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Does Employment Protection Legislation Induce Structural Unemployment? Evidence from 15 OECD Countries

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  • Afful, Efua Amoonua

Abstract

This paper estimates the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) for 15 OECD economies from 1990 to 2012 using an iterative Phillips curve process and tests the relationship between strictness of employment protection and the NAIRU. A possible negative externality of employment protection legislation is a higher level of structural unemployment. Using Prais-winsten estimation correcting for panel-level heteroscedasticity a panel-specific first-order autoregressive process, results indicate that there is no relationship between strictness of protection for individual and collective dismissals for regular contracts and the NAIRU. The effect of strictness of employment protection for regular contracts is sensitive to model specification; the coefficient loses its significance when full controls are used in estimation. An implication is that deregulation is not a necessary policy tool in addressing the problem of structural unemployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Afful, Efua Amoonua, 2014. "Does Employment Protection Legislation Induce Structural Unemployment? Evidence from 15 OECD Countries," MPRA Paper 56875, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:56875
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lumpy markets & mental models
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-07-16 17:57:02

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    NAIRU; natural rate; structural unemployment; employment protection legislation;
    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
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

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