Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/153306 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
ECB Working Paper No. 872
Publisher: 
European Central Bank (ECB), Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
This empirical paper seeks to determine the relative contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries over the 1980s and 1990s, exploiting a panel of EU countries. In the short-run, the business cycle is found to exert a short-term negative effect on part-time employment developments, which is consistent with firms utilising part-time work to adjust their labour force to changing economic conditions. Institutions and other structural factors such as changes in legislation affecting part-time employment are found to be key drivers of the rate of part-time employment, significant in the longer run. Overall, although the role of individual factors differs in the 1980s and 1990s, a contribution analysis considering the most significant factors shows that the main structural and institutional variables generally well explain the development in the part-time employment rate in the EU countries, which is not the case in the United States.
Subjects: 
institutions
labour market policies
labour supply
Part-time employment
regulations
the business cycle
working time organisation
JEL: 
J21
J22
J28
J68
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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