Labour market outcomes of different institutional regimes: evidence from the OECD countries

Le, Hang; Wood, Geoffrey; Yin, Shuxing

Abstract

The rise of populism has been widely ascribed, at least in part, to an inability of national systems to generate decent employment or, indeed, stem its decline. This article explores the basis and nature of variations in labour market outcomes of different institutional regimes. For this comparative institutional analysis, we build indexes of labour market outcomes in the OECD countries, measuring actual cross-country variations and encompassing a much wider range of evidence in terms of countries and time periods covered than previous studies. We show that in terms of job availability and wages, the liberal market economies (LMEs) have advantages, but once involuntary part-time employment and wage inequality are considered, labour market outcomes appear superior in the continental European countries and the Scandinavia social democracies. However, any advantages of the LMEs appear to be diminishing since the global financial crisis. Compared with other regimes, Southern European and transitional economies have lower level of job availability and wage rates but are comparable in other aspects of the labour market.

Citation

Le, H., Wood, G., & Yin, S. (2021). Labour market outcomes of different institutional regimes: evidence from the OECD countries. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 45(1), 85-108. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beaa021

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 15, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jul 13, 2020
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Aug 13, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 14, 2022
• Journal: Cambridge Journal of Economics
• Print ISSN: 0309-166X
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-3545
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-108
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beaa021
• Keywords: Labour market outcomes; Varieties of Capitalism; employment; gender wage gap; wage inequality; financial crisis JEL: J20; J30; D02
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4829335
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cje/beaa021/5870532?redirectedFrom=fulltext
• Additional Information: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Cambridge Journal of Economics following peer review. The version of record, Hang Le, Geoffrey Wood, Shuxing Yin, Labour market outcomes of different institutional regimes: evidence from the OECD countries, Cambridge Journal of Economics, , beaa021, is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cje/beaa021/5870532?redirectedFrom=fulltext.