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The purpose of this paper is to reassess the relative impact of labour market regulation on economic performance. Inflexible labour markets combined with high welfare costs are often thought to be the main cause of low growth in Europe.

This paper compares the impact of labour market regulation to that of macroeconomic policies (such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, macroeconomic cost management) and to that of investment into future growth (such as research, education and the diffusion of technology). We develop for this purpose a highly stylised model explaining economic growth; we suggest a synthetic measure of performance and use data for the US and Europe for the empirical test.

The main result is that regulation impacts on growth, the impact of regulatory change is, however, less easy to demonstrate. The impact of macro economic policy can be demonstrated first by the more growth oriented monetary and fiscal policy in the US and the success of some European countries in bringing private and public costs in line with productivity and tax revenues. However, boosting investment into future growth by encouraging research, education and technology diffusion seems to be the most important determinant of performance.

As to the limits of this paper, we have to acknowledge that our analysis refers to a short time period, a small number of countries and uses a highly stylised model.

If the results can be replicated for larger data sets and by more elaborated technical methods, the findings have an important policy implication: country strategies relying only on deregulation, without complementary macroeconomic policy and without strategy to boost “growth drivers” are suboptimal. This questions the policy advice given by some economists and economic think tanks, which call for deregulation as main policy strategy and then expect market forces to boost growth quickly and without specific policy measures.

The attempt to assess the relative impact of the three policy areas is specific to this paper; most other papers focus on one policy area only.

Labour market constraints constitute prominent obstacles to firm development and economic growth of countries located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of firm characteristics, national locations, and sectoral associations for the perceptions of firms concerning two basic labour market constraints: labour regulations and labour skill shortages.

The empirical analysis is carried out using firm-level data set sourced from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys database. A bivariate probit estimator is used to account for potential correlations between the errors in the two labour market constraints’ equations. The authors implement overall estimations and comparative cross-country and cross-sector analyses, and use alternative estimation models.

The empirical results reveal some important implications of firm characteristics (e.g. firm size, labour compositions) for firm perceptions of labour regulations and labour skill shortages. They also delineate important cross-country and cross-sector variations. The authors also find significant heterogeneity in the factors’ implications for the perceptions of firms belonging to different sectors and located in different MENA countries.

Reforms in labour regulations and investment in human capital are important governmental policy interventions for promoting firm development and economic growth in the MENA region. This paper contributes to the empirical literature by analysing the factors influencing the perceptions of firms located in the MENA region concerning labour regulations and labour skill shortages. It provides policy-makers with information needed in the design of labour policies that attenuate the impacts of labour market constraints and enhance the performance of firms and the long-run economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to understand labor market regulations and their consequences for the allocation of resources.

This paper constructs a theoretical model to study labor market regulations in developing countries and how it affects the allocation of resources between the less productive informal activities and more productive formal activities. It also provides empirical support for some theoretical results using cross-country data.

When workers are risk-averse and the market for insurance against labor income risk is missing, regulations that provide insurance to workers (such as severance payments) reduce misallocation. However, regulations that simply create barriers to the dismissal of workers increase misallocation and end up reducing the welfare of workers. This study also provides some empirical evidence broadly consistent with the theoretical results using cross-country data. While dismissal regulations increase the share of informal employment, severance payments to workers do not.

The empirical exercise is constrained by the lack of availability of good data on the informal sector.

The analysis of the alternative labor market regulations analyzed in this paper in the presence of risk-averse workers is an original contribution to the literature.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

This study aims to focus on the role of labor regulation and credit market imperfections, in addition to that of factor endowments, in determining capital intensities in Indian manufacturing.

The paper considers an alternative approach to identifying the effects of India ' s labor regulations on industrial performance. In particular, the paper uses a measure of the stringency of labor regulations across countries – one that is completely independent of the India-specific measures used by earlier studies – and examines its relationship with capital intensities across manufacturing industries. Additionally, since labor regulations are unlikely to be the only reason for imperfections in factor markets, the paper also examines whether and to what extent capital market imperfections affect capital intensities across manufacturing industries. The paper then presents a case study that seeks to ascertain whether actual capital intensities prevailing in Indian manufacturing in major industry groups from 1989 to 1996 were larger than predicted capital intensities for these industry groups based on relative factor demand functions estimated for the USA (a country with relatively less restrictive labor laws and a more developed financial system) evaluated at Indian wages. Finally, the paper uses a recently available dataset to compare capital intensities in Indian and Chinese manufacturing to investigate the behavior of these two emerging Asian economies since 1980, when they started out with relatively similar socio-economic conditions.

The paper finds that India uses more capital-intensive techniques of production in manufacturing than countries at similar levels of development (and similar factor endowments), including China. For a majority of manufacturing industries, labor freedom and capital market development are, in addition to factor endowments, important determinants of capital intensity of production techniques used. Results reveal that, controlling for factor prices, India specializes in more capital-intensive varieties within broad industry groups relative to the USA, a more capital-abundant economy.

To the best of the authors ' knowledge, such a study has not been done for any other country. The paper sheds light on the important issue regarding the use of capital-intensive techniques in manufacturing in India, which is a labor-abundant country. The role of labor regulation has been extensively debated and the paper also investigates its role along with the role played by credit market imperfections.

Institutional environment plays a crucial role in determining the nature of entrepreneurship that prevails in an economy. In this paper, the authors address how business, labour and credit regulations contribute differently to both the overall prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship (ODE) and its gender gap in high-income and emerging economies.

On the basis of an unbalanced panel of 41 countries over the period 2005–2016, the authors estimate system generalised method of moment models. The authors also perform an ordinary least square analysis to address gender differences in ODE.

The authors find that higher credit market liberalisation is especially associated with more entrepreneurship by opportunity. Nevertheless, while credit market regulation stands out as a key element to promote opportunity-based entrepreneurship in both high-income and emerging countries, in the emerging world business regulation is also largely related to the prevalence of opportunity entrepreneurship. In terms of gender gap, business and labour market freedom seem to exert an equalising effect on the divide in entrepreneurship by opportunity, specifically in emerging economies.

Findings allow the identification of regulatory policy reform priorities to enhance the prevalence of ODE depending on the level of a country's development. They also identify which specific areas of economic regulation would speed up closing the gender gap in opportunity entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to chart the sharp rise of informal employment in urban China in the last decade. It investigates the role of labour market regulations in shaping employment relations for those engaged in this form of employment and their employment outcome. It also examines various forms of organization and representation of these workers and the extent to which these mechanisms meet their needs.

This paper draws on secondary and first‐hand empirical data. The secondary data come mainly from media sources and academic publications in China. The empirical data from interviews that the author has conducted with the labour authorities, trade union officials, workers, senior managers and owner CEOs of private firms in several cities.

The paper concludes that the inadequacy of the function of employment agencies, the absence of a functioning social security system for workers in informal employment, and the lack of effective enforcement of employment‐related regulations mean that the majority of the growing force of workers in this category will continue to be under‐protected and disadvantaged.

This paper draws information from secondary data and a small number of interviews with key stakeholders in employment relations. Future research should conduct a larger study focusing on the views and experience of workers in the informal sector.

This study reveals some skills gaps and training needs for trade union officials. It also brings to the policy makers' attention some loopholes in the labour regulations and their implementation.

The paper argues that providing decent employment conditions and work environment remains a key challenge to all concerned but is crucial to the well‐being of workers and their families.

The paper examines the efficacy of labour regulations in protecting workers in the informal sector in China by investigating the roles of different institutional actors. It adopts a relational and institutional approach to study the issue.

The existing literature on aid for trade (AfT) tends to support the effectiveness of AfT in improving trade capacities and enhancing the export performance of recipient countries. While aid directed at trade-related infrastructure (e.g. ports and roads) is reported to drive the overall effect of AfT, the increasing importance of labor market flexibility and informal labor in export environment has been largely overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to test two hypotheses regarding the relationship between labor market flexibility, exports and AfT. First, flexible labor regulation promotes exports by reducing adjustment costs related to the export process. Second, for informal labor-intensive export sectors, AfT effectiveness may be compromised by the contraction of the informal sector due to labor deregulation as it deteriorates comparative advantage that supports recipients’ export competitiveness.

Since first introduced by Tinbergen (1962), the gravity model has been widely used to analyze bilateral trade, and its usefulness has been verified in several prominent empirical studies (e.g. Anderson and van Wincoop, 2003; Helpman et al., 2008). However, despite the empirically successful framework of the gravity model, the standard gravity equation may not be appropriate for estimating the effect of AfT in the paper. The main interest lies in whether aggregate AfT flows enhance the export “performance” of individual recipients, that is, whether they improve the recipients’ total exports rather than their bilateral exports. For this purpose, the authors took aggregated approach to the gravity model from Anderson and van Wincoop (2003).

The findings suggest that while both AfT and labor market flexibility are positively associated with higher export levels, the export-promoting effect of AfT is marginally reduced by the contraction of informal workforce. These findings, however, only hold for export sectors that heavily rely on informal labor force, that is, primary commodities and resource/labor-intensive goods. The authors also find that these effects are stronger in low-income countries, indicating that the AfT initiative has been effective where it is needed the most.

This paper is the first attempt to analyze the relationship between AfT and exports with consideration of labor market flexibility. Using the data for 85 recipient countries, the authors test the following hypotheses. First, labor market flexibility promotes exports by reducing adjustment costs related to the exporting process. Second, the contraction of the informal sector due to labor deregulation deteriorates developing countries’ comparative advantage in certain export sectors. Hence, while both AfT and labor market flexibility are expected to enhance the export volume of developing countries, the loss from weaker comparative advantage in a form of smaller informal labor force can exceed the gains from AfT in certain sectors.

This article investigates how internationalisation through labour mobility can strengthen collective bargaining in coordinated market economies. It shows how new political cleavages generated by internationalisation can foster the re-regulation of labour markets and how the alliance between trade unions and employers in sheltered sectors of the economy can increase domestic coordination to limit wage competition. These two mechanisms explain why the opening of the labour market for EU workers and services in Switzerland has been followed by a re-regulation process in which collective bargaining coordination has strengthened despite the weakness of organised labour and the resistance of export industries. Following the opening of the labour market, the coverage of collective bargaining has increased and the number of workers covered by extended collective agreements nearly tripled.

This article compares the mobility experience of Austria, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom post-enlargement. In all four countries, migrant inflows from the new EU member states account for the bulk of contemporary labour mobility. At the same time, issues of wage dumping have arisen everywhere, raising questions about compliance and the ‘re-embedding’ of mobility flows. Hence the article examines the labour market impact of recent East-West migration as well as policy responses by the social partners and public authorities that are geared towards the re-regulation of employment standards. Some commonalities are identified, especially in relation to the broadening of national wage floors and the growing role of the state in enforcing labour standards. However, some differences remain, especially whether re-regulation happens on the basis of collective agreements or statutory minimum rights. In this regard, different bargaining traditions, the power resources of labour market actors and the capacity of unions to build political coalitions with the state and employers are identified as crucial factors in shaping national and sectoral response strategies.