José Ignacio Silva awarded with the 7th Lluís Fina Prize 2015

José Ignacio Silva Becerra, a member of GREMIR (Research Group Markets, Institutions and Redistribution) received, together with the Maria Cervini (EQUALITAS) and Xavier Ramos (UAB), the seventh Lluis Fina Award 2015 article “Wage Effects of Non-wage Labour Costs”, published in the journal European Economic Review in November 2014.

The Lluis Fina Award aims to recognize excellence in theoretical and applied research in the field of labor economics. In its 2015 edition it chose works published between 2013 and 2014 focused on the analysis of the Spanish labor market (at national, regional or local) or European labor market. The public presentation of the winning work was performed during the celebration of the XI Conference of Labour Economics which took place at the Autonomous University of Barcelona from July 1 to 3 in 2015. In the award-winning article, the authors study the effect on wages for people under 30 and over 45 of the reduction in firing costs and employer contributions to Social Security in the two years following the labor market reform in 1997. The reductions in labor costs applied only to the creation of new permanent contracts. The authors show that the reform did not only increase the likelihood of employment but also increased the wages of both groups of workers.

Link to the article (Fee required).