debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Average wages around the world The global financial crisis had significant negative repercussions for labour markets in many parts of the world. The most significant impact has been on employment figures. But the ILO Global Wage Report 2012/13, entitled “Wages and Equitable Growth”, shows that the weakening of the global recovery in the two years after [...]
Paul Krugman picks up on the Eurostat statistics on wages and wage developments in the private sector across Europe. He concludes that the experiment of an ‘internal wage devaluation’ which the Euro Area in particular is trying to practise is very hard to achieve since downwards nominal wage rigidities (DNWR) are preventing nominal wages from falling. [...]
A very interesting video on the link between inequality and the origin of the financial crisis on The Real News. This is in line with recent research in Europe.
ECB President Mario Draghi made a presentation to heads of state and government at last week’s European Council on the economic situation in the euro area. His intent was to show the real reasons for the crisis and the counter-measures needed. In this he succeeded – although not in the way he intended. Draghi presented [...]
Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 should be a no-brainer. Republicans say it will cause employers to shed jobs, but that’s baloney. Employers won’t outsource the jobs abroad or substitute machines for them because jobs at this low level of pay are all in the local personal service sector (retail, restaurant, hotel, and [...]
How Crisis Policies in Southern Europe Threaten the EU’s Social Dimension. The harsh austerity measures that, according to official policy, are supposed to overcome the euro crisis have once again plunged Europe into recession in 2012. Austerity policy has proved – in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIPS) – to be primarily an attack on [...]
An ambiguous wage standard is being clarified Back in 2010, the ‘Competitiveness Pact’ launched the slogan of aligning wages with developments in productivity. Since then, this specific wage standard has been surrounded with much ambiguity. Do policy makers mean to say that ‘real’ wages should be in line with productivity developments? Or do we have [...]
Considerable attention has been paid to the policies of the Romney-led Republicans and their wealthy supporters. After the crisis and its aftermath – save the rich because they are systemically important – it is quite something to go before the electorate with a squeeze-the-vulnerable-and-cut-taxes-on-the-rich agenda. Not least if you made millions with private equity and [...]
What if Europe and the US converged on a set of economic policies that brought out the worst in both – European fiscal austerity combined with a declining share of total income going to workers? Given political realities on both sides of the Atlantic, it is entirely possible. So far, the US has avoided the [...]
Its great to hear good ideas about how to resolve the euro area crisis, I just wish people would reflect or research a little before they describe them as ‘new’. Mark Schieritz at Herdentrieb, with a nudge from Sebastian Dullien, has spotted a way to bring about a competitive rebalancing of the euro area without [...]
The stupidest parlour game in Spain consists of predicting how long our crisis will last, as if the country were predisposed to tolerate an unemployment rate above 20% for another decade. We are not witnessing an ordinary stagnation, in the vein of Japan’s lost decade, but rather a prolonged emergency. The terrible crisis on Europe’s [...]
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago, said the “critical risks” facing the American economy this year were a worsening of Europe’s chronic sovereign debt crisis and a rise in tensions with Iran that could stoke global oil prices. What about jobs and wages here at [...]
All Content