Informal adult care and caregivers' employment in Europe

I discuss instrumental variable estimates of the effect of providing unpaid adult care on the caregivers' probability of being employed, using eight waves of the European Community Household Panel. I focus on men aged 40–64 and women aged 40–59 from thirteen Member States, aggregated in two groups of Northern-Central and Southern countries. Previous papers with European data found that IV estimates are more negative than estimates assuming exogeneity of caregiving. I show that this difference is not robust once account is taken of time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity. Indeed, instruments turn out not to be needed, and the estimated effect is negative, but small in both groups of countries.     

Exits from temporary jobs in Europe: A competing risks analysis

We study transitions out of temporary jobs using the waves 1994–1999 of the European Community Household Panel applying a discrete time duration model. Specifically, we use a multinomial logit model distinguishing between exits into permanent employment and non-employment. Two different specifications are presented, one does not account for unobserved heterogeneity while the other does. Unobserved heterogeneity is assumed to follow a discrete distribution. The competing risks model is estimated jointly for all EU Member States. The duration dependence parameters suggest that in general for EU as a whole, very short contracts provide higher chances of labour market exclusion especially for men. We discuss potential implications of our findings.     

The ever‐declining role of gender equality in the European Employment Strategy

This article analyses the changing position of gender in the European Employment Strategy (EES) since its 2005 relaunch. Overall, we find a picture of mixed progress towards gender equality goals across Member States. There is evidence of the EU soft law approach leading to positive developments as the use of targets in conjunction with Country‐Specific Recommendations and Points‐to‐Watch have had some influence in promoting gender equality policies among Member States. However, the weakened position of gender mainstreaming in European‐level initiatives has led to gender being marginalised or ignored in national and EU policy responses to the crisis. The prominence of gender has declined further in the 2010 revision of the EES under the 2020 banner. This introduces new risks as the emphasis on gender equality falls further down the list of priorities in the streamlining of the Lisbon Process.     

Direct and representative participation in Europe: recent survey evidence

Despite the wealth of literature on HRM and employee involvement, now there has been a remarkable lack of large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion employee involvement in work organizations in Europe. This gap in large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion of direct employee participation has now been filled representative sample of workplaces in ten major European Union countries which commissioned by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin (the EPOC project). It is by far the most comprehensive overview of the implementation and effects of direct employee participation of its kind. The paper shows that, on the basis of the EPOC survey results, there appears to considerable gap between the rhetoric and reality of direct participation. The paper shows that while the incidence of different forms of direct participation was widespread ten countries, the scope, in terms of number of issues involved and the number of given to employees, was relatively limited for most direct participation forms. The survey also showed that the introduction of direct participation posed little threat to trade representatives. Indeed, works councils and union representatives were in most 'agents of change' rather than barriers to the development of the more intensive practice of direct participation.     

Gender policy and female employment: a CGE model for Italy

The gender integration in all areas of policy choices and at all stages of the decision-making process is strongly recommended by the European Union and represents an achievement that the Member States should accomplish when implementing policy measures. In a country like Italy, where the level of female labour participation is among the lowest in Europe, policy maker decisions should encourage and stimulate the demand for female labour without neglecting the global employment rate and income growth. The multisectoral analysis offers the possibility to bridge gender disaggregation within income formation and distribution from the production phase to the demand formation. In this perspective, this paper develops a gender-aware CGE model based on the gender-aware SAM for the Italian economy to evaluate the impact of different fiscal policies aimed to reduce female labour cost and trigger woman hiring in those sectors with high gender disparity.     

The free movement of workers and social Europe: maintaining the European ideal

The big EU enlargement of 2004 has fuelled the debate about whether labour migration from the east to the west is causing social dumping in the European economy, with the effect of upsetting established national systems of labour market regulation. This article reviews the effects of migration on EU labour markets. It also examines three recent industrial relations disputes which were about job displacement. It argues that there is little evidence of greater labour mobility causing new social dumping pressures on a widespread basis. However, it goes on to suggest that the situation may change if the EU adopts neoliberal policies such as the initial draft Services Directive at the same time as promoting greater labour market openness between the Member States. The article concludes by arguing for a better policy mix which would on the one hand involve the EU maintaining its commitment to the free movement of workers and on the other hand strengthen labour standard‐setting mechanisms at both the EU and national levels.     

The trade union merger process in Europe: defensive adjustment or strategic reform?

In most Member States of the European Union, trade unionists are reforming trade union structures through engagement in the merger process. This article charts the scale of the merger process since 2000 and identifies the key features of the unions that result from it. The article assesses the outcome of the merger process by reference to aspects of trade union purpose. While much of the merger process is shown to be defensive, particular mergers are highlighted as comprising features that may assist in the renewal of trade union organisation.     

Work–life balance in the EU and leave arrangements across welfare regimes

Work–life balance has been a central theme of the EU gender equality framework and has been promoted through both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ components. Although the EU concern in promoting work–life balance has been more to increase employment and economic productivity than to promote gender equality, all Member States have now established standards in accordance with the EU regulations. Statutory leave arrangements are a key component of work–life balance policies and they vary significantly across Member States with different welfare regime traditions. This study examines the transposition of EU Directives and the implications of the European Employment Strategy for leave arrangements across the UK, Denmark, France and Spain as exemplars of four welfare regimes.     

The true and fair view override in the European Accounting Directives

This paper looks into the origin of the true and fair view override in the European Accounting Directives. It explains the meaning of the true and fair view override within the context of the Directives and how this principle has been implemented by the Member States of the European Union. The paper also compares the true and fair concept adopted in IAS 1 with the similar concept contained in the Accounting Directives. The paper concludes by emphasizing the usefulness of the true and fair view override within the context of an accounting regime based on a conceptual framework.     

British industrial relations and the European Community

The purpose of this paper is to review the influence that Britain's membership of the European Community has had on industrial relations in Britain. More specifically the so-called ‘Social Dimension’ of the 1992 internal market is assessed. The conclusion is that British industrial relations will continue to be influenced by developments in the European Community for the rest of the 1990s and beyond. However, it is more likely that there will be a weaving of a European dimension into national industrial relations systems rather than the imposition of a new EC-wide model.     

Evaluating the participation of the self-employed in undeclared work: some evidence from a 27-nation European survey

In recent decades, it has been widely assumed that undeclared work is rife amongst the self-employed. Until now, however, few have evaluated the extent and nature of the participation of the self-employed in undeclared work and whether they do so out of choice or necessity. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap. To do this, an extensive 2007 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work is reported comprising 26,659 face-to-face interviews conducted in the 27 member states of the European Union. The finding is that some 1 in 12 of the 1,842 self-employed respondents surveyed had participated in undeclared work in the previous year, although the propensity of the self-employed to engage in undeclared work varies significantly both socio-demographically and spatially. Analysing whether they do so out of choice or necessity, meanwhile, various ratios of involuntary-to-voluntary participation in undeclared work are found to prevail across different populations, places and types of undeclared work. The paper concludes by reviewing the implications for policy. Its argument is not only that state authorities targeting the self-employed alone will fail to eradicate undeclared work but also that a more variegated approach is required if the participation of the self-employed in undeclared work is to be efficiently and effectively tackled.     

Wage changes through job mobility in Europe: A multinomial endogenous switching approach

This paper presents evidence on the relationship between job mobility and wage mobility for various European countries using the European Community Household Panel (1994–2001). While much of the earlier research uses least-squares regression to predict wages for individuals with different labour market experience, we have found that it is important to take into account the possible non-random selection between job movers and stayers and between voluntary and involuntary movers. In this paper we focus on the effects of an unemployment spell on subsequent wages by estimating a multinomial endogenous switching model composed of two selection equations and three wage equations. Our results indicate that job mobility through unemployment has negative returns in all the analysed economies. As regards stayers, these losses range from 8% in Portugal to 21% in Germany while losses with respect to voluntary movers vary from 14% in Spain to 31% in Portugal.     

Maastricht: a fundamental change in European labour law

The Maastricht Treaty's Protocol on Social Policy provides a new framework for participation of labour and management in the formulation and application of labour law at national and Community levels. Following the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, it marks a fundamental change of direction in European labour law     

Guaranteed minimum income and unemployment duration in France

In this article, we use data from the European Community Household Panel to evaluate the impact of a French guaranteed income program, the RMI, on the hazard out of unemployment. Self-selection into the program is corrected using a multivariate duration model developed by [Abbring, J.H., van den Berg, G.J., 2003. The non-parametric identification of treatment effects in duration models. Econometrica 71 (5), 1491–1517]. We find that RMI receipt has a strong negative impact during the first months of program participation, but that this disincentive effect quickly falls to insignificant levels after six months. Household structure also appears to be an important determinant of the importance of the adverse effect of program participation.     

Assessing the prudence of economic forecasts in the EU

We estimate the EU Commission loss preferences for major economic forecasts of 12 Member States. Based on a recently proposed method by Elliott, Komunjer and Timmermann (2005) the paper provides evidence of asymmetries in the underlying forecast loss preference of the Commission that tend to vary across Member States. In some cases, our results show that EU forecasts tend to display a rather optimistic picture for main economic variables, e.g. government balance, thus allowing a certain degree of leeway in the fiscal adjustment path towards the medium‐term objective of ‘close to balance’ or ‘in surplus’ of the recently revised Stability and Growth Pact. Over the period of our sample, 1970–2004, this apparent asymmetry in the underlying loss preferences tends to deter prudent advice over economic policy. Lastly, we provide an analysis on the trade‐off between loss and distribution asymmetries, for which simulation results show that the testing method is robust in the presence of skewness. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The European sectoral social dialogue: questions of representation and membership

In the debates on the European social dialogue as a potential level of supranational industrial relations, the key questions of representations and mandates are often neglected. To what extent can the European sectoral social dialogue act for national constituencies across 27 Member States in the perspective of collective action by European associations? This article addresses this question by the means of three dimensions: the representation of heterogeneous members, the various degrees of national players' commitment in the European committees and finally, the definition of a common agenda among members.     

An empirical approach to the organisational determinants of spin-off creation in European universities

Given the importance in recent years of the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship in European universities, knowledge about determinants and performance of this technology transfer mechanism may have important managerial and policy implications. Applying the resource-based view at universities, we have tested the influence of five bundles of resources and capabilities on spin-off activity rates as well as on the performance of new spin-offs in a sample of seven European universities. These five bundles are: technology transfer policies and strategies; human capital; stock of technology; resources and capabilities of technology transfer offices; and support measures for academic entrepreneurship. Our results show that excellence of human capital and the presence of university-based financial support measures are strongly associated with both spin-off activity and performance. Another interesting finding is related to the availability of university-based non-economic support measures (training, counselling, etc.), which have no influence on spin-off activity but are significantly associated with performance of new spin-offs. We also discuss some interesting relationships between explanatory variables.     

预测和解释人们对新事物接受的扩展模型研究

通过对理论文献的综述,分析和解释了人们对新技术的接受的基本过程。然而由于人们所处的环境不同,文化的不同等因素,技术接受模型在解释人们对新技术的采纳存在一定的局限。文中通过分析研究提出新的变量引入技术接受模型中,提升了模型对态度、意愿、行为的解释力,丰富了模型的应用,并提出了模型的在移动通信服务业中应用,对移动行业如何开展增值服务有一定的指导意义。     

The legal framework of the EC single market

The European single market is underpinned by Community law, which is supreme and directly applicable in national courts. But the UK loses out because of disparities between national legal systems, and because Community law is interpreted to serve the political objective of European unity. There are several possible intermediates between full EU membership and complete withdrawal.
There is no legal barrier to the UK's exit from the EU should it wish to take that step.