Informality, Public Employment and Employment Protection in Developing Countries

Francois Langot and Shaimaa Yassin

No 16-09, IRENE Working Papers from IRENE Institute of Economic Research

Abstract: This paper proposes an equilibrium matching labor market model for developing countries where the interaction between public, formal and informal sectors is considered. Theoretical analysis shows that labor markets' liberalization reforms can be evicted by shifts in public employment. Since the public sector accounts for a substantial share of employment in developing countries, this approach is crucial to understand their labor market outcomes. Wage offers to public sector employees increase the outside option value of workers during their bargaining processes in the formal and informal sectors. It becomes more profitable for workers to search on-the-job to access more attractive and stable jobs. The public sector therefore acts as an additional tax imposed on private firms. Using workers flows data from Egypt, we show that labor markets' liberalization plays against informal employment by increasing formal jobs' profitability, but is evicted by the increase of public sector wages observed at the same time.

Keywords: Job search; Informality; Public Sector; Egypt; Unemployment; Wages; Policy Interventions. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E26 J60 J64 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages.
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-dge, nep-iue, nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www5.unine.ch/RePEc/ftp/irn/pdfs/WP16-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Informality, public employment and employment protection in developing countries (2018)
Working Paper: Informality, public employment and employment protection in developing countries (2018)
Working Paper: Informality, public employment and employment protection in developing countries (2018)
Working Paper: Informality, public employment and employment protection in developing countries (2018)
Working Paper: Informality, Public Employment and Employment Protection in Developing Countries (2017)
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:irn:wpaper:16-09

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IRENE Working Papers from IRENE Institute of Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siwar Khelifa ().