Workforce reduction and firm performance: a comparison between French publicly-listed and non-listed companies, 1994-2000

Benedicte Reynaud and Arnaud Degorre
Additional contact information
Arnaud Degorre: INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: Using an exhaustive database with labour, accounting and financial market information on French firms (1994-2000), the authors analyse the causes and the consequences of a workforce reduction in 1996 - the year chosen as reference - on firms' performance in a long term perspective. One important contribution to the topic consists in comparing the estimates of publicly-listed and non-listed companies. As far as we know, the comparative method had not be used before. A logistic model shows that in both groups, headcount reduction occurs in less-productive and financially distressed firms, resorting to downsizing as a defensive response to an adverse economic shock. However, the former anticipates better than the latter the decision to eliminate jobs. An econometric model that captures the initial characteristics of the firms, suggests the major performance indicators are significantly improved only for non-listed companies. Yet, there is no net gain on the full period studied.

Keywords: workforce reduction; downsizing; layoff; financial performance; return on equity; selection bias; réduction d'emploi; licenciements; performance économique financière; retour sur investissement; biais de sélection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-06
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00588011v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00588011v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Workforce reduction and firm performance: a comparison between French publicly-listed and non-listed companies, 1994-2000 (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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00588011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().