IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dynamics of Labour and Capital Adjustment – A Comparison of Germany and the Netherlands

Author

Listed:
  • Polder, Michael

    (Maastricht University)

  • Verick, Sher

    (ILO International Labour Organization)

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the dynamic adjustment of labour and capital in German and Dutch firms. The Dutch labour market is characterised by greater flexibility in wages and work arrangements in comparison to Germany. These institutional differences imply that employment dynamics in the two countries should differ, and in particular, labour adjustment in the Netherlands should be more responsive to economic changes. On the other hand, there is unlikely to be such a divergence in capital dynamics as investment conditions are similar. Our results are consistent with this hypothesis. Furthermore, there is no evidence that labour market regulations in the two countries affect the dynamics of capital adjustment.

Suggested Citation

  • Polder, Michael & Verick, Sher, 2004. "Dynamics of Labour and Capital Adjustment – A Comparison of Germany and the Netherlands," IZA Discussion Papers 1212, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1212.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Monika Merz & Eran Yashiv, 2007. "Labor and the Market Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1419-1431, September.
    3. Nadiri, M Ishaq & Rosen, Sherwin, 1969. "Interrelated Factor Demand Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(4), pages 457-471, Part I Se.
    4. Matthew D. Shapiro, 1986. "The Dynamic Demand for Capital and Labor," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 513-542.
    5. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 1996. "Adjustment Costs in Factor Demand," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1264-1292, September.
    6. Dixit, Avinash, 1997. "Investment and Employment Dynamics in the Short Run and the Long Run," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 1-20, January.
    7. Bond, Stephen & Van Reenen, John, 2007. "Microeconometric Models of Investment and Employment," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 65, Elsevier.
    8. Øivind Anti Nilsen & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2003. "Zeros and Lumps in Investment: Empirical Evidence on Irreversibilities and Nonconvexities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1021-1037, November.
    9. Frank Windmeijer, 2000. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear two-step GMM estimators," IFS Working Papers W00/19, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Aguirregabiria, Victor, 1997. "Estimation of Dynamic Programming Models with Censored Dependent Variables," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9711, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    11. Barnett, Steven A. & Sakellaris, Plutarchos, 1998. "Nonlinear response of firm investment to Q:: Testing a model of convex and non-convex adjustment costs1," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 261-288, July.
    12. Gerard A. Pfann & Franz C. Palm, 1993. "Asymmetric Adjustment Costs in Non-linear Labour Demand Models for the Netherlands and U.K. Manufacturing Sectors," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 397-412.
    13. Letterie, Wilko A. & Pfann, Gerard A. & Polder, J. Michael, 2004. "Factor adjustment spikes and interrelation: an empirical investigation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 145-150, November.
    14. Sakellaris, Plutarchos, 2004. "Patterns of plant adjustment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-450, March.
    15. Eberly, Janice C. & Van Mieghem, Jan A., 1997. "Multi-factor Dynamic Investment under Uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 345-387, August.
    16. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    17. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    18. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1999. "Microeconomic perspectives on aggregate labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 45, pages 2985-3028, Elsevier.
    19. Víctor Aguirregabiria, 1997. "Estimation of dynamic programming models with censored decision variables," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 21(2), pages 167-208, May.
    20. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    21. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1989. "Labor Demand and the Structure of Adjustment Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 674-689, September.
    22. Alonso-Borrego, Cesar, 1998. "Demand for labour inputs and adjustment costs: evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 475-497, December.
    23. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. Sakai, Hirotsugu, 2020. "Did financing constraints cause investment stagnation in Japan after the 1990s?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Contreras, Juan, 2006. "An Empirical Model of Factor Adjustment Dynamics," MPRA Paper 9797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Ryan Michaels, 2013. "The Joint Dynamics of Capital and Employment at the Plant Level," 2013 Meeting Papers 1189, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Juan M. Contreras, 2006. "An Empirical Model of Factor Adjustment Dynamics: Working Paper 2006-13," Working Papers 18250, Congressional Budget Office.
    5. Amundsen, Alexander, 2023. "Interaction effects in the adjustment cost function of firms," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    6. Nataliya Zinych & Martin Odening, 2009. "Capital market imperfections in economic transition: empirical evidence from Ukrainian agriculture," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(6), pages 677-689, November.

    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. Lapatinas Athanasios, 2012. "On the Interrelation of Capital and Labor Adjustment Costs at the Firm Level," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 1-36, September.
    2. Øivind A. Nilsen & Arvid Raknerud & Marina Rybalka & Terje Skjerpen, 2005. "Lumpy Investments, Factor Adjustments and Productivity," Discussion Papers 441, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    3. Konstantinos Drakos, 2012. "Extent and intensity of investment with multiple capital goods," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(22), pages 2799-2810, August.
    4. Jung, Sven, 2013. "Employment Adjustment in German Firms," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79696, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Ghaly, Mohamed & Dang, Viet Anh & Stathopoulos, Konstantinos, 2020. "Institutional investors' horizons and corporate employment decisions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Sandra Martina Leitner, 2008. "Interrelatedness, Dynamic Factor Adjustment Patterns and Firm Heterogeneity in Austrian Manufacturing," Economics working papers 2008-03, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Sven Jung, 2014. "Employment adjustment in German firms [Betriebliche Beschäftigungsanpassung in Deutschland]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(1), pages 83-106, March.
    8. Caggese, Andrea, 2007. "Testing financing constraints on firm investment using variable capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 683-723, December.
    9. Contreras, Juan, 2006. "An Empirical Model of Factor Adjustment Dynamics," MPRA Paper 9797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Juan M. Contreras, 2006. "An Empirical Model of Factor Adjustment Dynamics: Working Paper 2006-13," Working Papers 18250, Congressional Budget Office.
    11. Yashiv, Eran, 2011. "The Joint Behavior of Hiring and Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 8237, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Jung, Sven, 2012. "Employment adjustment in German firms," Discussion Papers 80, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    13. Øivind A. Nilsen & Arvid Raknerud & Marina Rybalka & Terje Skjerpen, 2009. "Lumpy investments, factor adjustments, and labour productivity," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 104-127, January.
    14. Magne K. Asphjell & Wilko Letterie & Øivind A. Nilsen & Gerard A. Pfann, 2014. "Sequentiality Versus Simultaneity: Interrelated Factor Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 986-998, December.
    15. Amundsen, Alexander, 2023. "Interaction effects in the adjustment cost function of firms," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Nick Bloom & Stephen Bond & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 391-415.
    17. Hüttel, Silke & Mußhoff, Oliver & Odening, Martin & Zinych, Nataliya, 2008. "Estimating investment equations in imperfect capital markets," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-016, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    18. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Roberto Ganau & Kristina Maslauskaite & Monica Brezzi, 2021. "Credit constraints, labor productivity, and the role of regional institutions: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Europe," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 299-328, March.
    19. Manthos D. Delis & K. Christos Staikouras & Panagiotis T. Varlagas, 2008. "On the Measurement of Market Power in the Banking Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7‐8), pages 1023-1047, September.
    20. Tang, Le, 2022. "The dynamic demand for capital and labor: Evidence from Chinese industrial firms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    investment; labour demand; interrelation; panel data; GMM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    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:iza:izadps:dp1212. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.