[PDF] Do Labor Market Regulations Affect Labor Earnings In Ecuador eBook

Author : Martin Rama
Publisher :
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 47,31 MB
Release : 2016
Category :
ISBN :

GET BOOK

Although Ecuador may have the most cumbersome labor market regulations in Latin America, these are not a major source of segmentation of the labor market. The reason: the benefits mandated are fully fungible with wages.Ecuadorian labor costs are said to be high because of a large array of mandated benefits. But there are several reasons to doubt that labor market regulations, cumbersome as they are, are responsible for segmentation of the labor market, let alone slow growth and increased inequality. And available evidence on the regulations' impact on the labor market is not compelling, as MacIsaac and Rama show.Using the 1994 Living Standards Measurement Survey, they show that the impact of mandated benefits is mitigated by a reduction of the base earnings on which they are calculated. Therefore, Ecuador's labor regulations do raise take-home pay, but less than the vast number of benefits would suggest. The increase in labor costs induced by compliance with labor regulations is even smaller than the corresponding increase in take-home pay, because mandated benefits are not subject to social security contributions or payroll taxes.Despite mandated benefits, wage differentials between industries are comparable to those in Bolivia, a country otherwise similar to Ecuador, yet known to have flexible labor markets.Cumbersome as they are, Ecuador`s labor market regulations cannot be held responsible for most labor market segmentation. Compliance with these regulations is associated with significantly higher take-home pay only in the public sector and where trade unions are active - and it is unclear that merely changing the labor code would bring wages down in those two areas.And the most dramatic earnings gap, the one between jobs in agriculture and the rest of the economy, appears to be largely independent of either unions or labor laws. Drastically streamlining the labor laws would be welcome, but only moderate change should be expected from such a reform.This paper is a product of the Poverty and Human Resources Division, Policy Research Department. The research was initiated in the context of a poverty assessment for Ecuador undertaken by Country Department III, Latin America and the Caribbean. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under research project The Impact of Labor Market Policies and Institutions on Economic Performance (RPO 680-96).

Author : Martín Rama
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 26,29 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Electronic books
ISBN :

GET BOOK

January 1997 Although Ecuador may have the most cumbersome labor market regulations in Latin America, these are not a major source of segmentation of the labor market. The reason: the benefits mandated are fully fungible with wages. Ecuadorian labor costs are said to be high because of a large array of mandated benefits. But there are several reasons to doubt that labor market regulations, cumbersome as they are, are responsible for segmentation of the labor market, let alone slow growth and increased inequality. And available evidence on the regulations' impact on the labor market is not compelling, as MacIsaac and Rama show. Using the 1994 Living Standards Measurement Survey, they show that the impact of mandated benefits is mitigated by a reduction of the base earnings on which they are calculated. Therefore, Ecuador's labor regulations do raise take-home pay, but less than the vast number of benefits would suggest. The increase in labor costs induced by compliance with labor regulations is even smaller than the corresponding increase in take-home pay, because mandated benefits are not subject to social security contributions or payroll taxes. Despite mandated benefits, wage differentials between industries are comparable to those in Bolivia, a country otherwise similar to Ecuador, yet known to have flexible labor markets. Cumbersome as they are, Ecuador's labor market regulations cannot be held responsible for most labor market segmentation. Compliance with these regulations is associated with significantly higher take-home pay only in the public sector and where trade unions are active - and it is unclear that merely changing the labor code would bring wages down in those two areas. And the most dramatic earnings gap, the one between jobs in agriculture and the rest of the economy, appears to be largely independent of either unions or labor laws. Drastically streamlining the labor laws would be welcome, but only moderate change should be expected from such a reform. This paper is a product of the Poverty and Human Resources Division, Policy Research Department. The research was initiated in the context of a poverty assessment for Ecuador undertaken by Country Department III, Latin America and the Caribbean. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under research project The Impact of Labor Market Policies and Institutions on Economic Performance (RPO 680-96). Martin Rama may be contacted at [email protected].

Author : James J. Heckman
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 27,39 MB
Release : 2007-11-01
Category : Law
ISBN : 0226322858

GET BOOK

Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.

Author : Mr.Martin Schindler
Publisher : International Monetary Fund
Page : 77 pages
File Size : 16,82 MB
Release : 2011-07-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 145529067X

GET BOOK

This paper documents a new database of labor market regulations during 1980-2005 in 91 countries, including low-, middle- and high-income countries, and contains information on unemployment insurance systems, minimum wage regulations, and employment protection legislation. In this paper, we provide details regarding the data, methodology and sources. Descriptive statistics indicate that there exists substantial heterogeneity in labor market institutions across regions and income groupings, and that much of the sample variation is driven by institutional changes over time in low- and middle-income countries. All indicators are at an annual frequency, allowing for the dating of major changes in regulation, and are based on data from a variety of sources, including the ILO, OECD and national agencies.

Author : Pierre-Richard Agénor
Publisher : International Monetary Fund
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 25,22 MB
Release : 1995-11-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1451854781

GET BOOK

This paper examines the role of the labor market in the transmission process of adjustment policies in developing countries. It begins by reviewing the recent evidence regarding the functioning of these markets. It then studies the implications of wage inertia, nominal contracts, labor market segmentation, and impediments to labor mobility for stabilization policies. The effect of labor market reforms on economic flexibility and the channels through which labor market imperfections alter the effects of structural adjustment measures are discussed next. The last part of the paper identifies a variety of issues that may require further investigation, such as the link between changes in relative wages and the distributional effects of adjustment policies.