labour input in US manufacturing," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(4), pages 535-557, July.
    10. Wehke, Sven, 2009. "Union wages, hours of work and the effectiveness of partial coordination agreements," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 89-96, January.
    11. Akram, Q. Farooq & Nymoen, Ragnar, 2006. "Econometric modelling of slack and tight labour markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 579-596, July.
    12. Petri Böckerman & Jaakko Kiander, 2002. "Determination of Average Working Time in Finland," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 16(3), pages 557-568, September.
    13. Fang, Tony & Lin, Carl & Tang, Xueli, 2024. "Where did the time go? The effects of China's two-day weekend policy on labor supply, household work, and wages," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Skans, Oskar Nordstrom, 2004. "The impact of working-time reductions on actual hours and wages: evidence from Swedish register-data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(5), pages 647-665, October.
    15. Arvind Ashta, 2017. "Work-sharing from Different Angles: A literature review," Working Papers CEB 17-033, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Rocheteau, Guillaume, 2002. "Working time regulation in a search economy with worker moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 387-425, June.
    17. Altavilla, Carlo & Garofalo, Antonio & Vinci, Concetto Paolo, 2005. "Evaluating the effects of working hours on employment and wages," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 647-664, September.
    18. Erik de Regt, 2009. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 765-778.
    19. Waqqas Qayyum, 2007. "Causes of Youth Unemployment in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 611-621.
    20. Chang, Juin-jen & Huang, Chun-chieh & Lai, Ching-chong, 2007. "Working hours reduction and wage contracting style in a dynamic model with labor adjustment costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 971-993, March.
    21. Simmons, R. & Schank, Thorsten & Andrews, Martyn J., 2004. "Does Worksharing Work? Some Empirical Evidence from the IAB Panel," Discussion Papers 25, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    22. Nordström Skans, Oskar, 2001. "The effects of working time reductions on wages, actual hours and equilibrium unemployment," Working Paper Series 2001:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.

    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. Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan & Zaidi, Asghar, 2004. "The myth of worksharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 293-313, June.
    2. Urbain, Jean-Pierre, 1995. "Partial versus full system modelling of cointegrated systems an empirical illustration," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 177-210, September.
    3. de Regt, E.R., 2004. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Research Memorandum 028, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    4. Kouretas, Georgios P. & Yannopoulos, Andreas, 2006. "Dynamic modelling of trade union behaviour: Evidence from the Greek manufacturing sector," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 316-338, March.
    5. Tyrväinen, Timo, 1992. "Wage setting, taxes and demand for labour : Multivariate analysis of the cointegration relations," Research Discussion Papers 22/1992, Bank of Finland.
    6. Urbain, Jean-Pierre, 1996. "Japanese import behavior and cointegration: A comment," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 583-601, December.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1992_022 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Kondo, Koji, 1997. "Statistical analysis of foreign exchange rates: application of cointegration model and regime-switching stochastic volatility model," ISU General Staff Papers 1997010108000012997, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Tyrväinen, Timo, 1992. "Wage setting, taxes and demand for labour: Multivariate analysis of the cointegration relations," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 22/1992, Bank of Finland.
    10. Erik de Regt, 2009. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 765-778.
    11. Diamandis, Panayiotis F., 2003. "Market efficiency, purchasing power parity, and the official and parallel markets for foreign currency in Latin America," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 89-110.
    12. Bessler, David A. & Yang, Jian, 2003. "The structure of interdependence in international stock markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 261-287, April.
    13. Boswijk, H. Peter, 1995. "Efficient inference on cointegration parameters in structural error correction models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 133-158, September.
    14. Georgios Kouretas & Leonidas Zarangas, 2001. "Long-Run Purchasing Power Parity and Structural Change: The Official and Parallel Foreign Exchange Markets For Dollars In Greece," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 109-128.
    15. FitzRoy, Felix R. & Funke, Michael & Nolan, Michael A., 2002. "Working time, taxation and unemployment in general equilibrium," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 333-344, June.
    16. Ericsson, Neil R & Hendry, David F & Mizon, Grayham E, 1998. "Exogeneity, Cointegration, and Economic Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 370-387, October.
    17. Martin Schmidt, 2003. "Monetary dynamics: a market approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 139-152.
    18. Dennis L. Hoffman & Robert H. Rasche, 1997. "STLS/US-VECM6.1: a vector error-correction forecasting model of the U. S. economy," Working Papers 1997-008, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    19. Diamandis, Panayiotis F. & Georgoutsos, Dimitris A. & Kouretas, Georgios P., 2000. "The monetary model in the presence of I(2) components: long-run relationships, short-run dynamics and forecasting of the Greek drachma," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 917-941, December.
    20. Georgoutsos, Dimitris A. & Kouretas, Georgios P., 2016. "Interest parity, cointegration, and the term structure: Testing in an integrated framework," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 281-294.
    21. Sogiakas, Vasilios & Karathanassis, George, 2015. "Informational efficiency and spurious spillover effects between spot and derivatives markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 46-72.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Work sharing; maximum likelihood cointegration; employment; hours per worker; real wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    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:hhs:hastef:0135. 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: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.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.