CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Memeti, Albert |
|---|---|
| Title | Labor Market Flexibility and Unemployment: The case of post-communist Europe |
| Summary | In the last decade, there has been a divergence trends in the youth unemployment rate among post – communist countries, with some countries experiencing larger increase in youth unemployment than others. The hypothesis for explaining these divergent trends is based on the set of policies that led to labor rigidity – minimum wage, strong unions and collective bargaining, firing and hiring regulation and cost of workers dismissal. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate this hypothesis and assess the impact of labor market flexibility (LMF) on the youth unemployment rate (YUR), controlling for macroeconomic and structural factors. The relationship between LMF and YUR is examined by employing fixed effect panel regression on a sample of 17 post – communist countries in Europe between the period 2000 – 2011. The results suggest that two of the LMF sub-indices - centralized collective bargaining and minimum wage & hiring regulation have a positive impact on decreasing the youth unemployment level. In addition to the sub - indices, the empirical analysis shows that economic growth, real interest rate, a higher share of part – time employment reduce the youth unemployment rate. Furthermore, the analysis of the two groups of countries (EU and non-EU) suggests that flexible labor policies should be one of the priorities in economic policies for the non – EU countries. This paper brings together theoretical and empirical aspects of the determinants of youth and total unemployment, providing a new line of research by including a labor flexibility index. |
| Supervisor | Kezdi Gabor |
| Department | Economics MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/memeti_albert.pdf |
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