Premium
Matching Efficiency and Labour Market Reform in Italy: A Macroeconometric Assessment
Author(s) -
Destefanis Sergio,
Fonseca Raquel
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9914.2006.00368.x
Subject(s) - matching (statistics) , economics , competition (biology) , work (physics) , labour economics , production function , function (biology) , frontier , production (economics) , macroeconomics , geography , biology , mathematics , archaeology , evolutionary biology , engineering , mechanical engineering , ecology , statistics
. A matching theory approach is used to assess the impact on the Italian labour market of the 1997 Treu Act ( legge Treu ), which considerably eased the regulation of temporary work and favoured its growth in Italy. We re‐parameterize the matching function as a Beveridge Curve and estimate it as a production frontier, finding huge differences in matching efficiency between the South and the rest of the country. The Treu Act appears to have improved matching efficiency in the North of the country, particularly for skilled workers, but also to have strengthened competition among skilled and unskilled workers, especially in the South.