A Meta-analysis on Labour Market Deregulations and Employment Performance: No Consensus Around the IMF-OECD Consensus

The so-called 'IMF-OECD consensus' suggests that labour market deregulations increase employment and reduce unemployment. This paper presents a meta-analysis of research on this topic based on MAER-NET guidelines. We examine the relation between Employment Protection Legislation indexes on...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReview of political economy Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 1 - 21
Main Authors Brancaccio, Emiliano, De Cristofaro, Fabiana, Giammetti, Raffaele
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 02.01.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Ambiguity
Citations
Employment
Employment law
employment protection legislation
Labor market
Labour market
Legislation
Meta-analysis
meta-regression
Unemployment
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Summary:The so-called 'IMF-OECD consensus' suggests that labour market deregulations increase employment and reduce unemployment. This paper presents a meta-analysis of research on this topic based on MAER-NET guidelines. We examine the relation between Employment Protection Legislation indexes on one hand, and employment and unemployment on the other. Among 53 academic papers published between 1990 and 2019, only 28 per cent support the consensus view, while the remaining 72 per cent report results that are ambiguous (21 per cent) or contrary to the consensus (51 per cent). The decline in support for the consensus view is particularly evident in the last decade. Our results are independent of the citations of papers examined, the impact factor of journals and the techniques used. A FAT-PET meta-regression model confirms these outcomes.
ISSN:0953-8259
1465-3982
DOI:10.1080/09538259.2020.1759245