TY  - JOUR
AU  - Edwards,Sebastian
AU  - Edwards,Alejandra Cox
TI  - Economic Reforms and Labor Markets: Policy Issues and Lessons from Chile
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7646
PY  - 2000
Y2  - April 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7646
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7646.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sebastian Edwards
UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Business
110 Westwood Plaza, Suite C508
Box 951481
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
Tel: 310/206-6797
Fax: 310/206-5825
E-Mail: sebastian.edwards@anderson.ucla.edu
AB  - This paper deals with the reform to labor market regulation implemented by Chile during the last twenty years. We concentrate on the reform to job security, on the decentralization of the wage bargaining process, and on the reduction in payroll taxes. Our interest is to understand to what extent these reforms helped reduce Chile's rate of unemployment from  European' to  U.S' levels. We argue that the reduction of payroll taxes (within the context of the social security reform), and the decentralization of bargaining increased labor market flexibility and contributed to the reduction of unemployment. Our analysis suggests that the reform on job security had no significant effect on the aggregate rate of unemployment.
ER  -