The purpose of the project is to examine whether companies that are required to distribute a portion of their profits to their employees lay off fewer workers during economic recessions than companies that are not obligated to share their profits. Economic theory suggests that when company profits decrease, those that can more easily reduce employee salaries tend to lay off fewer workers.
Before 1990, the mandatory profit-sharing requirement applied only to companies with more than 100 employees. This is important for my project because even though many articles of French labor law now apply to companies with over 50 employees, there are very few articles, aside from mandatory profit-sharing, that apply solely to companies with over 100 employees. Thus, my project will require data from before 1990 as well as recent data for the comparison before and after this legal change.
