Solving the unemployment puzzle in Europe

High unemployment is a problem in most European countries. The starting point of this article is that structural problems in the labour market and economic disincentives due to benefit and tax systems are the main reason why Europe faces severe unemployment. Many suggestions have been made to solve the problem, but few countries have succeeded in fighting unemployment. This paper points out that Denmark has succeeded in fighting unemployment with a battery of instruments primarily structural in kind. Along the same lines, Europe also has to structure tax and benefit systems to make work pay. Especially high Net Replacement Rates at the lower end of the wage distribution create disincentives to work and reforms need to be implemented to make the benefit system more employment friendly. One suggestion - which this paper discusses - is to introduce an employment-conditional scheme through the tax system - the so-called Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC improves employment opportunities for low skilled workers by strengthening incentives to work without reducing benefit entitlements. This is achieved by introducing a tax credit given to low income people with a job. Simulations suggest that the EITC can improve employment although it is not a 'free lunch'. Distortions arise from financing the EITC and from the withdrawal of the tax credit

Outcomes and long-term effects of COVID-19 in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases - a Danish prospective population-based cohort study with individual-level data

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The health consequences of coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19] among patients with ulcerative colitis [UC] and Crohn’s disease [CD] remain largely unknown. We aimed to investigate the outcomes and long-term effects of COVID-19 in patients with UC or CD. METHODS: We conducted a prospective, population-based study covering all Danish patients with CD or UC and confirmed COVID-19 between January 28, 2020 and April 1, 2021, through medical records and questionnaires. RESULTS: All 319 patients with UC and 197 patients with CD who developed COVID-19 in Denmark were included in this study and compared with the Danish background population with COVID-19 [N = 230 087]. A significantly higher risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization was observed among patients with UC (N = 46 [14.4%], relative risk [RR] = 2.49 [95% confidence interval, CI, 1.91–3.26]) and CD (N = 24 [12.2%], RR = 2.11 [95% CI 1.45–3.07]) as compared with the background population (N = 13 306 [5.8%]). A similar pattern was observed for admission to intensive care (UC: N = 8 [2.51%], RR = 27.88 [95% CI 13.88–56.00]; CD: N = 3 [1.52%], RR = 16.92 [95% CI 5.46–52.46]). After a median of 5.1 months (interquartile range [IQR] 4.5–7.9), 58 [42.3%] and 39 [45.9%] patients with UC and CD, respectively, reported persisting symptoms which were independently associated with discontinuation of immunosuppressive therapies during COVID-19 (odds ratio [OR] = 1.50 [95% CI 1.07–10.22], p = 0.01) and severe COVID-19 (OR = 2.76 [95% CI 1.05–3.90], p = 0.04), but not with age or presence of comorbidities. CONCLUSION: In this population-based study of 516 patients with IBD and COVID-19, 13.6% needed hospitalization and 2.1% required intensive care. Furthermore, sequelae were frequent, affecting 43.7% of COVID-19-infected patients. These findings might have implications for planning the healthcare of patients in the post-COVID-19 era