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The American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA) significantly lowered U.S. firms' tax cost when accessing their unrepatriated foreign earnings. Using this temporary shock to the cost of internal financing, we examine the role of capital constraints in firms' investment decisions. Controlling for the capacity to repatriate foreign earnings under the AJCA, we find that a majority of the funds repatriated by capital-constrained firms were allocated to approved domestic investment. Although unconstrained firms account for a majority of repatriated funds, no increase in investment resulted. Contrary to other examinations of the AJCA, we find little change in leverage and equity payouts.

We present a meta-evaluation of the literature on the impacts of active labour market policies for unemployed people over 50, extracting 82 impacts for analysis. The meta-evaluation includes only impact evaluations that examine both a group of beneficiaries and a control group of comparable non-beneficiaries. On average, we find that active policies have a slightly negative effect (−0.8 percentage points) on the probability of unemployed people over 50 finding a job and that this negative effect disappears 24 months after policy implementation. However, this effect is very different when disaggregated by policy type. Direct job creation policies have a clear negative effect (−3.9 percentage points), and training policies have a positive average effect, either in isolation (2.4 percentage points) or when combined with search assistance or counselling (1.7 percentage points). We also find slight differences by gender, with the effect of active policies being greater for women than for men. These results have important implications, given that the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have made active policies the cornerstone of their efforts to improve the re-employment of older people. Our results support training policies, either in isolation or in combination with search assistance and counselling. The greatest impacts are obtained after 12 months of policy implementation.

Using MSA-level data over 1994–2014, we study the effect of bank failures on local business dynamics, in the form of net business formation and net job creation. We find that at least one bank failure in the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the mean population prevents approximately 475 net businesses from forming in that area, compared with MSAs that experience no bank failures, ceteris paribus. The equivalent effect on net job creation is 16,433 net job losses. Our results are even stronger for small businesses, which are usually more dependent on bank-firm relationships. These effects point to significant welfare losses stemming from bank failures, highlighting an important role for government intervention. We show that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is effective in reducing the negative effects of bank failures on local business dynamics. This positive effect of TARP is quite uniform across small and large firms.

Firms can become less innovative following a sudden cash “inflow.” Specifically, multinational firms that were eligible to repatriate (and indeed repatriated) cash to the United States under the American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA) generate less valuable patents than otherwise similar firms. They also explore more. This effect only exists among firms in less competitive industries, firms with lower institutional ownership (IO), and firms with overconfident chief executive officers (CEOs); this effect is mainly driven by the reduction in the value of U.S.-originated patents. Our evidence suggests that, without appropriate governance, a cash windfall may lead managers to engage in riskier innovation strategy, which can destroy value.

Since independence, achieving food self-sufficiency through import restrictions has been a constant theme in Indonesian politics. This policy gained renewed importance during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, particularly with the introduction of the so-called Food Law and Farmers Law in the early 2010s. However, a notable shift occurred in 2020 with the implementation of the Job Creation Law (JCL). The existing literature on food self-sufficiency usually attributes political support for import restrictions and domestic production to the financial and electoral benefits politicians and their business associates reap, including graft and public approval. However, such arguments do not address how ideas shape the legislative process. To understand why, this article examines how the Widodo administration's attempts to change legislation on food self-sufficiency were stymied by political parties and lawmakers, showing that not only ideals but also the legislative branch still has a voice in shaping policy, especially at a time when the presidency in Indonesia has amassed vast power.

Covid-19 is seen as a black swan event widely affecting almost all sectors and sending a wave of uncertainty for micro, small, and medium enterprises (henceforth MSMEs) in Indonesia. Despite being the most affected, these sectors could stand under this pressure, remain, and regrow faster following this hit. The government, referring to Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 11 of 2020 concerning Job Creation and several delegated regulations, intends to ease, protect, and empower the MSMEs and bring them further as leading sectors to recover the economy in Indonesia. This research aims to evaluate the degree of success of 28 government-driven programs according to Job Creation Law focused on the three aspects: ease, protection, and empowerment. With a backcasting method, it is necessary to work backwards to identify existing regulations and programs run at present time. Through constructive cross-examination, this research reveals that 15 programs worked successfully, 10 programs indicated an average degree of success, and 3 programs were categorized as poor degrees of success. This indicates that in general, the government's programs aiming to ease, protect, and empower the MSMEs amidst the pandemic can serve as a legal breakthrough for the revival of the MSMEs. However, some programs need improvement to maximise the impact on the MSMEs.

On October 5, 2020, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) passed Law no. 11/2020 on Job Creation (Job Creation Law/JCL) designed to improve Indonesia’s private investment climate. The law changed various legal landscapes that were identified as obstacles to accelerated development and economic growth. However, the Law has sparked widespread protests because it can potentially encourage environmental damage, exacerbate workers’ vulnerability and increase socioeconomic inequality. Describing JCL as a neoliberal legality project, this paper explores the elected executive’s role in mobilizing authoritarian state practices through disciplinary measures that undermine democratic accountabilities. It is argued that the configuration between the pre-existing illiberal democracy and Jokowi’s autocratic tendencies offers predatory business alliances an adequate legal and institutional platform to formulate a neoliberal legal breakthrough while eliminating resistance to them. Through a socio-legal analysis of the three areas targeted by the JCL amendments, we further argue that Jokowi’s success in advocating for his preferred neoliberal agenda hinges on what is called an executive aggrandizement strategy. This is characterized by interventions designed to safeguard the neoliberal legality preferences promoted by the elected executive from the disruption of meaningful checks and balances in the future, thereby deepening the features of authoritarian statecraft. This paper contributes to an advanced understanding of the bleak picture of Indonesian democracy over the past few years by proposing neoliberal legality as one of the ingrained legal characteristics of Jokowi’s authoritarian regime.

This study discusses the legal protection for workers whose employment relationship has been terminated after the enactment of Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation which derives from the Indonesian Omnibus Law. The purpose is to examine the protection of laid-off workers' rights under the Job Creation Law during the COVID-19 pandemic which has increased the threat of layoffs around the globe including in Indonesia. This study seeks to address the question of how employment termination, also known as layoff, is regulated in Law No.11/2020 on Job Creation which was repealed and replaced with Law No. 6/2023 to guarantee the rights and legal protection of laid-off workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is socio-legal research drawing on primary data related to the Job Creation Law and workers' rights protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the study indicate that the regulation of worker layoffs has changed in the Job Creation Law, including the procedure for implementing the layoffs that no longer require the verdict of the Industrial Relations Court. The study also found that the protection for workers by the Job Creation Law during this pandemic is in the form of severance pay, gratuity pay, and compensation in the amount of 0.5 of the provisions of Article 156, which is smaller than the provisions of Law No. 13/2003 on Employment.

Job creation programmes aim at increasing the employability of hard-to-place unemployed, and eventually integrating them into employment. Yet, previous evaluation studies have been pessimistic about their efficacy. For One-Euro-Jobs, a job creation programme for welfare benefit recipients in Germany, previous evaluations found unfavourable effects particularly for easier-to-place participants. Thus, in 2012 the legislator reformed the programme in order to target the hard-to-place more accurately. This study is the first post-reform evaluation of One-Euro-Jobs. We find that, although the programme is indeed better targeted than before, One-Euro-Jobs decrease participants’ employment chances within three years after programme entry. These outcomes are worse than those found for pre-reform participants. We cannot conclude with certainty whether the reform decreased the programme’s efficacy, but we identify channels through which the reform and other contemporaneous changes may have done so. These channels include changes in programme design features, changes in business-cycle conditions, and prolonged lock-in effects due to “programme careers”. To substantiate the latter explanation, we also provide novel evidence that One-Euro-Jobs seem to initiate programme careers.

This research highlights the shifting concepts and mechanisms in business licensing in forest areas from environmental licensing to an environmental agreement following the effectuation of Indonesia’s Job Creation Law. It is important to investigate this change, considering that it may involve environmental damage or deforestation in forest areas, which tends to be pro-businesses. With the normative-juridical method that incorporates statutory, conceptual, and analytical approaches, This research aims to analyze the concept of the integration of an environmental agreement in risk-based business licensing that has changed business licensing into an environmental agreement in forestry. This study also analyzes the concept of an environmental agreement concept regarding the likelihood of deforestation and the shifting functionality of forest areas. The last important point is that it is paramount to set an ideal legal construction in the environmental agreement in risk-based business licensing in forestry businesses by employing a restorative justice approach and public participation. The research results recommend an ideal legal concept in the integration of an environmental agreement into risk-based business licensing by taking into account public participation, as outlined in Environmental Protection and Management Law, implying citizens to have both public and private rights, enabling them to participate. Moreover, the public role can adjust to the need and risk levels developed with varied concepts of the development of public participation by considering theories and practices in other countries.