Work models in the Central Eastern European car industry: towards the high road?

The integration of the Central Eastern European (CEE) countries into the European Union (EU) has provoked debates about the danger of a ‘race to the bottom’ in Europe caused by the low wages and weak labour regulation and labour standards in CEE. This article examines the evolution of work models in the CEE automotive industry. It argues that the work models in CEE did not take the low‐road trajectory. Rather, a limited high‐road model emerged in the 1990s, which combined skilled labour and secure employment for the core workforce with a broad margin of precarious employment, low wages and limited employee voice. In the context of labour shortages after the accession to the EU of the CEEs, companies faced recruitment problems and labour conflicts, which threatened to destabilise this model. The first reactions of firms pointed towards the strengthening of the high‐road orientation, but the development remains unstable, not least of all because of the economic crisis beginning in 2009.     

WHY GERMAN LABOUR MARKET REFORM HAS BEGUN

The current German government, against the odds, has managed to introduce a number of labour market reforms previously seen as impossible. The reforms are briefly outlined, and the author, drawing on a number of theoretical approaches, suggests a number of reasons why these reforms have happened when they did.     

Fiscal policies and business cycles in an enlarged euro area

This paper compares the cyclical properties of fiscal policies across the 12 original eurozone countries and the future members from Central and Eastern Europe. For the sample period 1995–2005, the fiscal balance exhibits less inertia and is more counter-cyclical in Central and Eastern European countries than in members of the eurozone. The main differences arise from the revenue side. Differences in the formation of fiscal policy between current and future eurozone countries decrease over time. Both autonomous and counter-cyclical fiscal policies have little or no effect on cyclical variability in the eurozone countries, while such policies appear to be effective in Central and Eastern European countries.     

欧洲主权债务危机的根源、影响及警示意义

自2009年以来,欧洲国家的主权债务问题一直被全球资本市场所关注,以PIIGS五国（希腊、西班牙、葡萄牙、爱尔兰、意大利）为代表的南欧多个国家的债务问题浮出水面,不仅引发了全球金融市场的剧烈波动,同时危及到整个欧元区乃至全球经济的稳定。本篇文章深入分析了欧洲主权债务危机的形成根源及影响,并揭示债务危机对各国的警示意义     

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 transmission of foreign shocks to South Eastern European economies: A Bayesian VAR approach

The paper analyses the macroeconomic effects of foreign shocks in three South-East European (SEE) economies: Croatia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. In this regard, we investigate the transmission of several eurozone shocks (output gap, money market rates and inflation) on various macroeconomic variables in the aforementioned countries (output, inflation, money market rates and budget deficits). We trace the effects of foreign shocks on the basis of impulse response functions obtained from the Bayesian Vector Auto Regressions (VARs) separately for each country. The main findings from our study are: first, economic expansion in the eurozone has strong output and inflation effects on SEE economies, implying some degree of synchronization of business cycles; second, eurozone inflation is instantly and to a great extent transmitted to domestic inflation, suggesting that inflation in the SEE economies is mostly driven by foreign inflation; third, domestic money market rates are not closely linked with eurozone money markets; fourth, monetary policy in the SEE countries does not seem to be responsive to eurozone inflation shocks; and fifth, the fiscal authorities attempt to offset the spillover effects from both economic expansion and monetary tightening in the eurozone.     

Desperate entrepreneurs: no opportunities,no skills

Promoting entrepreneurship has become an important policy strategy in Europe in the hope to stimulate the crisis-shaken economy. In this paper, we caution against undue expectations. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 17 European countries, we find that a considerable proportion of the new entrepreneurs have started a business despite a negative perception of business opportunities as well as lack of confidence in their own entrepreneurial skills. This proportion has increased during the economic crisis, especially in those countries which were particularly affected by economic downturn and rising unemployment. We extend existing entrepreneurship theories to account for this phenomenon, which we call “nons-entrepreneurship”. Testing the hypotheses derived from our model, we find that the primary motivation for these people to turn to entrepreneurship is the lack of other options to enter the labour market during the economic crisis. Still, this sort of “desperate” entrepreneurship does not equal necessity based entrepreneurship, warranting further research.     

Transnational labour markets and national wage setting systems in the EU

The article analyses the impact of European regulations of posting on different national wage systems. The article shows that the impact varied across the countries and has been filtered by the national institutions regulating the labour market. In the voluntarist wage setting systems of Germany and even Sweden, they have been a major factor bringing wages back into competition. The ability of national actors to act has been considerably curtailed by the European Court of Justice (EUJ), which has placed free competition above the basic rights of autonomous collective bargaining. Because of the divergent interests of Member States, this weakening of national actors cannot be compensated for by transnational agreements. This ‘negative integration’ brings with it a serious risk that the inclusiveness of European wage systems will be eroded by a series of cumulative effects.     

Relied upon for the heavy lifting: can employment protection legislation reforms lead the EU out of the jobs crisis?

This article examines the current drive within the European Union to weaken employment protection legislation. It subjects the case for reform to critical scrutiny and argues that labour market deregulation and the erosion of employment and social protections are reducing workers' security while failing to stimulate economic recovery.     

The migration response to local labour market shocks: Evidence from EU regions during the global economic crisis

The global economic crisis has strongly affected Europe's economic geography. This study investigates the role of local labour market disparities in determining regional net in‐migration rates. While only a weak link is detected in the precrisis period, the local labour market context of migration grows significantly stronger during the crisis. Decompositions of the estimation results show that changes in migration rates are firstly a result of widened disparities across European regions throughout the crisis. However, also behavioural adjustment processes occur, e.g. an orientation of migrants towards urban areas and away from regions with persistently high long‐run unemployment rates.     

The persistence of social pacts in Europe

This article argues that, despite pessimistic forecasts for their future, social pacts remain a central element of industrial relations across many member states of the European Union. Social pacts provide a mechanism of pragmatic adaptation to the trilemma of reconciling market integration, intergovernmentalism and democratic accountability. In addition, recent developments in the general direction of social dialogue and social pacts, in some of the new member states, indicate a learning process to enable economic catch‐up while engaging in institutional innovation. Finally, the article argues that social pacts remain important in ensuring a voice for labour across Europe.     

Understanding Ageing Public Sector Workforces: Demographic challenge or a consequence of public employment policy design?

In all OECD countries, populations and workforces are ageing, with public services generally being older than broader labour markets. Governments are concerned at the looming capacity crisis and identifying policy responses. However, they have generally identified the problem as a simple change in demographics. This article adds a new perspective to this policy debate. Using a study of an Australian state public service, it identifies an association between changes in public employment policies and changes in the workforce age profile. It suggests that current employment policies, which replaced the traditional focus on youth recruitment with a more open public sector labour market, have made it inevitable that public workforces would age and be older than the general labour market. Policy responses to the older public workforce need to go beyond demographic explanations, to accept the older public workforce as the new norm, and align public employment policies accordingly.     

European integration and the pay policies of British multinationals

European economic integration has generated intense interest in the prospect of a European labour market. This article brings new evidence to bear on the issue of employer responses to European integration and concludes that British owned multinational companies have, as yet, only made partial moves towards the Europeanisation of their pay determination arrangements.     

The Maastricht inflation criterion: How unpleasant is purgatory?

The Maastricht inflation criterion, designed in the early 1990s to bring “high-inflation” EU countries in line with “low-inflation” countries prior to the introduction of the euro, poses challenges for both new EU member countries and the European Central Bank. While the criterion has positively influenced the public stance toward low inflation, it has biased the choice of the disinflation strategy toward short-run, fiat measures – rather than adopting structural reforms with longer-term benefits – with unpleasant consequences for the efficiency of the eurozone transmission mechanism. The criterion is also unnecessarily tight for new member countries as it mainly reflects cyclical developments.     

Fitting and Forecasting Sovereign Defaults using Multiple Risk Signals

In this article, we try to realize the best compromise between in‐sample goodness of fit and out‐of‐sample predictability of sovereign defaults. To do this, we use a new regression‐tree based approach that signals impending sovereign debt crises whenever pre‐selected indicators exceed specific thresholds. Using data from emerging markets and Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain (GIPS) over the period 1975–2010, we show that our model significantly outperforms existing competing approaches (logit, stepwise logit, noise‐to‐signal ratio and regression trees), while balancing in‐ and out‐of‐sample performance. Our results indicate that illiquidity (high short‐term debt to reserves) and default history, together with real GDP growth and US interest rates, are the main determinants of both emerging market country defaults and the recent European sovereign debt crisis.     

Assessing the impact of liberalisation policies on the Greek labour market: an insider–experts' view from the perspective of the varieties of liberalisation

During the recent Great Recession (2008–2018), Greece has become the prototype example of the implementation of austerity policies in Europe. Contrary to public discourse, these austerity policies were complemented by substantial labour market reforms that promoted employment and wage flexibility. This article aims to present a theory-driven understanding of the implementation and the effects of these reforms. For this purpose, we employ a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with 50 labour market experts—government officials and labour lawyers, academics, labour union representatives and employer association representatives. Using Thelen's framework on the Varieties of Liberalization, we conclude that, contrary to the initial aims of the reforms, Greece followed a trajectory of direct deregulation, reducing considerably the level of both coordination between employers and workers, and coverage of employment protection. The interviews show that the dismantling of collective bargaining system was the most decisive move in this path.     

Gender discrimination in education,health, and labour market: a voice for equality

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market on economic growth in a panel of 20 high-income OECD countries for the period of 1980–2015. In addition, the study proposed an index of pro-equality growth, which is flared with education, health, and labour market initiatives to promote economic growth. The results show that gender parity index for educational attainment significantly promotes economic growth while health and labour market required substantial policy reforms to reduce health and labour market inequalities to sustain long-term economic growth. The results classified three countries as highly equitable growth, one country for equitable growth, two countries are moderate growth, four countries are less equitable growth while remaining 10 countries fall in the category of inequitable growth, where greater inequality promotes economic growth on the cost of education, health, and labour market inequalities.     

The rise of Asia and structural change in the world economy

In this article, Andrew Sentance describes the growing economic importance of Asia and discusses the impact on the world economy. He argues that Western economies face a problem of structural adjustment not only to low-cost competition from newly industrialised countries but also because of technological changes. Macroeconomic shocks, Single Market restructuring and labour market inflexibility have made this process more difficult in Europe.     

Shifts in the Demand and Supply of Skills in the OECD: A Single‐Index Model with a Continuous Distribution of Skills*

This paper proposes a one‐dimensional index for the gap between the demand and supply of skills; this index can be estimated based on the labour market performance of groups defined with characteristics (e.g. education) that are only imperfectly correlated with labour market skills. Using data from five European countries and the US, we find that the relative demand for skills has increased more than the relative supply in the US and UK during the 1980s but not in other European countries. However, the gap between relative demand and supply increased in Italy and the Netherlands from the early 1990s.     

Learning from past mistakes? recent reforms in Italian industrial relations

Since the early 1990s, major reform efforts aimed at reducing industrial conflict, rationalising public sector labour relations, restructuring collective bargaining arrangements, and re-establishing tripartite ‘con-certation’ have transformed Italian industrial relations. This article argues that because these new reforms have been accompanied by significant shifts in both Italy's political system and the unions’ own organisation, they stand a better chance of succeeding than previous reform projects.