We examine the effects of a 2013 labour market reform in Slovenia which made permanent contracts less restrictive and fixed-term contracts more restrictive. Using matched employer-employee database covering the entirety of Slovenia’s labour market participants, we compare the difference in outcomes for workers employed under permanent vs. fixed-term contracts before and after the legislative change. We find that the reform achieved both its stated goals of reducing labour market segmentation and improving access to jobs for vulnerable groups: (i) it increased the probability of accessing permanent jobs via transitions from both fixed-term jobs and unemployment, and (ii) it improved the accessibility of permanent jobs for both young and old workers.
B.06 Other
COBISS.SI-ID: 1538201540Doctoral dissertation purports to assess the effects of the minimum wage increase on workers’ flows out of employment, on job-to-job transitions and unemployment-to-employment transitions, with special interest on vulnerable groups at the labour market, the effects on wage distribution and the effects on productivity. Doctoral dissertation takes advantage of change in minimum wage legislation in March 2010 and uses it as an external source of variation. The nature of the legislative change allows the use of quasi-experimental approach and difference-in-differences methods. The empirical analysis is based on rich databases, covering all employed and unemployed and all registered firms in Slovenia. The richness of data at hand enables a direct identification of workers who have been subjected to minimum wage increase, based on their position in the wage distribution, and following their transitions between employment, unemployment and inactivity before and after the legislative change. The empirical findings show that the new law increased the probability of transition from employment to unemployment and/or inactivity and job-to-job transition for workers who have been affected by the minimum wage increase. On the other hand, the minimum wage inhibits employment inflows from unemployment, which was under new law additionally weakened for young workers. The legislative change caused an increased concentration at the bottom of the wage distribution and affected also wages higher up the wage distribution. The minimum wage increase had also a positive effect on productivity, which is higher and statistically significant in firms and industries, where the bite of the minimum wage is the highest.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
COBISS.SI-ID: 22266342The paper analyses the effects of a 2011 increase in the unemployment benefit replacement rate on the job-finding rate of Slovenian benefit recipients. Using registry data on the universe of Slovenian unemployment benefit recipients, we exploit legislative changes that selectively increased the replacement rates for certain groups of workers while leaving them unchanged for others. Applying this quasi-experimental approach, we find that increasing the replacement rate significantly decreased the hazard rate of the transition from unemployment to employment, with an implied elasticity of the hazard rate with respect to benefit replacement rate being 0.7 to 0.9. The results also show that the increase of the unemployment benefit replacement rate does not affect the job-finding probability of jobseekers whose reason for unemployment is employer exit, and that the effects of the increase of replacement rate are present only upon exit to employment and not to inactivity.
B.06 Other
COBISS.SI-ID: 1538098116The paper provides guidelines for countries contemplating to introduce unemployment insurance. It analyzes key labour market and institutional features of developing countries that affect functioning of unemployment insurance: a large informal sector, weak administrative capacity, and large political risk. It argues that these countries should tailor an OECDstyle unemployment insurance program to their circumstances, among others by relying on selfinsurance (via unemployment insurance savings accounts), complemented by solidarity funding, as a key source of financing; by simplifying monitoring of jobsearch behavior and labour market status; and by piggybacking on existing networks to administer benefits. The paper also addresses the question whether developing countries should introduce unemployment insurance.
B.06 Other
COBISS.SI-ID: 11909537The book offers an overview and evaluation of severance pay programs around the world, examines their historic development and assesses their economic rationale. It also investigates major severance pay reform avenues that have been implemented in Austria, Chile and Republic of Korea and are increasingly being proposed as a way forward for severance pay, unemployment insurance benefit, and individual retirement schemes. Furthermore, it develops and empirically tests three hypotheses about the economic rationale of the severance pay program: (1) that severance pay is a primitive income protection program; (2) that it is an efficiency-enhancing human resource instrument; and (3) that it is a job protection instrument.
C.01 Editorial board of a foreign/international collection of papers/book
COBISS.SI-ID: 4464087