无固定期限劳动合同与劳资行为的匹配研究——实验经济学与行为经济学的视角

A Study on Open-ended Employment Contracts and Contracting Parties' Behavior Matching——In the View of Experimental Economics & Behavioral Economics

劳动合同法强化了无固定期限劳动合同管理,用比较制度实验方法研究外生的制度变量与劳资双方当事人的行为匹配,设置三种劳动力市场,用以检验无固定期限劳动合同不准解雇和可以解雇等不同制度安排对劳资双方的影响。主要发现:(1)无固定期限劳动合同的法定实施与劳资双方的行为匹配受制于偏好的二重性,匹配结果介于"赢"与"输"之间,并不是争论者强调的非此即彼情形;(2)若没有无固定期限劳动合同的限制,企业对合同类型的偏好是无差异的,无固定期限劳动合同导致企业偏好长期合同;(3)企业提供的工资基本稳定,高于自利模型的预测水平,且工资水平越高,员工的努力程度也越高,这验证了效率工资理论;(4)自利偏好的员工的机会主义行为明显,他们利用无固定期限劳动合同套牢企业,赚取准租金。解雇的威胁激励员工提供更高的努力水平,而无固定期限劳动合同却降低了就业福祉的匹配效率。

Employment protection legislation （EPL） is an important policy in the labor market, and restrictions on open-ended employment contracts is core content of EPL. Employment Contracts Law of China carried out in 2008 also enhances employment protection such as clarifying the situations of signing open-ended employment con-tracts, but this induces debates on Employment Contracts Law. There are mainly contradictory views： supportive and opposite. Some researchers concluded conflicts came from dual labor market by analyzing logic approach of different views. Except dual labor market, we should focus on preference heterogeneity in a great deal. In fact, conflicts of contradictory views come from the dualism of preference. The logic of opposite views highlights self-interest prefer-ence, while the logic of supportive views highlights social preference. Actually, self-interest preference and social preference are mixed and unstable. So only emphasizing extreme forms of preference is problematic. Based on preference heterogeneity and parallelism of experimental economics, we experimentally explore how open-ended employment contracts affect parties of labor contracts and matching efficiency. Our study is based on the legal institution in reality, and at the same time we focus on the structure and hierarchy of the protection of em-ployment. We use gift exchange game to model labor contract relationship. A firm offers a labor contract to a worker, de- fining wage and desired effort level, and the worker accepts or refuses the offer. If the worker accepts the offer, a labor contract relationship is set up. Then, the firm can＇ t change the wage, but the worker can choose effort level voluntarily. The income of the firm is dependent on effort level of the worker. In our experiments, we design two kinds of labor contracts ： single period contract and 3-period contract. Sin-gle period labor contracts stand for short-term labor eontracts in reality, and 3-period labor contracts stand for medi- um or long term labor contracts in reality. For single period labor contracts, there is renegotiation for each period, and 3-period labor contracts can last for 3 periods. Three types of labor markets are designed to explore matching relationship between the institution and behav- iors. In The Base Treatment, there is no restriction on open-ended employment contracts. Firms and workers can choose contract type freely, and again choose a new contract freely in expiry date. In No Dismissal Treatment, once a firm and a worker sign a labor contract on consecutive occasions, an open-ended labor contract is signed, and this open-ended labor contract can＇ t be broken. The Dismissal Treatment is identical to The No Dismissal Treatment except dismissal, but if dismissal, the firm has to compensate for the worker. We draw main conclusions as following ： （ 1 ） matching effects of open-ended employment contracts and par-ties＇ behaviors depend on the dualism of preference, which are better than opinions of selfish preference models and worse than that of social preference models, but not the situation of ＂ Ether this or That＂ ; （2） without open-ended employment contracts, there is no difference between short-term employment contracts and long-term employ-ment contracts for firms, and open-ended employment contracts lead to firms＇ preference for long-term employment contracts; （3） wages are stable over time and higher than hypothesis of selfish preference models; more wages, more effort, this validates efficiency-wage theory; （4） selfish-preference workers have obvious opportunistic behav-iors. They hold up the firm by open-ended employment contracts and gain quasirent. Firing threat can stimulate workers to make more efforts, but open-ended employment contracts reduce the efficiency of welfare matching. When designing the policies, we should consider the type and distribution of people＇ s preference. Moreover, the direction in motivation of the policies ought to be consistent with the fairness belief of the social-preferencers, and this could achieve the Pareto improvement.