This paper examines the effect of firing costs on the Spanish employment. On the basis of a theoretical model with two periods of time and firing costs, a regional dynamic panel data is estimated for the period 2005-2011. According to this model, two opposite effects take place: on the one hand, the presence of firing cost makes the employer more careful to hire new workers in the first period; but, on the other hand, the firing penalty makes the firm more reluctant to reduce employment in period 2. Then, the global effect of mandatory firing costs remains unclear. The main result obtained in our estimations is that higher firing costs would negatively affect employment in the short run, but in the long run this effect vanishes.
El impacto de los costes de despido sobre el empleo en España: Una estimación con datos de panel