Countercyclical Labor Productivity: The Spanish Anomaly

Aggregate labor productivity

“…It is noteworthy that labor productivity remains largely procyclical in the UK and France, where union membership has declined but coverage remains high. The unusual case of Spain, which has displayed counter-cyclical labor productivity continuously and without exception since the death of General Franco in 1975, has already captured the attention of researchers [11], [12].…”

The elasticity of substitution and labor-saving innovations in the Spanish regions

“…I am grateful to an anonymous referee for suggesting both the calculation of these correlations and its connection to the results.23 In fact, from 1975 to 2019, the Spanish unemployment rate shows a growing linear trend, in contrast to US unemployment rate.24 On labor productivity in Spain and the Spanish labor market, seeHospido and Moreno- Galbis (2015) andBande et al (2019). Spain not only presents a low labor productivity in relative terms; it is also the only economy in the EMU that exhibits a counter-cyclical pattern of this variable Jalón et al (2017). shows that Spanish labor productivity shifted from a strongly procyclicality to a countercyclical pattern since 1984, coinciding with the legislative reform that introduced the temporary contracts.…”