Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Garicano, Luis; Lelarge, Claire; Van Reenen, John
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; European Central Bank; Bank of France; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20130232
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 3439-3479
• 关键词: trade liberalization; IMPACT; COSTS; misallocation; restrictions; ORGANIZATION; LAWS

摘要

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies it to France where many labor laws start to bind on firms with 50 or more employees. Using population data on firms between 1995 and 2007, we structurally estimate the key parameters of our model to construct counterfactual size, productivity, and welfare distributions. We find that the cost of these regulations is equivalent to that of a 2.3 percent variable tax on labor. In our baseline case with French levels of partial real wage inflexibility, welfare costs of the regulations are 3.4 percent of GDP (falling to 1.3 percent if real wages were perfectly flexible downward). The main losers from the regulation are workers-and to a lesser extent, large firms-and the main winners are small firms.