Japanese Redundancy: The Impact of Key Labor Market Institutions on the Economic Flexibility of the Japanese Economy

Author(s):  
Kazuo Koike
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (155) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Kugler

This paper documents recent labor market performance in the Latin American region. The paper shows that unemployment, informality, and inequality have been falling over the past two decades, though still remain high. By contrast, productivity has remained stubbornly low. The paper, then, turns to the potential impacts of various labor market institutions, including employment protection legislation (EPL), minimum wages (MW), payroll taxes, unemployment insurance (UI) and collective bargaining, as well as the impacts of demographic changes on labor market performance. The paper relies on evidence from carefully conducted studies based on micro-data for countries in the region and for other countries with similar income levels to draw conclusions on the impact of labor market institutions and demographic factors on unemployment, informality, inequality and productivity. The decreases in unemployment and informality can be partly explained by the reduced strictness of EPL and payroll taxes, but also by the increased shares of more educated and older workers. By contrast, the fall in inequality starting in 2002 can be explained by a combination of binding MW throughout most of the region and, to a lesser extent, by the introduction of UI systems in some countries and the role of unions in countries with moderate unionization rates. Falling inequality can also be explained by the fall in the returns to skill associated with increased share of more educated and older workers.


Author(s):  
Héctor R. Cordero-Guzmán ◽  
Pamela A. Izvănariu ◽  
Victor Narro

In this article, we argue that understanding the impact of economic structures on low-wage workers requires the study of emerging worker centers and networks and that individual labor market outcomes and experiences are mediated and impacted by the work of these institutions. We focus on the formation of sectoral worker center networks and address three key issues: (1) What are some of the reasons why worker centers and worker center networks have developed? (2) How do these organizations manage their roles as labor market institutions and social movement organizations? and (3) Why did worker center networks focus on employment and in particular sectors of the low-wage labor market? We find that sector-based organizing (1) facilitates the development of worker- and sector-targeted service strategies, thereby enabling low-wage worker groups and organizations to better achieve their service and policy goals; (2) maximizes opportunities for the organizations to obtain national resources; and (3) expands the reach of organizational networks by bringing organizations together to share resources and best practices. By providing a range of worker-, employment-, and labor market–centered services in specific labor market sectors, worker centers and their networks solidify their role as labor market institutions and become more effective advocacy and social movement organizations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Fuchs ◽  
Sebastian Prechsl ◽  
Tobias Wolbring

Activation as a social policy that facilitates transitions into the labor market continues to influence modern welfare states until today. Taking the case of Germany, we study the relationship between embeddedness of benefit recipients in activating labor market institutions and individual labor supply. Using panel data, we estimate the effects of transitions between key institutional states with different degrees of activation on reservation wages. We show that reservation wages are sensitive to activation: The transition from gainful employment into unemployment benefit receipt leads to an average 3.2 percent decrease in reservation wages. The transition from gainful employment into welfare benefit receipt - an institutional state with far more rigorous activation - leads to a stronger decrease of 4.9 percent. Mediation analyses show that the income associated with different institutional states is the predominant mechanism that drives the effect on reservation wages. However, subjective social status also partly mediates the effect.


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