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Oxford Economic Papers Advance Access originally published online on June 22, 2004
Oxford Economic Papers 2004 56(4):621-642; doi:10.1093/oep/gpf057
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© Oxford University Press 2004; All rights reserved

Does the recent success of some OECD countries in lowering their unemployment rates lie in the clever design of their labor market reforms?

Michèle Belot* and Jan C. van Ours{dagger}

* CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, Van Stolkweg 14, PO Box 80 510, 2508 GM The Hague, The Netherlands; e-mail: belot{at}cpb.nl {dagger} Department of Economics, Tiburg University, PO Box 90513, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands; CentER for Economic Research, CEPR, IZA and OSA.

In recent years some OECD countries were successful in lowering the unemployment rate substantially while other countries were not. In this paper we investigate to what extent successful countries implemented a comprehensive set of institutional reforms. We present a theoretical framework to investigate the relationship between unemployment and labor market institutions (LMI) such as labor taxes, unemployment benefits, employment protection, union bargaining power and (de)centralization of bargaining. In our empirical analysis of data over the period 1960–99 of 17 OECD countries we show that particular combinations of LMI are responsible for low unemployment rates.


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 OXF REV ECON POLICYHome page
A. Bassanini and R. Duval
Unemployment, institutions, and reform complementarities: re-assessing the aggregate evidence for OECD countries
Oxf. Rev. Econ. Policy, March 1, 2009; 25(1): 40 - 59.
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