Flexibility at the margin and labour market volatility: The case of Spain

The Spanish labour market is a prominent case of segmentation with flexibility at the margin (e.g., just affecting fixed-term employees). Flexibility at the margin produces a gap in separation costs between temporary and permanent workers which causes fixed-term contracts to be the main workforce adjustment device. It also leads to a productivity gap, due to high turnover and lack of on-the-job training of temporary employees. To explain the high volatility of the Spanish labour market we develop a matching model with temporary and permanent employees where these gaps play a central role. This model is calibrated and simulated to match the stylised facts and assess the cyclical implications of the 1984 and 1997 labour market reforms.