Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States

David Autor (), William Kerr () and Adriana D. Kugler

No 12860, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect productivity. These theoretical predictions have rarely been tested. We use the adoption of wrongful-discharge protections by U.S. state courts over the last three decades to evaluate the link between dismissal costs and productivity. Drawing on establishment-level data from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers and the Longitudinal Business Database, our estimates suggest that wrongful-discharge protections reduce employment flows and firm entry rates. Moreover, analysis of plant-level data provides evidence of capital deepening and a decline in total factor productivity following the introduction of wrongful-discharge protections. This last result is potentially quite important, suggesting that mandated employment protections reduce productive efficiency as theory would suggest. However, our analysis also presents some puzzles including, most significantly, evidence of strong employment growth following adoption of dismissal protections. In light of these puzzles, we read our findings as suggestive but tentative.

JEL-codes: J21 J32 J38 J63 J83 J88 K12 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-law
Date: 2007-01
Note: LE LS PR
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12860.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Working Paper: Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States (2007)
Working Paper: Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States (2007)
Working Paper: Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12860

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12860
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().