The starting point for this project was a comprehensive literature survey on the effects of employment protection, covering over 100 empirical studies; the book Employment Protection Legislation. Evolution, Effects, Winners and Losers was published by Edward Elgar in 2010.
The next step was to examine the employment effects of employment protection in Swedish firms. A reform in 2001 of last-in-first-out rules that affected only small firms provides a possibility to study the effect of less stringent employment protection on the employment prospects of the unemployed and participants in active labor market programs. Another part of the project looked at cross-country variation in employment protection's stringency and its effect on employment in Swedish multinational firms operating abroad.
A third step was to examine the labor market prospects of employees in various forms of fixed-term employment.
The project was financed by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.