198 research outputs found
EMU, EU enlargement, and the European Social Model: Trends, challenges, and questions
The paper discusses the possible implications of the challenges facing the 'European Social Model' (ESM) caused by the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the enlargement of the EU to include central and eastern European countries. The strains produced by the two challenges on the European welfare states and industrial relation systems are regarded as considerable, adding to the wide variety of country-specific solutions and leading to increased inequality both across and within member countries. However, there are no signs indicating that the two challenges lead to the abolition of welfare standards, despite the need for 'recalibration,' or that labor market institutions are being dismantled. On the contrary, the need to search for viable alternatives to the status quo appears to strengthen attempts to improve the long-term sustainability of welfare states and to improve the performance of established labor market institutions. Moreover, the challenges foster new European policy approaches like the 'open coordination' mechanism. -- Der Aufsatz diskutiert mögliche Folgewirkungen der gleichzeitigen Herausforderung des 'EuropĂ€ischen Sozialmodells' durch die EuropĂ€ische WĂ€hrungsunion und die Erweiterung der EU um mittel- und osteuropĂ€ische LĂ€nder. Die Belastungen, denen die europĂ€ischen Sozial- und Lohnverhandlungssysteme durch diese Herausforderungen ausgesetzt werden, sind beachtlich und verstĂ€rken sowohl die derzeitige groĂe Varianz lĂ€nderspezifischer Problemlösungen als auch die zwischen- und innerstaatliche Ungleichheit. Allerdings gibt es keine Anzeichen, daĂ die Herausforderungen zur Abschaffung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Standards oder zur Demontage von Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen fĂŒhren. Im Gegenteil scheint die Notwendigkeit der Suche nach tragfĂ€higen Alternativen zum Status Quo Versuchen zur Verbesserung der langfristigen Nachhaltigkeit der Wohlfahrtsstaaten und der LeistungsfĂ€higkeit etablierter Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen Nachdruck zu verleihen. DarĂŒber hinaus fördern die Herausforderungen neue europĂ€ische PolitikansĂ€tze wie den Mechanismus der 'offenen Koordinierung'.
EMU, EU enlargement, and the European Social Model: trends, challenges, and questions
"Der Aufsatz diskutiert mögliche Folgewirkungen der gleichzeitigen Herausforderung des âEuropĂ€ischen
Sozialmodellsâ durch die EuropĂ€ische WĂ€hrungsunion und die Erweiterung der EU um mittel- und
osteuropÀische LÀnder. Die Belastungen, denen die europÀischen Sozial- und Lohnverhandlungssysteme
durch diese Herausforderungen ausgesetzt werden, sind beachtlich und verstÀrken sowohl die derzeitige
groĂe Varianz lĂ€nderspezifischer Problemlösungen als auch die zwischen- und innerstaatliche
Ungleichheit. Allerdings gibt es keine Anzeichen, daĂ die Herausforderungen zur Abschaffung
wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Standards oder zur Demontage von Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen fĂŒhren. Im Gegenteil
scheint die Notwendigkeit der Suche nach tragfÀhigen Alternativen zum Status Quo Versuchen zur
Verbesserung der langfristigen Nachhaltigkeit der Wohlfahrtsstaaten und der LeistungsfÀhigkeit etablierter
Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen Nachdruck zu verleihen. DarĂŒber hinaus fördern die Herausforderungen neue
europĂ€ische PolitikansĂ€tze wie den Mechanismus der âoffenen Koordinierungâ." [Autorenreferat]"The paper discusses the possible implications of the challenges facing the âEuropean Social Modelâ
(ESM) caused by the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the enlargement of the EU to include central
and eastern European countries. The strains produced by the two challenges on the European welfare
states and industrial relation systems are regarded as considerable, adding to the wide variety of countryspecific
solutions and leading to increased inequality both across and within member countries. However,
there are no signs indicating that the two challenges lead to the abolition of welfare standards, despite the
need for ârecalibration,â or that labor market institutions are being dismantled. On the contrary, the need
to search for viable alternatives to the status quo appears to strengthen attempts to improve the long-term
sustainability of welfare states and to improve the performance of established labor market institutions.
Moreover, the challenges foster new European policy approaches like the âopen coordinationâ
mechanism." [author's abstract
How bargaining mediates wage determination: an exploration of the parameters of wage functions in a pooled time-series cross-section framework
"Der Lohnfindungsprozess ist abhĂ€ngig von den institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen des Arbeitsmarktes. Lohnverhandlungssysteme unterscheiden sich nicht nur hinsichtlich der Interaktionsformen ihrer Akteure, sondern auch hinsichtlich der Art, wie Löhne auf Arbeitslosigkeit, Inflation und ProduktivitĂ€tswachstum reagieren. Auf der Basis von jĂ€hrlichen Daten von 20 OECD-Staaten fĂŒr die Periode 1971-1996 zeigt der Aufsatz mit Hilfe einer Panel-Analyse, dass der Lohnverhandlungsmodus sowohl die Anpassungsgeschwindingkeit der Löhne als auch das AusmaĂ des Effekts makroökonomischer Faktoren auf die Löhne beeinflusst. Im Gegensatz zur gĂ€ngigen ökonomischen Erwartungen zeigt sich das nicht-koordinierte Lohnverhandlungssystem nicht als der flexibelste Modus. Sowohl LohnfĂŒhrerschaft als auch dachverbandliche Koordinierung auf der Basis hoher Regierbarkeit fĂŒhren zu mindestens ebenso oder flexibleren Anpassungsleistungen des Arbeitsmarktes. Hieraus folgt, dass diese Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen nicht als Ursachen exzessiver RigiditĂ€t herangezogen werden können." [Autorenreferat]"The process of wage determination is mediated by the institutional framework of the labor market. Bargaining systems differ not only in their mode of governance, but also in the way that wages are related to unemployment, inflation, and productivity growth. Based on annual data for the period 1971-1996 from 20 OECD countries, the paper uses a pooled time-series cross-section model to show that bargaining modes affect the speed at which wages are adjusted and the extent to which macroeconomic factors affect wages. Contrary to the expectations of mainstream economics, uncoordinated bargaining does not turn out to be the most flexible mode. Pattern setting and peak-level coordination, if legally enforceable, are modes of labor market governance that are at least as flexible and responsive, if not more so. Hence these labor market institutions cannot be blamed for excessive rigidity." [author's abstract
How reliable is pooled analysis in political economy?: the globalization-welfare state nexus revisited
"Panel-Daten erfreuen sich in politisch-ökonomischen Analysen zunehmender Beliebtheit. Allerdings enthalten derartige Daten einige ökonometrische Fallstricke, die wir in der vorliegenden Arbeit aufzeigen. Zur Illustration nehmen wir auf die Diskussion ĂŒber den Zusammenhang zwischen Globalisierung und Wohlfahrtsstaat Bezug. Dazu greifen wir eine Arbeit von Garrett und Mitchell (2001) auf, in der gezeigt wird, dass Globalisierung und die parteimĂ€Ăige Zusammensetzung der Regierung einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die StaatstĂ€tigkeit ausĂŒben. Wir argumentieren, dass dieses Ergebnis von ihrer Modellspezifikation (dynamische Spezifikation in NiveaugröĂen) getrieben wird. DemgegenĂŒber zeigen wir, dass in der vorliegenden Datenkonstellation die statistischen Eigenschaften des Störterms ökonometrisch korrekt nur durch ein autoregressives Modell in ersten Differenzen berĂŒcksichtigt werden können. Unter Beachtung von unterschiedlichen Phasen der Internationalisierung finden wir weiters, dass die StaatsausgabentĂ€tigkeit primĂ€r durch binnenwirtschaftliche Faktoren erklĂ€rt wird. Weder Parteieneffekte noch "GlobalisierungsphĂ€nomene" haben die VerĂ€nderung der Staatsausgaben nennenswert beeinflusst." [Autorenreferat]"Panel data analysis has become very popular in comparative political economy. However, in order to draw meaningful inferences from such data, one has to address specification and estimation issues carefully. This paper aims to demonstrate various pitfalls that typically occur in applied empirical work. To illustrate this, we refer to the debate on the globalization-welfare state nexus. We reexamine a model by Garrett and Mitchell (2001), a leading study in this regard. Utilizing a data set of 17 OECD countries and the time period 1961 to 1993, they find evidence that globalization and partisan composition have a significant impact on the extent of public activity. However, because they apply a dynamic specification in levels, they do not adequately take into account both the dynamic and spherical nature of the data. In contrast, we propose an autoregressive model in first differences that is shown to perform well in statistical terms. Further, we explicitly pay attention to the time pattern of the globalization-welfare state nexus. Substantively, we find evidence that government spending is primarily driven by the state of the domestic economy. Neither partisan effects nor the international economic environment have affected public expenditure considerably." [authorÂŽs abstract
Political parties, institutions, and the dynamics of social expenditure in times of austerity
"Die BeschrĂ€nkung des Wachstums der Sozialausgaben war (und ist) ein zentrales Anliegen staatlicher Politik in fortgeschrittenen IndustrielĂ€ndern seit den 1980er Jahren und hat in dieser Periode in der akademischen Debatte groĂe Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. Zu den meistdiskutierten ErklĂ€rungsfaktoren zĂ€hlen parteipolitische Differenzen und politische Institutionen sowie die AbhĂ€ngigkeit ersterer von letzteren. Das Discussion Paper unterscheidet fĂŒnf verschiedene TheorieansĂ€tze und untersucht ihren Beitrag zur ErklĂ€rung der empirischen Varianz im Zeitraum von 1982 bis 1997 in 21 OECD-LĂ€ndern. Die Analyse der kurzfristigen VerĂ€nderung erfolgt im Rahmen einer kombinierten Zeitreihen-Querschnittanalyse, wĂ€hrend die langfristigen Niveauunterschiede mittels einer Querschnittanalyse untersucht werden. Mit Hilfe einer interaktiven Modellspezifikation zeigen die Autoren, dass empirische Belege fĂŒr diesen Konditionaleffekt vorhanden sind, die allerdings weder vollkommen ĂŒberzeugen noch langfristige Niveaueffekte zeitigen. AusfĂŒhrliche Spezifikationstests deuten darauf hin, dass die Parteieneffekte, die in den 1980er Jahren vorhanden waren, in den 1990er Jahren deutlich schwĂ€cher wurden. Insgesamt stĂŒtzen die Befunde die These des âWachstums zu Limitsâ und die These der "Neuen Politik" am ehesten." [Autorenreferat]"The containment of social expenditure growth has been (and still is) a core issue of public policy in advanced industrial countries since the 1980s and has received much academic attention during that period. Among the most extensively discussed explanatory factors of social expenditure are partisan politics and political institutions, as well as the dependency of the real impact of the former on the latter. The paper distinguishes five competing theoretical perspectives and explores their power to explain the empirical variation in the period 1982â1997 in 21 OECD countries. The empirical analysis of short-term dynamics is performed in a time-series cross-section framework while long-term level effects are explored in a cross-sectional setting. By using an interactive model specification the authors show that there is empirical evidence for this conditional effect, albeit it is neither thoroughly convincing nor leading to lasting long-term level effects. Extensive specification tests show that the 1990s witnessed a weakening of partisan effects which were still present in the 1980s. In total, the evidence tends to give most support to the âgrowth-to-limitsâ and the "new politics" perspectives." [authorÂŽs abstract
Determinanten der Konsolidierung und Expansion des Wohlfahrtsstaates im internationalen Vergleich
Dieser Aufsatz untersucht sozioökonomische und politisch-institutionelle Determinanten der Konsolidierung und Expansion des Wohlfahrtsstaates im OECD-Vergleich. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung stehen die EinfĂŒhrungszeitpunkte zentraler Sozialschutzprogramme vor 1945 sowie die Entwicklung der Sozialleistungsquote nach 1960. BezĂŒglich der Determinanten der Sozialleistungsquote finden wir anstelle eines raum- und zeitĂŒbgreifend gĂŒltigen Zusammenhangs periodenspezifische WirkungszusammenhĂ€nge mit politisch-institutionellen Faktoren. DemgegenĂŒber scheint eine ganz bestimmte politisch-institutionelle Faktorenkonstellation den take-off des Wohlfahrtsstaates vor 1945 verzögert zu haben
Learning to keep the faith? Further education and perceived employability among young unemployed
To keep up job search motivation and maintain re-employment chances, it is important that unemployed individuals do not stop believing in their ability to (re)gain satisfying employment. This article examines whether further education during unemployment has a positive effect on perceived employability (i.e. the subjective assessment of oneâs chances to obtain the desired job), based on a panel survey of unemployed young adults in Austria. The article finds that educational activities â either on own initiative or as part of an active labor market program â indeed help to sustain or even increase perceived employability. However, only for long-term programs do the effects persist beyond the duration of the activity. This study thus identifies substantial psychological side effects of active labor market policies involving further education, which could be used to increase actual employability
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Information exchange in laboratory markets: competition, transfer costs, and the emergence of reputation
Public reputation mechanisms are an effective means to limit opportunistic behavior in markets suffering from moral hazard problems. While previous research was mostly concerned with the influence of exogenous feedback mechanisms, this study considers the endogenous emergence of reputation through deliberate information sharing among actors and the role of barriers in hindering information exchange. Using a repeated investment game, we analyze the effects of competition and transfer costs on playersâ willingness to share information with each other. While transfer costs are a direct cost of the information exchange, competition costs represent an indirect cost that arises when the transfer of valuable information to competitors comes at the loss of a competitive advantage. We show that barriers to information exchange not only affect the behavior of the senders of information, but also affect the ones about whom the information is shared. While the possibility of sharing information about others significantly improves trust and market efficiency, both competition and direct transfer costs diminish the positive effect by substantially reducing the level of information exchange. Players about whom the information is shared anticipate and react to the changes in the costs by behaving more or less cooperatively. For reputation building, an environment is needed that fosters the sharing of information. Reciprocity is key to understanding information exchange. Even when it is costly, information sharing is used as a way to sanction others. © 2020, The Author(s)
Die Selbstbeschreibung der Gesellschaft: Der Begriff der Nation als missing link der Systemtheorie?
Abstract: Actual macro-theories of nationalism lack a systematic integration into a metatheory. The paper proposes to use systems theory as a conceptual tool for this requirement by examining two of its branches. First, an attempt is made to determine a systematic location of the notion of nation in Niklas Luhmann's framework. Luhmann himself did not, until now, include the problem of nationalism into his concept. The author, therefore, proposes to embed the notion of nation into Luhmann's concept either by arguing that it refers to the scope of a political system or by arguing that it refers to the self-description of a society. It follows that any theory of the nation should be regarded as a 'theory of reflection' (Reflexionstheorie) of a politically defined society. But, as a concept of identification cannot be formulated without referring to the individual, a purely systemic approach only describes half of the phenomenon. Therefore, second, the author takes up Peter M. Hejl's approach, which does not only use Humberto Maturana's concept of autopoiesis by analogy, but attempts to work out its consequences for social theory. Following this branch of systems theory, nationalism can be conceptualized as a consequence of the resurgence of competing self-descriptions inside one spatial unit. By combining the macro- and the micro-approaches in such a way, the crafting of a systemic theory of nationalism may be advanced.
Die Selbstbeschreibung der Gesellschaft: der Begriff der Nation als missing link der Systemtheorie?
"Actual macro-theories of nationalism lack a systematic integration into a metatheory. The paper proposes to use systems theory as a conceptual tool for this requirement by examining two of its branches. First, an attempt is made to determine a systematic location of the notion of nation in Niklas Luhmann's framework. Luhmann himself did not, until now, include the problem of nationalism into his concept. The author, therefore, proposes to embed the notion of nation into Luhmann's concept either by arguing that it refers to the scope of a political system or by arguing that it refers to the self-description of a society. It follows that any theory of the nation should be regarded as a »theory of reflection« (Reflexionstheorie) of a politically defined society. But, as a concept of identification cannot be formulated without referring to the individual, a purely systemic approach only describes half of the phenomenon. Therefore, second, the author takes up Peter M. Hejl's approach, which does not only use Humberto Maturana's concept of autopoiesis by analogy, but attempts to work out its consequences for social theory. Following this branch of systems theory, nationalism can be conceptualized as a consequence of the resurgence of competing self-descriptions inside one spatial unit. By combining the macro- and the micro-approaches in such a way, the crafting of a systemic theory of nationalism may be advanced." [author's abstract
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