The productivity effect of permanent and temporary labor contracts in the Italian manufacturing sector

This paper studies the effect of permanent and temporary labor contracts on both labor-augmenting and TFP-augmenting technological factors using a panel dataset of Italian manufacturing firms. The empirical analysis applies a structural approach in which firm TFP follows a controlled Markov process that is affected by the relative use of labor contracts, and labor services are perfect substitutes but with different labor-augmenting factors. The empirical results show that when including labor-contract composition in the TIP process: i) the difference between permanent and temporary contracts in the labor-augmenting productivity factor is not significant and ii) the incidence of permanent contracts in total contracts has a positive effect on TFP dynamics. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.