Job-Specific Investment and the Cost of Dismissal Restrictions - the Case of Portugal

29 Pages Posted: 29 Jan 2006

Date Written: April 2003

Abstract

Using a search and matching labor market equilibrium model, this paper quantifies lost labor productivity and consumption per worker that emerges from the restrictions on dismissals. Dismissal restrictions hamper the efficient reallocation of workers, with workers remaining longer in jobs. But the restrictions also tend to induce job-specific investments. A calibration exercise applied to Portugal suggests that the restrictions on dismissal slow the pace of worker reallocation and cause substantial losses of labor productivity and consumption. Although lower worker mobility induces job-specific investment that offsets part of the labor productivity and consumption losses, the size of this offsetting effect is, at most, modest.

Keywords: Dismissal restrictions, worker mobility, job-specific investment, welfare

JEL Classification: E24, J23, J32, J41, J63

Suggested Citation

Takizawa, Hajime, Job-Specific Investment and the Cost of Dismissal Restrictions - the Case of Portugal (April 2003). IMF Working Paper No. 03/75, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=879151

Hajime Takizawa (Contact Author)

International Monetary Fund ( email )

700 19th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20431
United States