IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izapps/pp47.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Consolidation in Reformed and Unreformed Labour Markets: A Look at EU Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Turrini, Alessandro

    (European Commission)

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact of fiscal consolidation on unemployment and job market flows across EU countries using a recent database of consolidation episodes built on the basis of a “narrative” approach (Devries et al., 2011). Results show that the impact of fiscal consolidation on cyclical unemployment is temporary and significant mostly for expenditure measures. As expected, the impact of fiscal policy shocks on job separation rates is much stronger in low-EPL countries, while high-EPL countries suffer from a stronger reduction in the rate at which new jobs are created. Since a reduced job-finding rate corresponds to a longer average duration of unemployment spells, fiscal policy shocks also tend to have a stronger impact on long-term unemployment if EPL is stricter. Results are broadly confirmed when using "top-down" fiscal consolidation measures based on adjusting budgetary data for the cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Turrini, Alessandro, 2012. "Fiscal Consolidation in Reformed and Unreformed Labour Markets: A Look at EU Countries," IZA Policy Papers 47, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/pp47.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 1998. "Tales of fiscal adjustment," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 13(27), pages 488-545.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Roberto Perotti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 571-589, June.
    3. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
    4. Alfonso ARPAIA & Nicola CURCI, "undated". "EU labour market behaviour during the Great Recession," Working Papers wp2010-6, Department of the Treasury, Ministry of the Economy and of Finance.
    5. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions Be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990, Volume 5, pages 75-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Galí, Jordi & Perotti, Roberto, 2003. "Fiscal Policy and Monetary Integration in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 3933, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Gomez-Salvador, Ramon & Messina, Julian & Vallanti, Giovanna, 2004. "Gross job flows and institutions in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 469-485, August.
    8. Deroose, Servaas & Turrini, Alessandro, 2005. "The Short-Term Budgetary Implications of Structural Reforms. Evidence from a Panel of EU Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 5217, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Mr. Andrea Pescatori & Mr. Daniel Leigh & Mr. Jaime Guajardo & Mr. Pete Devries, 2011. "A New Action-Based Dataset of Fiscal Consolidation," IMF Working Papers 2011/128, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Perotti, Roberto, 2005. "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 4842, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    12. repec:hrv:faseco:3353756 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Mr. Daniel Leigh & Mr. Andrea Pescatori & Mr. Jaime Guajardo, 2011. "Expansionary Austerity New International Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2011/158, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Jordi Galí & Roberto Perotti, 2003. "Fiscal policy and monetary integration in Europe [‘Consumption smoothing through fiscal policy in OECD and EU countries’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 18(37), pages 533-572.
    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. Topal, Pinar, 2015. "Fiscal stimulus and labor market flexibility," SAFE Working Paper Series 90, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    2. Rahn, Daniela & Weber, Enzo, 2019. "Patterns Of Unemployment Dynamics In Germany," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 322-357, January.
    3. Nordmeier, Daniela & Weber, Enzo, 2013. "Conditional Patterns of Unemployment Dynamics in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79958, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Ebell, Monique. & O'Higgins, Niall., 2015. "Fiscal policy and the youth labour market," ILO Working Papers 994898963402676, International Labour Organization.

    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. Alessandro Turrini, 2013. "Fiscal consolidation and unemployment: does EPL matter?: A look at EU countries," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Roel Beetsma & Jacopo Cimadomo & Oana Furtuna & Massimo Giuliodori1, 2015. "The confidence effects of fiscal consolidations," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(83), pages 439-489.
    3. Athanasios Tagkalakis, 2014. "Discretionary fiscal policy and economic activity in Greece," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 687-712, November.
    4. Hüseyin ŞEN & Ayşe KAYA, 2017. "Mali Konsolidasyon Büyüme ve İstihdam için Bir Çıpa mı, Mali Tuzak mı? Teorik ve Ampirik Literatür Temelli Bir Analiz," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 25(34).
    5. Tagkalakis, Athanasios, 2008. "The effects of fiscal policy on consumption in recessions and expansions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1486-1508, June.
    6. Ant Afonso & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2012. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(34), pages 4439-4454, December.
    7. Degiannakis, Stavros & Duffy, David & Filis, George & Livada, Alexandra, 2016. "Business cycle synchronisation in EMU: Can fiscal policy bring member-countries closer?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 551-563.
    8. Thomas Brand, 2017. "Vitesse et composition des ajustements budgétaires en équilibre général : une analyse appliquée à la zone euro," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 68(HS1), pages 159-182.
    9. Alesina, Alberto & Favero, Carlo & Giavazzi, Francesco, 2015. "The output effect of fiscal consolidation plans," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 19-42.
    10. Kleis, Mischa & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel, 2016. "The long-run effect of fiscal consolidation on economic growth: Evidence from quantitative case studies," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-047, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2016.
    11. Yang, Weonho & Fidrmuc, Jan & Ghosh, Sugata, 2015. "Macroeconomic effects of fiscal adjustment: A tale of two approaches," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 31-60.
    12. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2013_011 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ms. Senay Agca & Ms. Deniz O Igan, 2013. "Fiscal Consolidation and the Cost of Credit: Evidence from Syndicated Loans," IMF Working Papers 2013/036, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Aghion, Philippe & Hémous, David & Kharroubi, Enisse, 2014. "Cyclical fiscal policy, credit constraints, and industry growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 41-58.
    15. Virén, Matti, 2013. "Sensitivity of fiscal-policy effects to policy coordination and business cycle conditions," Research Discussion Papers 11/2013, Bank of Finland.
    16. Hommes, Cars & Lustenhouwer, Joep & Mavromatis, Kostas, 2018. "Fiscal consolidations and heterogeneous expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 173-205.
    17. Quaghebeur, Ewoud, 2019. "Learning And The Size Of The Government Spending Multiplier," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3189-3224, December.
    18. Forni, Lorenzo & Monteforte, Libero & Sessa, Luca, 2009. "The general equilibrium effects of fiscal policy: Estimates for the Euro area," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 559-585, April.
    19. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Martin Weder, 2014. "Fiscal adjustment and the costs of public debt service: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(22), pages 2593-2610, August.
    20. Mario Di Serio & Matteo Fragetta & Emanuel Gasteiger & Giovanni Melina, 2022. "The Euro Area Government Spending Multiplier in Demand- and Supply-Driven Recessions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9678, CESifo.
    21. Alari PaulusBy & Francesco Figari & Holly Sutherland, 2017. "The design of fiscal consolidation measures in the European Union: distributional effects and implications for macro-economic recovery," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 632-654.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labour market reforms; employment protection legislation; job market flows; unemployment; fiscal consolidation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    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:izapps:pp47. 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.