Wages: A working conditions and industrial relations perspective

[Excerpt] This paper looks at wages from two different angles: from the perspective of individual employees, discussed in conjunction with their working conditions, and from the perspective of the industrial relations system. After a brief overview of EU-level policy developments with a potential impact on national level pay determination, this report gives a comparative overview of the levels of collective wage setting and how they are set throughout Europe and goes on to report on reforms, changes or debates linked to these processes between the different actors at both the Member State and the European level in 2011 and 2012. This includes, for instance, debates on potential changes of indexation mechanisms in Belgium, Luxembourg and Cyprus, as a result of the Commission’s recommendations within the Euro Plus Pact. While in some countries (Estonia, Bulgaria) social partners resumed collective bargaining (either on wages or on minimum wages) and came to agreements, in other countries (Lithuania, Romania), no agreements could be reached. Some changes in the way collective bargaining is organised were recently introduced in Spain, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Information on these issues stems from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). Furthermore, this paper also summarises the current changes and debates among the social partners and governments in relation to the setting and the level of minimum wages across Europe. It then looks into the area of ‘working poor’, that is people who are in employment but still at risk of poverty. To what extent do governments and social partners put forth policy responses to address the issue of in-work-poverty? And to what extent did the crisis have an impact? In order to answer these questions, the paper draws on Eurofound research on the situation of the ‘Working poor’. Finally the paper presents a collection of recent ‘information updates’ from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) on various issues in relation to pay from Member States

HOW GOVERNMENTS RESPOND TO BUSINESS DEMANDS FOR TAX CUTS: AN ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE AND INHERITANCE TAX REFORMS IN AUSTRIA AND SWEDEN. CES Open Forum Series 2018-2019

This paper analyses government responsiveness to business demands for tax cuts, using case studies of reforms of corporate taxes and inheritance taxes in Austria and Sweden. We find a high level of government responsiveness in both policy fields, but much higher responsiveness on inheritance tax. We argue that this difference between the two policy fields is the result of an effort by governments to balance three conflicting goals: (i) attracting investments, (ii) maintaining a high level of tax revenues, (iii) and maintaining electoral popularity. The intensity of these goal conflicts varied between the two policy fields. It was higher on corporate taxation, which led governments to combine cuts to corporate tax with compensatory measures, the abolition of inheritance tax in both countries was not combined with compensatory measures, because goal conflicts were low. We show that differences in the expected electoral and fiscal impacts of reforms explain the different levels of government responsiveness. Government efforts to reconcile the three policy goals under conditions of heightened business power entailed sacrificing redistributive goals that have characterized tax policies in earlier periods.

Agricultural Trade Reform Under the Doha Agenda: Ready for Takeoff?

A successful agreement on agriculture is critical for an overall agreement under the Doha negotiations. But before the final agreement is known, some critical decisions must be made about issues such as resumption of the negotiations, and the key tradeoffs to be made following resumption. We consider four of the most controversial areas of the agricultural negotiations: the relative importance of domestic support, market access and export subsidies; the sensitive-product exceptions sought for all countries; the additional special product exceptions sought for developing countries; and the proposed special safeguard mechanism. We show that the decisions made on reform in these areas will have a critical influence on whether the negotiations achieve their objectives of promoting trade reform and reducing poverty. In the end, we are cautiously optimistic about the potential for the negotiations to deliver a substantial outcome.International Relations/Trade,

A descriptive bibliography of British and Irish editions of Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs (1715–ca. 1830)

Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs, Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children (1715) represents a pivotal point in the history of children’s literature. This bibliography, a product of the author’s doctoral research, provides a detailed list of British and Irish issues of Divine Songs published between 1715, the year in which the first edition was issued, and ca. 1835. It takes advantage of contemporary research tools to update and revise earlier work by Wilbur Macey Stone (1918) and John Henry Pyle Pafford (1971) and significantly expands their bibliographies. In contrast to Stone’s and Pafford’s work, this bibliography offers more detailed descriptions. It is intended to be used on its own or as a reference list during library work

Enhancing the work of the Islington Integrated Gangs Team: A pilot study on the response to serious youth violence in Islington

This report is the result of research conducted by the Centre for City Criminology at City, University of London, in partnership with Islington’s Integrated Gangs Team (IGT) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). The research was co-funded by MPS and the School of Arts and Social Sciences, City, University of London. Following a collaborative research event in October 2017, City Criminologists were commissioned to carry out a small-scale research project to capture the work of the IGT and to make recommendations regarding its operations, coherence, effectiveness and sustainability. The research team conducted semi-structured interviews over several months with 23 practitioners across the services that constitute the IGT. This report presents the findings and recommendations

The Role of Macroeconomic Policy in Rebalancing Growth

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 has called the export-led growth model of Asian economies into question. This paper describes the contribution that macroeconomic policy can make to promote a rebalancing of growth away from dependence on exports to developed economies to a more sustainable pattern of growth centered on domestic and regional demand. This represents a significant departure from the traditional uses of macroeconomic policy to stabilize the economic cycle and achieve stable and low inflation. The evidence suggests that macroeconomic policy can successfully contribute to growth rebalancing. Policy measures not only can affect aggregate demand directly, but can also affect it indirectly via their “microeconomic” impacts on private sector behavior. Although in the long-term fiscal policy should be balanced to maintain government debt stability and avoid crowding out of private investment, there may be substantial scope to expand monetary and fiscal policy in the medium-term to offset the deflationary effects of an appreciating currency during periods of current account reversal. Previous experience suggests that most of the needed stimulus can be provided by monetary policy, with only a supplementary role to be played by fiscal policy. Moreover, Asian economies with large current account surpluses tend to have sufficient fiscal space.economic growth rebalancing; macroeconomic policy; sustainable economic growth

Taxable Income Responses to Tax Changes - A Panel Analysis of the 1990/91 Swedish Reform

The elasticity of taxable income indicates the effects on income from a change in the marginal tax rate. In a number of studies on U.S. data rather strong effects have been found, although estimates seem lower in more recent papers. Studies based on data from other countries are only a few and indicate lower effects. A difference-in-differences approach utilising differences in tax changes is the standard approach for analysis. Here a large Swedish tax reform is employed. Estimated effects of a tax cut are modest, in the interval 0.2 to 0.4 at the most. Problems of income variables and income groups for the analysis are extensively examined. According to an extended model there is a positive income effect of the tax change, implying a difference between the compensated and the uncompensated elasticity, contrary to earlier results for the U. S.Tax reform; taxable income elasticity; difference in differences