Per Skedinger

Employment Protection Legislation

Employment protection legislation is one of the most controversial issues in the labour market. In this insightful book, Per Skedinger provides an overview of the design, evolution and research on the effects of employment protection legislation around the world.

Employment Consequences of Employment Protection Legislation

This article surveys the literature and adds to the evidence on the impact of employment protection legislation on employment. While stringent employment protection contributes to less turnover and job reallocation, the effects on aggregate employment and unemployment over the business cycle are more uncertain. Exploitation of partial reforms and the use of micro data in recent research appear not to have affected results regarding employment and unemployment in any systematic way. Labour market prospects of young people and other marginal groups seem to worsen as a consequence of increased stringency of the legislation. It is debatable whether marginal groups have gained much from the widespread policy strategy to liberalize regulations of temporary employment and leave regulations of regular employment intact. My own analysis suggests that increased stringency of regulations for regular work is associated with a higher incidence of involuntary temporary employment, particularly among the young.

Capital gains taxation and residential mobility in Sweden

Theoretical studies have shown that capital gains taxes in the housing market may create lock-in effects but so far no empirical evidence has been presented regarding the size of these effects. For a panel of Swedish house owners in 1984-1990, we show that lock-in effects only appear for households with income reductions; the size of these lock-in effects crucially depends on the magnitude of the income loss. The theoretical model and features of the Swedish tax system imply that lock-in effects depend on the degree of mismatch in the current residence and whether the households buy up or by down.

Sweden: A Minimum Wage Model in Need of Modification?

Swedish minimum wages are not regulated by law, but subject to bargaining between employers and trade unions and form part of collective agreements. This paper provides an overview of the Swedish minimum wage system, its characteristics and effects on employment and wages, and also discusses the challenges to the model represented by increasing low-wage competition from new EU member states and the verdict in the Laval case, related to this process and the first of its kind in post-enlargement EU.

Cream skimming in employment programmes for the disabled? Evidence from Sweden

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse recruitment to sheltered employment for the disabled, with particular attention to cream skimming, i.e. whether the most able candidates are picked by programme organisers. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper recruitment practices and incentive structures at the state-owned Samhall company, Swedens main provider of sheltered employment, are discussed. An econometric analysis is performed on a random sample of 10,000 unemployed individuals, exploring the quality of the data on disability and the determinants of recruitment to the company. The findings regarding recruitment are related to Samhalls objectives. Findings - The findings in this paper regarding cream skimming is mixed; the prioritised groups, i.e. individuals with intellectual or psychic disabilities, are more likely to be hired than some, but not all, disability groups. Individuals without disabilities tend to be recruited by the company, which suggests creaming and is contrary to the guidelines. Research limitations/implications - The paper sees that the fact that disability tends to be difficult to define should be taken into account when recruitment practices to employment programmes for the disabled are analysed. Practical implications - The paper found that objectives and screening procedures in employment programmes for the disabled should be assessed carefully in order to avoid excessive cream skimming. Originality/value - The paper shows that most studies on cream skimming do not consider programmes for the disabled, although the potential for harmful cream skimming may be larger than in mainstream programmes. Unlike previous studies the role of disability characteristics for recruitment is explicitly taken into account and these are related to programme objectives.

Employment Protection Reform, Enforcement in Collective Agreements and Worker Flows.

Differential enforcement of employment protection by explicit design of the legislation, for example through exemptions for small firms, has been exploited in a growing body of research. However, little is known about the effects of differential enforcement that is not defined by the letter of the law, presumably due to the lack of data. Our study incorporates aspects of both types of differential enforcement as we combine the evaluation of a partial reform with information on the more difficult-to-observe enforcement of the same reform in collective agreements. We analyse a reform of notice periods for employer-initiated separations in Sweden, which reduced the notice periods for newly hired older workers substantially but implied minor or no changes in the notices for younger workers. The reform was initiated at different times depending on collective agreement. These circumstances provide ample opportunity for the identification of its effects. Our findings indicate heterogeneous effects across collective agreements. Despite differences in terms of dynamics and size, a positive effect on hirings is found for all agreements. In most cases, our results also show an increase in separations, indicating an increase in employment turnover. A salient feature of the results is that the estimated effects increase with the treatment dose, i.e., the size of the reduction in notice periods across different age groups.

Effects of Increasing Minimum Wages on Employment and Hours: Evidence from Sweden’s Retail Sector

This paper examines the effects of collectively agreed increases in real minimum wages on employment transitions and hours among manual workers in the Swedish retail sector over the period 2001–05. The findings indicate that increases in real minimum wages are associated with more separations, whereas hours are less affected because separated workers put in relatively fewer hours before being separated. Among the young, however, both employment and hours are negatively affected. Labour-labour substitution seems to be important, since increases in minimum wages promote employment among workers with higher wages than those directly affected by the increases. The assumptions of the econometric model were tested by imposing fictitious minimum wages on lower-level non-manuals in the same industry, with turnover characteristics similar to manuals but covered by a different collective agreement with non-binding actual minimum wages.

Employment effects of union-bargained minimum wages: Evidence from Sweden’s retail sector

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of collectively agreed increases in minimum wages for manual workers on employment transitions and hours. Design/methodology/approach - – The econometric approach relies on the identification of workers affected by minimum wage changes, depending on their position in the wage distribution and contrasts outcomes for these workers to those for unaffected workers, with slightly higher wages. Findings - – The analysis suggests that separations increase as minimum wages increase and that substitution between worker groups in response to changes in minimum wages is important in retail. In general, though, hours do not change much as minimum wages increase. Research limitations/implications - – Analyses that deal with employment consequences of increasing minimum wages but disregard hours may exaggerate the overall decline in employment to the extent that job losses are concentrated among low-paid, part-time workers. Practical implications - – With union-bargained minimum wages, unions and employers need to carefully consider the effects of increasing rates on employment. Social implications - – The findings that there is a trade-off between higher wages among the low-paid and employment loss and that employment to some extent is reshuffled between individuals should be important from a welfare perspective. Originality/value - – The literature on employment effects of minimum wages is large, but very few studies are concerned with union-bargained minimum wages. The assumptions of the econometric model are tested in a novel way by imposing fictitious minimum wages on lower-level non-manuals in the same industry, with turnover characteristics similar to those of manuals but covered by a different collective agreement with non-binding actual minimum wages.

Employment Protection and Multinational Enterprises: Theory and Evidence from Micro Data

In this paper we show, theoretically and empirically, that stronger employment protection legislation (EPL) in a host country has important and differing effects on the various activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Using micro data on affiliates to Swedish multinational firms in 20 countries for the period of 1965–1998, we find that increased stringency in EPL is associated with fewer investments in new affiliates and lower employment in existing affiliates. We also find that it is mainly affiliate exports that are affected negatively by stronger EPL, while the impact on local sales is small. This is in accordance with our theoretical model, which predicts that the impact of EPL on the costs of competing firms is likely to put affiliates at a smaller disadvantage when selling for the local market than in the production for exports.