Employment Protection versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms

Kjell Lommerud () and Odd Rune Straume

No 2472, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We analyse how different labour market institutions - employment protection versus flexicurity - affect technology adoption in unionised firms. We consider both trade unions’ incentives to oppose or endorse labour-saving technology, and firms’ incentives to invest in such technology. We find that increased flexicurity – interpreted as less employment protection and a higher reservation wage for workers - unambiguously increase firms’ incentives for technology adoption, even when taking into account the response in unionised wage setting to such new technology. If we assume that unions have some direct influence over the technology to be adopted, a higher reservation wage also makes unions more willing to accept technological change. Less employment protection has the opposite effect, since this increases the downside (job losses) of labour-saving technology.

Keywords: technology adoption; trade unions; employment protection; flexicurity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J51 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2472.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Employment Protection Versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms (2012)
Working Paper: Employment protection versus flexicurity: on technology adoption in unionised firms (2010)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2472

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().