Publication
Title
Employment protection legislation and SME performance
Author
Abstract
This article examines the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance. Rather than relying on country-specific proxies for EPL, as is common in the literature, we compute firm-specific measures of a firm's exposure to EPL by using a panel dataset of 13,112 Belgian SMEs for the period between 2000 and 2009. The empirical results show that firms perform better when faced with lower hiring and firing costs through the use of more blue-collar labour contracts. The evidence showing improved performance by firms that attempt to achieve greater flexibility by hiring more temporary workers is limited.
Language
English
Source (journal)
International small business journal. - Wilmslow
Publication
Wilmslow : 2017
ISSN
0266-2426
DOI
10.1177/0266242616672293
Volume/pages
35 :3 (2017) , p. 306-326
ISI
000400766600005
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 12.06.2017
Last edited 23.01.2023
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