Employment Performance in OECD Countries
This article provides the first comprehensive test of the frequent, sharply differing market liberal and insitutionalist political economy recommendations for employment creation. The statistical analysis is a pooled time series for 17 advanced capitalist democracies from 1974 through 1999. Consistent with both neoliberal and institutionalist hypotheses, long-term unemployment replacement rates, social security taxes, and employment protection laws have negative effects on employment levels. Contrary to neoliberal hypotheses but consistent with institutionalist hypotheses, the authors find that short-term unemployment replacement rates, active labor market policy, and neocorporatist bargaining have positive effects on employment levels and that total taxes have no effect on employment levels.