On the Economic Effects of Disobeyed Regulation in Employment Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alon Harel ◽  
Yuval Procaccia ◽  
Ilana Ritov

AbstractMandatory restrictions in employment law, seeking to promote the welfare of workers, are debated fiercely. Proponents argue that they protect workers. Opponents believe that they spawn inefficiency and harm workers. Yet all agree that restrictions trigger such effects only when obeyed. This Article challenges the conviction that the welfare effects of mandatory restrictions depend on obedience. We show experimentally that when restrictions are disobeyed, workers’ reservation wages rise, i. e., workers charge higher wages when offered employment that violates the restrictions. That, in turn, produces welfare effects similar in nature to those produced when restrictions are obeyed. This observation is therefore important to both proponents and opponents of employment regulation. We establish this claim experimentally by measuring the effects of disobeyed restrictions on workers’ reservation wages. We then investigate several hypotheses as to why these effects are generated. Last, we point out that our findings have important implications in other contexts of contractual regulation, such as in the domain of consumer protection.

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1850070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kozo Kiyota ◽  
Robert M Stern

The Michigan Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model of World Production and Trade is used to calculate the aggregate welfare and sectoral employment effects of the menu of U.S. trade policies. The menu of policies encompasses the various preferential U.S. bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated and in process, unilateral removal of existing trade barriers, and global (multilateral) free trade. The welfare impacts of the FTAs on the United States are shown to be rather small in absolute and relative terms. The sectoral employment effects are also generally small but vary across the individual sectors depending on the patterns of the bilateral liberalization. The welfare effects on the FTA partner countries are mostly positive though generally small, but there are some indications of potentially disruptive employment shifts in some partner countries. There are indications of trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on nonmember countries for some of the FTAs analyzed. In comparison to the welfare gains from the U.S. FTAs, the gains from both unilateral trade liberalization by the United States and the FTA partners and from global (multilateral) free trade are shown to be rather substantial and more uniformly positive for all countries in the global trading system. The U.S. FTAs are based on “hub” and “spoke” arrangements. It is shown that the spokes emanate out in different and often overlapping directions, suggesting that the complex of bilateral FTAs may create distortions of the global trading system, which could be avoided if multilateral liberalization in the context of the Doha Round were to be carried out. Kozo Kiyota is Associate Professor of International Economics in the Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama National University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Manufacturing Management Research Center (MMRC), the University of Tokyo and a Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses on empirical microeconomics. He has published articles in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and The World Economy. Robert M. Stern is Professor of Economics and Public Policy (Emeritus) in the Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.


1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter G. Warr ◽  
S.K. Jayasuriya

Discussions of the economic effects of mechanization in less developed countries typically lead to the conclusion that private decision-making leads to over-investment in machinery. This conclusion normally rests on welfare analyses implying that the net private benefits from mechanization exceed its net social benefits. The sources of divergence between private and social benefits commonly include the fact that private calculations take no account of the adverse impact that mechanization may have on income distribution. Moreover, it is often claimed that the market prices on which these private calculations are based are distorted in such a way as to make mechanization privately profitable well beyond the point where its net social returns become negative. The reasons for this include suppression of interest rates, overvalued exchange rates and minimum wage laws: see, for example, [2;3;4;5].


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
JADA THOMPSON ◽  
ERIC WAILES ◽  
ALVARO DURAND-MORAT ◽  
AMANDA LEISTER

AbstractUnited States consumer confidence in food safety is an increasingly more prominent issue in food production and marketing. Estimating the welfare effects of a breakdown in the supply chain can provide a benchmark for the cost of potential future events. In 2006, United States long grain rice stocks were contaminated with an unapproved genetically modified rice variety causing trade disruptions predominantly between the United States and the European Union. Using a spatial partial equilibrium model the economic effects of European policy on bilateral trade flows and prices during this event was an estimated loss of $421.3 million US dollars.


2015 ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Knobel

The paper is devoted to the analysis of development prospects and problems of Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia. It considers integration problems inside EAEU, interactions of EAEU with other CIS countries and with countries from the rest of the world. The paper shows that the major integration challenge inside EAEU is the domination of the redistributive motive over the creative one. It estimates the value of the oil and gas transfer from Russia to other EAEU members and the influence of the Russian tax maneuver on this transfer. The paper shows the need in redistribution mechanism inside EAEU as a necessary condition for getting the potential positive economic effects of free trade with other countries. It also assesses the risks for EAEU due to Russian embargo for food imports from countries of the sanctions list and possible application of tariff in the trade with Ukraine.


2020 ◽  
pp. 31-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna A. Pestova ◽  
Natalia A. Rostova

Is the Bank of Russia able to control inflation and, at the same time, manage aggregate demand using its interest rate instruments? In other words, are empirical estimates of the effects of monetary policy in Russia consistent with the theoretical concepts and experience of advanced economies? This paper is aimed at addressing these issues. Unlike previous research, we employ “big data” — a large dataset of macroeconomic and financial data — to estimate the effects of monetary policy in Russia. We focus exclusively on the period after the 2008—2009 global financial crisis when the Bank of Russia announced the abandoning of its fixed ruble exchange rate regime and started to gradually transit to an interest rate management. Our estimation results do not confirm standard responses of key economic activity and price variables to tightening of monetary policy. Specifically, our estimates do not reveal a statistically significant restraining effect of the Bank of Russia’s policy of high interest rates on inflation in recent years. At the same time, we find a significant deteriorating effect of the monetary tightening on economic activity indicators: according to our conservative estimates, each of the key rate increases occurred in March and December 2014 had led to a decrease in the industrial production index by about 0.2 percentage points within a year.


2012 ◽  
pp. 108-123
Author(s):  
E. Penukhina ◽  
D. Belousov ◽  
K. Mikhailenko

The article determines, describes and analyzes phases of tax reforms in Russia. We estimate macroeconomic and fiscal effects of various tax policies held during the second and third phases of tax reforms. The necessity of providing a balanced budget system, as well as complex assessment of effects of tax policy changes for the development of the Russian economy is noted.


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