Subsidizing labor hoarding in recessions: the employment and welfare effects of short time work

Giupponi, Giulia and Landais, Camille (2018) Subsidizing labor hoarding in recessions: the employment and welfare effects of short time work. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1585). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

The Great Recession has seen a revival of interest in policies encouraging labor hoarding by firms. Short time work (STW) policies, which consist in offering subsidies for hours reductions to workers in firms experiencing temporary shocks, are the most emblematic of these policies, and have been used aggressively during the recession. Yet, very little is known about their employment and welfare consequences. This paper leverages unique administrative social security data from Italy and quasiexperimental variation in STW policy rules to offer compelling evidence of the effects of STW on firms' and workers' outcomes, and on reallocation in the labor market. Our results show large and significant negative effects of STW treatment on hours, but large and positive effects on headcount employment. Results also show that employment effects disappear when the program stops, and that STW offers no long term insurance to workers. Finally, we identify the presence of significant negative reallocation effects of STW on employment growth of untreated firms in the same local labor market. We develop a simple conceptual framework to rationalize this empirical evidence, from which we derive a general formula for the optimal STW subsidy that clarifies the welfare trade-offs of STW policies. Calibrating the model to our empirical evidence, we conduct counterfactual policy analysis and show that STW stabilized employment during the Great Recession in Italy, and brought (small) positive welfare gains.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	http://cep.lse.ac.uk/
Additional Information:	© 2018 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
JEL classification:	H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H20 - General J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J20 - General J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies > J65 - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2019 14:25
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2023 23:45
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/91708

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