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.     

Product market integration,wage dispersion and unemployment

International product market integration enhances both the export possibility of supplying to foreign markets and the import threat of foreign firms penetrating into domestic markets. These mechanisms affect labour markets since they amount to increased job mobility. At the same time heterogeneity may increase since it is unlikely that the opportunities and threats are uniformly distributed across different groups/sectors. In a Ricardian trade model admitting heterogeneity in the labour market, it is shown that lower trade frictions are associated with aggregate welfare gains, increased trade and specialization, but also more dispersion in wages. Structural labour market problems caused by union market power are reduced while those caused by minimum (reservation) wages are strengthened.     

Job Insecurity and Labour Market Lemons: The (Mis)Management of Redundancy in Steel Making,Coal Mining and Port Transport

Redundancy provisions in Britain have failed to promote organizational regeneration or labour mobility from declining to expanding firms/industries. On the contrary, as human resources are wantonly discarded through the (mis)management of redundancy, job security and X-efficiency in the internal labour market has been severely eroded. In external labour markets, many redundant workers, the so-called `lemons' of the labour market, are consigned to long-term unemployment because employers are wary of hiring a worker that another firm does not want. These deleterious outcomes are elaborated through detailed case studies from steel-making, coal-mining and port transport, where mass redundancy has proved instrumental in the process of industrial restructuring. In order to re-establish trust and security in the internal labour market, alternative methods of managing changing labour market requirements, based on reconversion rather than redundancy, are considered in the concluding section.     

From London to Los Angeles: a comparison of local labour market processes in the US and UK film industries

Addressing the issue of the embeddedness of labour markets, this paper compares the processes of finding employment in the film industry within two local labour markets. Drawing on studies of freelance film crews in London (UK) and Los Angeles (US), the paper concludes that the importance of social networks in job mobility in both contexts is a consequence of common production structures. However, common labour market practice varies in each geographical space as industry processes and structures are mediated by local institutional contexts.     

Wage mobility: do institutions make a difference?

This paper checks empirically the assertion that strict labour market regulation leads to low wage mobility, addressing an apparent puzzle. Indeed, most economic reasoning links a combination of regulations in the labour market to low wage flexibility and mobility, but the scarce empirical evidence available challenges that view. I focus on Portugal, one of the most regulated labour markets in Europe. The evidence gathered indicates that an aggregate view—of minimum wage enforcement, unionisation rates and extension of collective bargaining contracts—provides a misleading idea of the actual constraints imposed by the institutional framework on wage setting. Instead, micro conditions at the firm level play a major role shaping wage mobility in Portugal. Some comparisons with the UK, traditionally pointed out as a flexible labour market, are provided. Remarkable similarities in mobility level and trend are detected between the two countries, further suggesting that a regulated institutional framework does not necessarily reduce individual mobility in the wage distribution.     

Labour market segmentation and wage dynamics

The article contains results of a quantitative empirical investigation into the effects of labour market segmentation on wage dynamics in total industry as well as in several industrial branches in West Germany. By testing correlations between several indicators of earnings and the labour market it is shown that wage dynamics, in so far as they are determined by shop floor bargaining, can be explained at least as well and partly even better by indicators of certain partial labour markets than by conditions of the general labor market (i.e. the traditional Philipps approach).     

Labour market oligopsonistic competition: The effect of worker immobility on wages

We suggest that firms in a local labour market may be able to exploit worker mobility costs and offer immobile workers wages that are lower than their marginal product. If so, the ability of employers to exploit worker immobility in setting wages would decline in the competitiveness of the local labour market. We test this intuition using a measure of individual mobility costs and measures of local labour market competition. Our findings suggest that worker immobility causes substantial wage variation across workers in small, weakly competitive markets, and in occupations where wages are individually bargained.     

Epidemics,labour markets and unemployment: the impact of SARS on human resource management in the Hong Kong service sector

This article examines the links between epidemics and their economic consequences, specifically in terms of their impacts on labour markets and jobs. To exemplify the above, we examine the effects of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) on the Hong Kong economy, its labour market and its level of employment and unemployment. The article hypothesizes that the greatest impact would be on human resource management (HRM) in the service industries and on particular sub-sectors, such as the hotel sector. It concludes that the dramatic demand and supply ‘shocks’ significantly affected both the demand for and the supply of labour in the sector, with discernible HRM consequences.     

Immigration and occupational status: A study of Bangladeshi and Turkish fathers and sons in the London labour market

This paper examines the labour market experience of 300 fathers and 300 of their sons in the Bangladeshi and Turkish immigrant communities in various London boroughs in 1988. Probit estimates are made in relation to employment and unemployment, self-employment and employment, and upward mobility or lack of it. Human capital regressions are also run for each of the four groups and for the combined sample. The evidence is consistent with distinctive labour market experience among the various groups.     

Flexibility bites back: the multiple and hidden costs of flexible employment policies

Flexible labour markets are increasingly regarded as the answer to a wide spectrum of labour market and societal challenges from creating jobs to reducing segmentation and welfare dependency, improving public finances and supporting workforce diversity and innovation. The contention is that, contrary to these claims, flexible labour markets generate fundamental contradictions and unsustainable long‐term trends. The jobs miracle is exaggerated and based on low productivity jobs, outsiders often lose most from competition, claimants must work flexibly but still secure a full‐time wage, low‐wage employment is shrinking the fiscal base, jobs are not being adjusted to accommodate workers' changing needs and capacities and the disposable labour model is undermining long‐term productivity.     

Knowledge Networks and Careers: Academic Scientists in Industry–University Links*

abstract Careers are central to our understanding of the knowledge creation dynamics of network organizations. Based on the example of R&D project collaboration between firms and universities, this paper examines the emerging forms of career models that support knowledge flows between organizations. It explores how some large firms in the high‐technology sectors have sought to break away from the limitations of internal R&D and firm‐based careers for scientists by engaging in external collaborative projects to gain access to the open knowledge networks of university researchers. It examines how the firms seek to forge close institutional ties with their university partners and develop network career structures in order to engage academic scientists in joint knowledge production. It argues that firms have sought to extend their human resource and knowledge boundaries into the established internal labour markets of the universities with which they collaborate, leading to the formation of a pool of joint human resources with work experiences and career patterns straddling the two sectors. The paper develops the concept of an ‘overlapping internal labour market’ to provide a conceptual bridge between internal labour markets and network organizations.     

East German labour market in transition: segmentation and increasing disparity

The employment system of the former GDR–like that of other socialist countries–could be seen as an aggregation of ‘internal labour markets’ with long term employment, internal promotion and little external mobility. Consequently the rapid integration of the East German economy into the western market economy has led to structural problems of the labour market which combined with and intensified the general effects of the sharp decrease in the demand for labour.     

A股、H股市场羊群行为实证研究

本文采用分散度指标和偏离度指标对2005-2008年间交叉上市A股和H股市场的羊群行为进行了实证检验．发现A股市场存在羊群效应,但未发现H股市场上的羊群效应。本文认为两地市场在投资者理念、市场结构、信息披露、政府监管方面的差异是造成这种差异的根源,并在此基础上提出了政策建议。本文的研究将对企业在两地市场上投融资,各类投资者规避风险获得稳定收益,两地金融市场的一体化乃至中国资本市场的长远发展具有一定指导意义。     

DEVELOPMENT GOES WIRELESS

This paper examines how the introduction of mobile phones has helped to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of the people of Botswana. Economic efficiency has been improved through lower communication costs, increased labour mobility, and wider access to both banking facilities and information on market prices. Liberalisation of the telecommunications market is needed to ensure that the sector remains responsive to end-user needs.     

Assessing the long‐run economic impact of labour law systems: a theoretical reappraisal and analysis of new time series data

Standard economic theory sees labour law as an exogenous interference with market relations and predicts mostly negative impacts on employment and productivity. We argue for a more nuanced theoretical position: labour law is, at least in part, endogenous, with both the production and the application of labour law norms influenced by national and sectoral contexts, and by complementarities between the institutions of the labour market and those of corporate governance and financial markets. Legal origin may also operate as a force shaping the content of the law and its economic impact. Time‐series analysis using a new data set on legal change from the 1970s to the mid‐2000s shows evidence of positive correlations between regulation and growth in employment and productivity, at least for France and Germany. No relationship, either positive or negative, is found for the UK and, although the United States shows a weak negative relationship between regulation and employment growth, this is offset by productivity gains.     

Wages,employment, labour turnover and the accessibility of local labour markets

In this paper, we extend a dynamic efficiency wage model to the case of multiple local labour markets that interact through migration. Firms are concerned about turnover costs. The quitting behaviour of workers is a function of local labour market conditions, non-wage income and the costs and benefits of migration to other local labour markets. A synthetic micro sample of 20,302 observations from the 1986, 1991 and 1996 New Zealand Censuses of Population and Dwellings provides evidence supporting the theory. Across subgroups, the wages of workers with relatively inelastic local labour supply and/or lower geographical mobility are relatively more responsive to changes in the local employment rate. The evidence is consistent with the notion that local employers engage in monopsonistic competition with respect to the employment of such workers.     

Broad-based stock options: before and after the market downturn

We examine labour productivity in small, medium and large firms that broadly distribute stock options under starkly different market conditions – during the bull (1995–7) and bear (2000–2) stock markets. We find greater labour output in both upward and downward markets in all firm size categories, with the exception of small firms in a declining market, where the productivity is also greater, but the statistical significance of the result is weak.     

Immigration policy and market institutions in liberal market economies

This article examines how the regulatory character of market institutions shapes government responses to labour shortages, with particular reference to immigration policy. The period between the late 1990s and the late 2000s saw many advanced economies relax entry controls on select categories of foreign workers. This trend was most pronounced among states with liberal market institutions. The underlying reasons for these trends are analysed through an examination of the motivations for reform in Australia and the UK, two states that oversaw significant liberalisations of their labour immigration policies. It argues that the liberal character of key market institutions encouraged firms in these states to look to external rather than internal solutions for meeting their labour requirements. These findings suggest that perspectives from the comparative political economy scholarship, most notably the varieties of capitalism literature, may provide insights into the way that different modes of market regulation shape immigration policy preferences.     

SIX ISSUES IN PHARMACEUTICALS

This article examines six key issues facing the pharmaceuticals industry that concern the appropriateness and effectiveness of markets, quasi-markets and regulatory intervention in the sector. The article shows the prevalence of confused thinking in this area, both on the part of lobbyists for the industry and their opponents. It is contended that allowing market forces to operate within a legal or regulatory framework that protects intellectual property rights, promotes innovation and facilitates price competition will produce more socially beneficial outcomes than direct state intervention in the market.     

Shortages in an ageing labour market: an analysis of employers' behaviour

Different policies are being promoted to increase the labour supply in ageing labour markets. This article presents the results of a large-scale survey carried out among Dutch employers into their management of the constraints presented by a tight labour market. Organizations take different measures in response to staff shortages, which can in fact be distinguished as four strategies. The first relates to the recruitment of new groups of workers: groups that traditionally were perhaps not a preferred choice. The principal measures in this strategy are the recruitment of women and ethnic workers, and to a lesser extent the elderly. The second strategy focused on increasing the labour supply of existing workers. Overtime, encouraging part-timers to work extra hours and a structural increase in the length of the working week were part of this strategy. The measures constituting the third strategy were of a different type. Generally, these measures were adopted in order to cope with temporary peaks. Work was outsourced, a recruitment agency used, and higher wages offered to try to fill a vacancy. The fourth strategy focused on substituting technology/capital for labour. Regression analyses is carried out to explain which strategies organizations use to deal with shortages.