Family Values and the Regulation of Labor

Alberto Alesina, Pierre Cahuc, Yann Algan and Paola Giuliano

No 7688, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers to be efficient. Otherwise, firms can take advantage of the immobility of workers and extract monopsony rents. In cultures with strong family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets to avoid moving and limiting the monopsony power of firms, even though regulation generates lower employment and income. Empirically, we do find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages, are less often employed and support more stringent labor market regulations. There are also positive cross-country correlations between the strength of family ties and labor market rigidities. Finally, we find positive correlations between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the twenty first century and family values prevailing before World War II, which suggests that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots.

Keywords: Family values; Labor markets regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E0 P16 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7688 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: FAMILY VALUES AND THE REGULATION OF LABOR (2015)
Working Paper: Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (2015)
Working Paper: Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (2015)
Working Paper: Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (2010)
Working Paper: Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (2010)
Working Paper: Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (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:cpr:ceprdp:7688

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7688

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().