Offshoring in Europe—Evidence of a Two-Way Street from Denmark

Based on a large Danish survey of companies in tradable goods and services sectors, this working paper presents the results of offshoring and its impact on jobs, adding new perspectives to the globalization debate. Globalization entails a cross-border flow of jobs, but contrary to the mainstream media portrayal of globalization, it is not a one-way but a two-way street. In 2002–05 more jobs were created as a result of offshoring of activities into eastern Denmark from companies outside Denmark (i.e., inshored to Denmark) than were eliminated due to offshoring from companies in the Danish region. Overall, the employment effects of both offshoring and inshoring were found to be limited to less than 1 percent of all jobs either lost to offshoring or gained via inshoring. For Denmark, the worries in purely numerical terms regarding the employment effects of globalization seem overly alarmist. However, the trends revealed in the study do pose challenges for low-skilled workers—the group most negatively affected—and for highly skilled specialists, who face pressure to constantly upgrade their skills. Policy implications can be drawn in view of our results to ensure that labor markets are able to meet the demands of globalizing firms.Labor Market, Offshoring, Offshore Outsourcing, High- and Low-Skilled Workers, Skill Bias, Denmark, Flexicurity

Potential exposure and treatment efficiency of nanoparticles in water supplies based on wastewater reclamation

We present current knowledge on nanoparticle fate in wastewater reclamation systems for potable reuse.</p

Introducing the lens of markets-in-the-making to transition studies:The case of the Danish wind power market agencement

This paper contributes to a renewed understanding of markets in transition studies by focusing on how unknown things must be ‘framed’ and pacified in order to be attributed some ‘value’ that makes them ‘matter’. We empirically analyze the making of a market agencement for wind power deployment in Denmark. Using an analytical framework of framing and pacifying, we trace three entangled ‘domains of action’ associated with the employment of (a) sociopolitical devices to enable the discursive valuation of wind power, (b) economic devices to develop price-setting models for investors, and (c) technical devices to facilitate grid integration, thereby framing wind power as socio-politically, economically, and techno-scientifically ‘valuable’, respectively. This market agencement has consistently produced concerns (i.e., overflows) requiring constant re-framing. We discuss how the lens of markets-in-the-making can contribute to transition studies. By showing how the domains of action entangle and ‘overflow’ onto each other, this study demonstrates that the relational lens of socio-technical agencements can help shed additional light on the dynamics and agency of markets in transition.</p