debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
New buzz-words are entering into the traditional economic landscape of industrial relations. Managers and politicians who want to be in touch with new economic trends are using terms such as ‘green economy’, ‘renewable energy’ and ‘corporate social responsibility (CSR)’. Another concept that is being touted as a ‘big idea; is ‘fair-trade’ or ‘Creating Shared Value [...]
Long-term sectoral economic development seems to follow a stable pattern: For most industrialised economies the dominant share of agricultural production begins declining early on until it reaches single-digit percentages. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector builds up at varying velocities, reaches a peak and starts giving way to a growing service sector. A sector that, in many [...]
In the last thirty years, the share of manufacturing in total world GDP has decreased. Simultaneously, there has been a fall in relative and absolute manufacturing employment in the Western world. This structural change is defined as deindustrialization and started in the US at the beginning of the 1960′s. Since then, almost all rich countries [...]
Poor countries have access to world markets and rich countries’ technologies. In principle, they should catch up. Yet the record belies this expectation. But this column argues labour productivity in manufacturing displays a clear tendency towards convergence, unconditional on the countries’ institutions or policies. The policies that matter for growth are thus those that bear [...]
In recent decades, in parallel with the reduction of organisational sociology to management theory, industrial policy has been encapsulated in two words: ‘shareholder value’. Based on neo-liberal assumptions about the inherent imperfectability of unregulated markets—for capital as well as labour—this US-dominated discourse has reduced the complexity of the industrial ecosystem to a single question, the [...]
The initial enthusiasm of the financial markets over the last European summit was short lived as the new “kick down the can, grand plan” to solve the crisis was agreed upon. To bolster the market, the remnants of the famous EFSF 440 billions Euros – which, never forget, was also provided by the periphery countries [...]
As the financial crisis intensifies, it is becoming increasingly clear that our deeply indebted economies need restructuring. The key focus must be on the signals prices send out to states, firms and households. Due to the dysfunctions of financial markets as well as the euro-zone’s architectural flaws unsustainable capital flows fuelled not only enormous debt [...]
A central—and largely ignored—aspect of future federal Euro governance will be a Euro Area (EA) wages and productivity policy. Only such a policy, backed by European trade unions, can avoid trade imbalances spilling into national sovereign debt crises. At the heart of the Euro Area (EA) crisis is the problem of trade imbalance. Just as [...]
The countries most affected by Europe’s sovereign debt woes and Europe’s most energy dependent countries are largely the same. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Spain all import more than two thirds of their energy requirements. The context is one where Europe depends more generally on a wide range of commodities imported from abroad. The last [...]
The Financial Crisis of 2007 resulted in massive losses of actual and potential output, accompanied by increases in unemployment unmatched since before World War II, increasing by fourteen million in the OECD countries (four million for the Euro zone and almost seven million for the United States alone). Still suffering from the effects of the [...]
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There is a great deal of confusion about what European industrial policy currently is. Even greater perplexity lies in what European industrial policy might be. Aside from policies that influence industry, macroeconomic ones for example, as well as policies that constrain or aid industry but are not exclusively tailored for it, such as energy policy, [...]
Challenged by the loss of millions of jobs in old manufacturing sectors, both the EU and US desperately need to restore their economies and find new ways to growth and prosperity. Health, welfare, climate change and the environment have been noted as some of the most promising areas for new growth and job creation. The [...]
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