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Barcelona GSE: Graduate School of Economics

Former CREA Working Papers  

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Working Papers # 411

Title: Do labor market rigidities matter for business cycles? Yes they do
Authors: by Stefano Gnocchi and Evi Pappa
Date: 15-07-2009
Keywords: Labor market institutions, Business cycles, OECD countries, rank sum test, active labor market policies
JEL Codes: E32, E6, J01, J08
Abstract:
We study whether labor market institutions affect the volatility and correlations of macroeconomic variables for a sample of 20 OECD countries. Labor market rigidities are characterized with a number of indicators; volatilities and correlations are computed in several ways. Union coverage and replacement ratios in the first year of unemployment are the labor market rigidities that most significantly affect business cycle statistics. Active labor market policies are effective in reducing unemployment volatility in countries with heavily regulated labor markets.
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