Labor Market Regulations and Income Inequality: Evidence for a Panel of Countries

Cesar Calderon (), Rodrigo Valdés and Alberto Chong

No 1541, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: This paper presents evidence on the impact of labor regulations on income inequality using two recently published databases on labor institutions and outcomes (Rama and Artecona, 2002; Botero, Djankov, La Porta, López-de-Silanes and Shleifer, 2003) and different cross-section and panel data analysis techniques for a sample of 121 countries over the 1970-2000 period. When we consider the techniques most likely to be robust, we find that: (i) de jure regulations do not improve income distribution; (ii) relative compliance with existing regulations improves income distribution; (iii) de facto regulations are weakly associated with improving income inequality. This result partly reflects the fact that regulations are endogenous and, more interestingly, different regulations have quite distinct effects. In particular, we find that any redistributive effect of labor regulations may come from trade union membership, public employment and mandated benefits (proxied by maternity leave).

Keywords: WP-514 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 J31 J4 J40 J41 J42 J43 J44 J45 J47 J48 J49 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Chapter: Labor Market Regulations and Income Inequality: Evidence for a Panel of Countries (2005)
Working Paper: Labor Market Regulations and Income Inequality: Evidence for a Panel of Countries (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:1541

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