Rigidities in Employment Protection and Exporting

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. A large number of studies have shown that contribution of exporters to economic growth and development is much higher than non-exporting firms. This evidence has lead governments to improve their trade policies in order to increase foreign exposure of firms. However, improvements in trade policies can only be fully effective when they are complemented with other regulatory reforms that improve the investment climate for firms. This study focuses on a particular aspect of investment climate, namely employment protection legislation, and shows how these regulations discourage firms from This paper—a product of the Enterprise Analysis Unit, Financial and Private Sector Vice Presidency—is part of a larger effort in the department to understand the functioning of the private sector. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at exporting. Using a rich set of firm level data from 26 countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, the author shows that firms that cannot create new jobs due to restrictive labor regulations are less likely to export. Evidence shows that firms that plan to export expand their size before they start to export. However the rigidities in labor markets make this adjustment costly. Higher costs of labor decrease operating profits and lead to a higher threshold value of productivity required for entering export markets. As a result, a smaller fraction of firms chooses to export.