Economic Reforms and Labor Markets: Policy Issues and Lessons from Chile

Sebastian Edwards and Alejandra Cox Edwards

No 7646, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper deals with the reform to labor market regulation implemented by Chile during the last twenty years. We concentrate on the reform to job security, on the decentralization of the wage bargaining process, and on the reduction in payroll taxes. Our interest is to understand to what extent these reforms helped reduce Chile's rate of unemployment from European' to U.S' levels. We argue that the reduction of payroll taxes (within the context of the social security reform), and the decentralization of bargaining increased labor market flexibility and contributed to the reduction of unemployment. Our analysis suggests that the reform on job security had no significant effect on the aggregate rate of unemployment.

JEL-codes: J5 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-lab
Note: LS PE
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Published as Edwards, Sebastian and Alejandra Cox Edwards. "Economic Reforms And Labour Markets: Policy Issues And Lessons From Chile," Economic Policy, 2000, v15(30,Apr), 181-230.

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