DOES EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION CREATE ITS OWN POLITICAL SUPPORT?
利用Mortensen-Pissarides模型研究就业保护能否自我强化政治支持，发现高生产率工人因议价能力受益而支持保护，但保护降低离职率后生产率分布下移反而削弱支持；引入非自愿离职可逆转此机制，低生产率工人因害怕解雇更支持保护。
This paper investigates the ability of employment protection to generate its own po-litical support. A version of the Mortensen-Pissarides model is used for this purpose. Under the standard assumption of Nash bargaining, workers value employment pro-tection because it strengthens their hand in bargaining. Workers in high productivity matches benefit most from higher wages as they expect to stay employed for longer. By reducing turnover employment protection shifts the distribution of match-specific productivity toward lower values. Thus stringent protection in the past actually reduces support for employment protection today. Introducing involuntary separations is a way of reversing this result. Now workers value employment protection because it delays in-voluntary dismissals. Workers in low productivity matches gain most since they face the highest risk of dismissal. The downward shift in the productivity distribution is now a shift towards ardent supporters of employment protection. In a calibrated example this mechanism sustains both low and high employment protection as stationary political outcomes. A survey of German employees provides support for employment protection being more strongly favored by workers likely to be dismissed.