Suchergebnisse

Short‐term employment contracts have been deployed rapidly across European countries in the past decades. In this paper we suitably modify a known search and matching theoretical framework to quantify the effects of temporary contracts reforms on the present discounted value of the utility of junior and senior workers. We calibrate the model using data from Italy and find that while senior workers may benefit or not from the diffusion of temporary contracts depending on the productivity of the match, the utility of junior workers is always lower in the presence of temporary employment. This result is ascribable to the high rates of turnover associated with temporary contracts which offset the benefits of the increased labour market flexibility.

Abstract
A Single European Labour Market has not been achieved yet, despite strong efforts in promoting cross-country labour mobility. In this paper, we assess the effectiveness of one of the most important policies implemented to reach this goal: the Schengen Agreement. Using data from the European Labour Force Survey, we show that the individual probability to become a cross-border commuter after the entrance of Switzerland in the Schengen area increased by 0.5 and 4 percentage points among labour force individuals and inter-regional commuters, respectively. We also show evidence of a substantial redirection of internal inter-regional commuters to Swiss regions.

We aim to identify winners and losers of a sudden inflow of low-skilled immigrants using a general equilibrium search and matching model in which employees, either native or nonnative, are heterogeneous with respect to their skill level and produce different types of goods. We estimate the short-term impact of this shock for Italy in the period 2008-2017 to be sizeable and highly asymmetric. In 2017, the real wages of low-skilled and high-skilled employees were 8% lower and 4% higher, respectively, compared to a counter-factual scenario with no non-natives. Similarly, employers working in the low-skilled market experienced a drop in profits of comparable magnitude, while the opposite happened to employers operating in the high-skilled market. Finally, the presence of non-natives led to a 10% increase in GDP and to an increment of approximately 70 billions € in Government revenues and 18 billions € in social security contributions. We argue that these results help rationalise the recent surge of anti-immigrant sentiments among the low-income segment of the Italian population.

AbstractThis paper studies the evolution of the determinants of inter‐regional commuting in Italy in the period 1992–2016, during which the labour market has been significantly reformed. To capture the changes in commuting patterns, the analysis of the role of individual, job, firm, and regional characteristics is performed. Specifically, the focus is on the impact of job uncertainty at both micro and macro level, through the analysis of the way the diffusion of temporary contracts has affected the decision to commute for work. The findings suggest that in more recent years workers hired on a temporary contract are more likely to commute to another region. Moreover, the higher the relative share of temporary contracts in the region of residence, the higher the probability of commuting across regions. These findings support the idea that the strong utilisation of (short) temporary contracts represents a push factor, which drives workers away in search of better job opportunities, with potentially negative consequences for poorly performing regions.

Informal employment is a pervasive and persistent feature of most developing and developed economies. Labour taxation and labour market regulations are deemed two major causes for operating in the informal sector. Using data from France, Italy, and Spain, we analyse gross job flows and gross worker flows in the formal and informal sectors in the presence of lenient employment protection legislation, and investigate the way traditional policy interventions may favour transitions from one sector to the other. We show that optimal outcomes in terms of reduction and formalisation of informal jobs across the three countries examined are achieved with the combination of lower payroll taxes for permanent contracts and higher inspection rate for firms operating in the informal sector. Coupling lower firing costs with more frequent labour inspections also reduces informality, but this comes at the cost of an increased ratio of temporary to total employment.