O continente cético: a Europa e os valores da modernidade The sceptical continent: Europe and the values of modernity

As grandes mudanças na Europa contemporânea exigem para a sua compreensão um exame das trajetórias históricas dos seus fundamentos valorativos e do modo como eles se manifestam nas condições atuais. O autor examina, de uma perspectiva "iluminista", os sinais de erosão de certas crenças e de emergência de novas orientações valorativas.<br>The great changes in contemporary Europe must be understood taking into acount the historical paths of its basic values and the way they manifest themselves in the present conditions. The author examines, from an "enlightened" point of view, the signs of erosion of some beliefs as well as of the emergence of new value orientations

The net social wage in greece 1958-95

The object of this paper is to assess the net distributive impact of state expenditures and revenues on labour income in Greece for the 1958-95 period. This effect is measured by the net social wage defined as the difference between the total benefits received by labour from state spending and the labour taxes. We also discuss certain issues related to the empirical methodology employed in the present and similar studies and the way its inconsistent use has affected inter-country comparisons of the net social wage in the literature. Our empirical findings for Greece indicate that for the entire period no redistribution of income in favour of labour has taken place via the actions of the state. The average net social wage is very close to zero even though during the last decade we observe an increasing involvement of the state in the reproduction of labour. The positive net social wage of the few recent years coincided with high public deficits and appears to be a result of slow growth, high unemployment rates and compensation for the adverse developments for labour in the market distribution of income.