Research

WORK IN PROGRESS

  • Is it cold outside? Firm performance effects of employers’ association affiliation (with Pedro S. Martins)

Employers’ associations (EAs) deliver several potentially important services to their members, including in conducting collective bargaining. However, the economic effects of EAs on the firms’ performance are still largely unknown. This paper considers the case of the metalwork sector in two large regions of Spain, drawing on comprehensive firm-level panel data matched with time-varying information on EA affiliation. Our identification strategy exploits the decision of joining a representative EA to analyze its impact on several economic outcomes such as employment, productivity, profitability and wage per worker. We then estimate a differences in differences (DiD) model based on the specific date of affiliation to the EA during the period 2005-2020 to explore the causal impact of this decision in their performance once they are affiliated compared to their situation before affiliation and to that of those non-affiliated firms. Results show that becoming member of an EA has a significant impact on the firms’ profitability and the wage per worker but do not find a significant impact on productivity or employment.

  • Contrasting institutions, contrasting fortunes: collective bargaining in Portugal and Spain (with Pedro S. Martins)

Despite the many similarities between the labour markets of Portugal (PT) and Spain (ES), unemployment increased much more in the latter since the financial crisis of 2008. This note argues that collective bargaining may have played an important role in these contrasting outcomes, despite its sectoral nature in both countries. We document a number of more nuanced institutional differences between the two countries, including: collective agreements (CA) are bargained and signed jointly (separately) by both main unions in ES (PT); a CA involves multiple (single) annual wage increments in ES (PT); virtually all workers receive wage increases in ES (only those directly bitten by wage floors in PT). On the other hand, while we find a significant degree of regional variation in wage floors in ES, these have a national nature in PT.


This paper assesses the effect of the creation of specialized intra-partner violence (IPV) courts on the reporting of these crimes. To achieve this goal, we exploit the sequential roll-out of IPV specialized courts throughout Spain by applying a difference-in-differences strategy over a sample of treatment and matched control districts. We find that the opening of a special- ized IPV court increases the celerity in the resolution of IPV trials by 67% and the reporting of IPV in the judicial district by nearly 28%. However, we do not see any effect on the reported number of more severe IPV cases, including homicides, for which misreporting is arguably smaller. The latter result suggest that despite the positive effects on the reporting of less severe cases of IPV, the creation of these courts failed to reduce the incidence of the most severe cases of IPV.



RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

  • "How representative are social partners in Europe?", LABOUR (2022), vol. 36, issue 4. Joint with Pedro S. Martins. Publication available here. Other versions available as GLO Discussion Paper and IZA Discussion Paper.

  • "Uncertainty and Firms' Labour Decisions. Evidence from European Countries", Journal of Applied Economics (2022). Forthcoming. Joint with Alberto Urtasun. Recent version available as IZA Discussion Paper.

  • "Task Specialization and Cognitive Skills: Evidence from PIAAC and IALS", Review of Economics of the Household (2021). Forthcoming. Joint with Ernesto Villanueva. Recent version available as IZA Discussion Paper.

  • "Do fee-shifting rules affect plaintiffs’ win rates? A theoretical and empirical analysis", International Review of Law and Economics (2021) vol 65. Avaialble here. Joint with Gabriel Doménech and Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti.

  • "Employment protection legislation, labor courts and effective firing costs" (2020), IZA Journal of Labor Economics (2020) 9:2. Available here. Joint with Juan Francisco Jimeno and Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti.

  • “An economic analysis of court fees: evidence from the Spanish civil jurisdiction”, European Journal of Law and Economics (2019) vol. 47 (3), pages 321-359. Available here. Joint with Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti.

  • “Credit, crisis and judicial enforcement: evidence from Spain”, European Journal of Law and Economics (2017) vol. 44, issue 2. Available here. Joint with Migue García-Posada and Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti.

  • "Peer effects in judicial decisions: evidence from Spanish labour courts", International Review of Law and Economics (2015) vol. 42, pp. 20-37. Avaiable here. Joint with Ángel Martín-Román and Alfonso Moral.


OTHER PUBLICATIONS IN PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS:

  • MARTÍNEZ-MATUTE, M and MORA-SANGUINETTI, J. S. (2017): “El impacto del nuevo criterio de costas y las nuevas tasas judiciales en la litigiosidad y eficacia de la jurisdicción contencioso-administrativa”, Papeles de Economía Española, num. 151.

  • MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2016): “La cobertura de la negociación colectiva en España: una nueva propuesta de medición”, Revista de Economía Laboral - Spanish Journal of Labour Economics, vol. 13, nº 2, pp. 34-64. Available here.

  • MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2016): “La rigidez del coste laboral y el crecimiento del empleo en España”, Revista de Economía Laboral - Spanish Journal of Labour Economics, vol. 13, nº 2, pp. 135-155. Available here.

  • MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2014): "Una nueva base de microdatos para el estudio de los convenios colectivos en España", Estadística Española, vol. 86, nº 185, pp. 323-353. Available here.

  • MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2014): "La evolución del sistema de negociación colectiva en España: una panorámica general", Temas Laborales, Revista Andaluza de Ciencias del Trabajo, número 123, pp. 139-161.

  • MARTÍN ROMÁN, A. L.; MORAL DE BLAS, A. and MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2013): “Tipo de juez y estimación de los casos de despido: un análisis de los Juzgados de lo Social en España”, Cuadernos de Economía, vol. 36, nº 102.

  • MARTINEZ MATUTE, M. and PÉREZ DOMÍNGUEZ, C. (2012): "El impacto de los costes de despido sobre el empleo en España: una estimación con datos de panel", Estudios de Economía Aplicada, vol. 30-1, pp. 137-162.


OTHER PUBLICATIONS, CHAPTERS OF BOOKS OR POLICY BRIEFS:

  • MARTÍNEZ-MATUTE, M. and PÉREZ, J. J. (2017): "La evolución del empleo de las Administraciones Públicas en la última década", Economic Notes of Banco de España, 3/2017. Available here.

  • JIMENO, J. F.; LACUESTA, A.; MARTÍNEZ-MATUTE, M. and VILLANUEVA, E. (2017): "La formación del capital humano en el mercado de trabajo", Economic Bulletin of Banco de España, 3/2017. Available here (Spanish) and here (English).

  • MARTÍNEZ-MATUTE, M. and URTASUN, A. (2017): “The recovery of private consumption in Spain by product type and household”, Economic Bulletin of Banco de España, 2/2017.

  • MORA SANGUINETTI, J. S. and MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. (2014): "La regulación en el mercado de productos en España según los indicadores de la OCDE", Boletín Económico del Banco de España, diciembre 2014. Available here.

  • LACUESTA GABARAIN, A.; MARTÍNEZ MATUTE, M. and MORAL BENITO, E. (2014): "Factores que mejoran el conocimiento financiero. El papale de la educación financiera escolar", en INEE (Ed.), PISA 2012: Competencia Financiera. Informe español. Volumen II: Análisis secundario, Capítulo 5, pp. 115-136. Madrid: Autor. Available here.