Labor Economics Commons^™

The Heterogeneous Cyclicality Of Income And Wages Among The Distribution In The Uk, Maria Cervini, Antonia Lopez, José I. Silva

José Ignacio Silva

Partial Disability And Labor Market Adjustment: The Case Of Spain, José Ignacio Silva, Judit Vall

José Ignacio Silva

Although partially disabled individuals in Spain are allowed to combine disability benefits with a job, the empirical evidence shows that the employment rate of this group of individuals is very low because they have a much lower job finding and a higher job separation rates than nondisabled workers. Moreover, a decomposition analysis of the equilibrium employment rate shows that the differences in the job finding rates explain 85 percent of the disabled employment gap. To explain these facts, we construct a labor market model with search intensity and matching frictions to identify the incentives and disincentives to work in Spain …

Wage Effects Of Non-Wage Labour Costs, María Cervini, José Ignacio Silva, Xavier Ramos

José Ignacio Silva

We study wage effects of two important elements of non-wage labour costs: firing costs and payroll taxes. We exploit a reform that introduced substantial reduction in these two provisions for unemployed workers aged less than thirty and over forty five years who got a permanent job. A matching model with heterogeneous workers predicts positive wage effects of reducing firing costs but ambiguous wage effects of reducing payroll taxes, for both new entrant and incumbent workers. Difference-in-differences estimates and simulation of the model show positive wage effects for both new entrant and incumbent workers. The reduction in firing costs accounts for …

Labor Productivity And Vocational Training: Evidence From Europe, José Ignacio Silva

José Ignacio Silva

In this paper we show that vocational training is an important determinant of productivity growth. We construct a multy-country, multi-sectoral dataset, and quantify empirically to what extent vocational training has contributed to increase the growth rate of labor productivity in Europe between 1999 and 2005. We find that one extra hour of training per employee accelerates the rate of productivity growth by around 0.55 percentage points.

Flexibility At The Margin And Labor Market Volatility In Oecd Countries, Hector Sala, José Ignacio Silva, Manuel Toledo

José Ignacio Silva

We study the business cycle behavior of segmented labor markets with flexibility at the margin (e.g., just affecting fixed-term contracts). We present a matching model with temporary and permanent jobs where (i) there is a gap in the firing costs associated with these types of jobs, and (ii) there are restrictions in the creation and duration of fixed-term contracts. We show that a labor market with flexibility at the margin increases the unemployment volatility with respect to a fully regulated one. This analysis yields new insights into the interpretation of the recent volatility changes witnessed in the OECD area.