OECD Economics Department Working Papers
Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.
The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.
- ISSN: 18151973 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/18151973
The Costs of Flexibility-Enhancing Structural Reforms
A Literature Review
This survey highlights the key results of the empirical literature concerning the costs of flexibility enhancing reforms in product and labour markets. The documented costs include reduced employment, loss of government revenue, undesirable distributional consequences and political instability. The literature suggests that: i) once implemented, product and labour market reforms affect prices and quantities quite rapidly; ii) there are no major differences between the overall effects in the short and long run; iii) the costs of reforms are very much related to interactions with other policies and institutions; and iv) the costs of reforms change over the business cycle.
Keywords: structural reforms, flexibility, long run
JEL:
J3: Labor and Demographic Economics / Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs;
J5: Labor and Demographic Economics / Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining;
J6: Labor and Demographic Economics / Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
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