Employment Regulations Through the Eyes of Employers

"Pierre and Scarpetta present evidence on how employers perceive labor regulations and react when these are perceived to constrain the operation of their firm. They draw from harmonized surveys of (up to) 17,000 firms around the world and compare employers' responses with actual labor legislation. The authors find that employers' concerns about labor regulations are closely matched by the relative stringency of de jure labor laws. Countries that have, from an international perspective, tight labor regulations tend to have higher proportions of employers reporting these regulations as severe constraints.