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Labour Market and Labour Market Policies During the Great Recession: The Case of Estonia

Author

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  • Eamets, Raul

    (University of Tartu)

Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to analyse how labour market and labour market institutions reacted during recent crises. In early 1990s Estonia introduced a set of rather unique policy options like currency board as a ground for monetary policy, low taxes, open foreign trade policy, low public sector debts, annually balanced state budget etc. These measures caused very limited options to implement both monetary and fiscal policy. Macroeconomic adjustment will take place in such situation through the labour market. In the case of Estonia, we can observe a very high labour market flexibility, which played a crucial role in recent economic recession. The measures taken included a reduction of nominal wages, working hours and redundancies among employees. This indicates that the traditional institutional factors that protect workers and also could decrease the flexibility of the labour market, such as labour market regulation, social protection and union activities, are not very well developed in Estonia and do not have a significant effect on the outcomes of the labour market. The labour market reform was launched in Estonia in 2009. The main idea of the New Employment contract was that the termination of employment relations became less expensive for employers. Although empirical evidence show that the Employment Contracts Act entered into force at a time when most lay-offs had already been effected.

Suggested Citation

  • Eamets, Raul, 2013. "Labour Market and Labour Market Policies During the Great Recession: The Case of Estonia," IZA Policy Papers 60, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp60
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Christine Erhel & Charlotte Levionnois, 2013. "Labour Market Policies in Times of Crisis: A Comparison of the 1992-1993 and 2008-2010 Recessions," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13060, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    2. Bachmann Ronald & Bredtmann Julia, 2016. "Die Rolle befristeter Beschäftigung in Europa," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 270-298, December.
    3. Krasnopjorovs Olegs, 2020. "Have the Baltic Countries Run Out of Labour Reserves?," Baltic Journal of European Studies, Sciendo, vol. 10(3), pages 45-66, December.
    4. Christine Erhel & Charlotte Levionnois, 2013. "Labour Market Policies in Times of Crisis: A Comparison of the 1992-1993 and 2008-2010 Recessions," Post-Print halshs-00880933, HAL.
    5. Cuestas, Juan Carlos & Gil-Alana, Luis A., 2018. "Oil price shocks and unemployment in Central and Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 164-173.
    6. Olegs Krasnopjorovs, 2019. "Anatomy of labour reserves in the Baltic countries: a snapshot 15 years after the EU accession," Discussion Papers 2019/02, Latvijas Banka.
    7. Christine Erhel & Charlotte Levionnois, 2015. "Labour Market Policies in Times of Crisis: A Reaction Function Approach for the Period 1985–2010," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(2), pages 141-162, June.
    8. Christine Erhel & Charlotte Levionnois, 2013. "Labour Market Policies in Times of Crisis: A Comparison of the 1992-1993 and 2008-2010 Recessions," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00880933, HAL.
    9. María Isabel Rodríguez-Ferradas & José A. Alfaro-Tanco & Francesco Sandulli, 2016. "A framework for Open Innovation practices: Typology and characterisation," Faculty Working Papers 02/16, School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Navarra.
    10. Anna Tatarczak & Oleksandra Boichuk, 2018. "The multivariate techniques in evaluation of unemployment analysis of Polish regions," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 9(3), pages 361-380, September.
    11. Ludmila Fadejeva & Ieva Opmane, 2016. "Internal labour market mobility in 2005–2014 in Latvia: the micro data approach," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 152-174.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    labour policy; Estonian labour market; labour market flexibility; labour market and recession;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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