debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
We are getting used to bad news about the labour market situation in Europe. Record-breaking 12% unemployment in the euro area. More than 26 million men and women unemployed across the EU27. More than a quarter of the workforce jobless in Spain and Greece. Youth unemployment rates (which need careful interpretation) around twice as high. [...]
Perspectives from a New Keynesian model New Keynesian macroeconomics (henceforth NK) was born as a defensive reaction to the radical agenda of the new classical economists of the late ‘70s vintage. They aspired to dismantle the entire edifice of Keynesian economics that held sway until the ‘stagflation’ of the post oil-shock period of the mid-1970s. [...]
As a kind of Christmas present, the FED took a decisive step forward in its FOMC-decisions from December 12, 2012: Probably until 2015, the US unemployment rate of 6.5% will serve as the main monetary target, given price stability. This is a remarkable new development towards a more nuanced role of inflation targeting in monetary [...]
Greece has the potential to attain by 2020 a GDP in the region of 330 billion euros and a place in the G20, wrote the editor of a popular weekly newspaper in Greece over the weekend. This would require Greece to miraculously add 150 billion euros to its economy by the end of the decade [...]
As a general rule, immigration is a good thing for receiving countries regarding their GDP (not GDP per capita!) and overall employment level. But some vulnerable groups are negatively affected in terms of wages and unemployment. Let’s have a closer look at the latter, although this is not an easy task at least for two [...]
Throughout the course of history, there were several so call labour market models in western societies: the United States, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and more recently Germany and, maybe, Austria. In terms of a well functioning labour market, most of them were successful for a certain period in history but failed in others. Look at [...]
Young people have always been considered a group at the margins of the Bulgarian labour market. Even during 11 consecutive years (1998-2008) of economic growth they failed to shed this unenviable position, mainly due to structural constraints such as insufficient levels of qualification, skills, experience, social capital, etc. So, somehow predictably, youths have suffered a [...]
The attack on workers’ rights, wages and collective bargaining systems in Europe is continuing. The latest incident can be found in the new DG ECFIN report on labour market developments in Europe. This report has a specific chapter examining those labour market reforms which member states have implemented over the past decade. This analysis is [...]
Our friends at Policy Network organised a very stimulating conference yesterday entitled: ‘The Quest for Growth’. The conference amongst other things featured a question and answer session with the leader of the UK Labour party Ed Miliband and the UK Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls as well as a very interesting panel on Labour markets, skills [...]
An additional almost 200,000 Europeans were unemployed in March compared with February according to the latest Eurostat data. Of these the vast majority were in the euro area (169,000). The pace at which the labour market situation is deteriorating is, if anything, accelerating. Since March 2011, when ill-advised austerity and monetary policy tightening began to [...]
To see why the renewed rise in unemployment in the euro area, by 150,000 in the last three months, is so worrying, it is useful to look at the experience of the last two major downturns and the subsequent recoveries – or failed recoveries. The chart shows the level of unemployment in the euro area [...]
The reign of the Swedish conservative Moderate Party (And yes, the centre-right alliance is in essence a Moderate affair) since the elections in 2006 has been marked by increased unemployment, undermining of the Swedish model and a lack of infrastructure investments. Still three out of ten Swedes voted for them when they were reelected last [...]
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