1,721,368 research outputs found
Setting the Minimum Wage
No full textThe process leading to the setting of the minimum wage so far has been overlooked by economists. There are two common ways of setting national minimum wages: they are either government legislated or the byproduct of collective bargaining agreements, which are extended erga omnes to all workers. We develop a simple model relating the level of the minimum wage to the setting regime. Next, we exploit a new data set on minimum wages in 68 countries having a statutory national minimum level of pay in the period 1981–2005. We find that a Government legislated minimum wage is lower than a wage floor set within collective agreements. This effect survives to several robustness checks and can be interpreted as a causal effect of the setting regime on the level of the minimum wage
Protezione sociale dopo la pandemia
No full textLa crisi COVID-19 è stata uno stress test per i sistemi di protezione sociale, in quanto ha comportato la chiusura improvvisa e inaspettata di un insieme molto ampio di attività. Ciò ha costretto i Paesi a introdurre, spesso da zero, schemi di sostegno al reddito per i lavoratori precari e per i lavoratori autonomi
Labor market insurance policies in the XXI century
No full textThe recovery from the Covid-19 crisis will force governments to accelerate transformation in their menu of labor market policy tools. The crisis was a stress test for unemployment insurance schemes as it involved a sudden and unexpected shutdown of a very large set of activities. This forced countries to introduce, often from scratch, income support schemes for workers under new forms of employment, and the self-employed. There was also a considerable expansion of short-time work schemes notably towards the small business. The challenge ahead of us is perhaps even harder as post-Covid19 labor markets are likely to be characterized by substantial labor reallocation. Major innovations in labor market policy are required to smooth consumption of workers involved in this reallocation. We survey the large body of research on schemes reducing the costs of reallocation complementary to unemployment insurance. Our attention is on short-time work (preventing layoffs by subsidizing hors reductions), partial unemployment insurance (enabling workers to combine unemployment benefits with low income jobs), and wage insurance (offering a temporary wage subsidy to workers changing jobs). The properties of these new schemes are first presented and compared to those of standard unemployment
benefits. Next the main results of the empirical literature on the effects of wage insurance, partial unemployment insurance and short-time work are presented. A final section is devoted to discussing directions for further research
Immigration to the Land of Redistribution
Full text linkNegative perceptions about migrants in Europe are driven by concerns that foreigners abuse welfare. Paradoxically, instruments of social inclusion are becoming weapons of mass exclusion. We compare evidence on welfare access and the net fiscal position of migrants with perceptions based on a largely unexploited database (EU-SILC). We find no evidence that legal migrants, notably skilled migrants, are net recipients of transfers from the state. However, there is evidence of 'residual dependency' on non-contributory transfers and self-selection of unskilled migrants in the countries with the most generous welfare states. Alternative strategies to unbundle migration from welfare access are discussed. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2010.
Desperately Seeking a Middelman
No full textIn order to cope with its political crisis and to be part of the recovery from the European-wide recession, Italy badly needs a middelman; a person with an untarnished reputation; someone people trust. In this paper we recall the main steps that led us to the current confidence crisis. we also argue that Italy had such a middleman, Mario Monti, but his engagement in politics after he had promised not to do so has revealed that promises made even by novel politicians are hardly credible, extending mistrust to anyone who approaches politics. Thus, even if we find another Monti, believing him will be hard
A tale of comprehensive labor market reforms: evidence from the Italian jobs act
No full textThe Italian Jobs Act introduced a subsidy for new hirings as well as a new open ended labor contract based on graded security, with severance payments increasing with tenure, while phasing out the compulsory reinstatement of workers in the case of unfair dismissals applied until March 2015. Simple models of job creation and destruction predict that hiring subsidies and lower firing costs unambiguously increase hirings. Moreover, lower firing costs associated with graded security should also increase layoffs. These effects need not to be uniform across the size distribution of firms, especially when firms of different size are treated differently by the policy changes as in the case of the Jobs Act. On the one hand, the hiring subsidy was proportional to wages, but had a cap, hence was more generous for small firms- typically paying lower wages than large firms – making them particularly responsive along the job creation margin. On the other hand, the reduction in firing costs applied mainly to large firms concentrating on them the adjustment along the job destruction margin. To investigate empirically the effects of the Italian Jobs Act, we draw on a unique dataset covering the universe of private firms in Italy having at least once 10–20 employees in the two years prior to the reform of January 2015. We find evidence of a substantial increase in open ended hirings, and in the transformation of fixed-term into open ended contracts, in the aftermath of the Jobs Act. The effects of the Jobs Act on firings- conversely- are much smaller, and are concentrated on large firms, while small firms react more intensively- creating new open ended contracts- to the hiring subsidy
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