Labour Markets Trends, Financial Globalization and the current crisis in Developing Countries

The current wave of globalization has profound labour market effects, accentuated, in many cases, by the current financial and economic crisis. This paper reviews general labour market trends and country examples, arguing that the current globalization process makes labour’s position more precarious, a trend magnified by the current crisis. This is consistent with the policy reactions to the crisis: governments have (rightly) acted as a banker of last resort to avoid the collapse of the financial system, but, despite stimulus plans and monetary easing and some labour market policies, have not really acted as an employer of last resort

The Inclusion of Full Employment in MDG1, What Lessons for a Post - 2015 Development Agenda?

This paper is one of a series of papers in a research project, The Power of Numbers: A Critical Review of MDG Targets for Human Development and Human Rights (the “Project”)1. Motivated by a concern with the consequences of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) beyond the achievement of the 2015 targets, the Project seeks to explore their broader policy and programmatic implications. It focuses particularly on the reductionism inherent in the way in which these global goals were set and came to be used, as well as the potential for distorting priorities and marginalizing, or even displacing, important human development and human rights concerns inherent in such global goal-setting exercises. A total of 11 studies are included, each analyzing the normative and empirical consequences of a particular MDG goal/target, and considering what other targets and indicators might have been more appropriate. The Project aims to identify criteria for selecting indicators for setting targets that would be more consistent with Human Development and Human Rights priorities, amenable to monitoring impacts on inequality, accountability and consistency with human rights standards

De financiële mondialisering moet worden bijgestuurd

De bedreiging van de financiële mondialisering voor fatsoenlijke arbeid wordt gevoeld door werkenden over de hele wereld. ‘Werk’ moet daarom centraal komen te staan bij de binnenlandse en buitenlandse politiek, betoogt Rolph van der Hoeven. ‘Het gaa

Financiële globalisering en werk: een uitdaging voor nationaal én internationaal beleid

Terugblikkend kan het eind van de jaren tachtig, het begin jaren negentig gezien worden als een omslagpunt voor de financiële mondialisering. De val van de Berlijnse muur bracht mensen als Francis Fukuyama ertoe “het einde van de geschiedenis” uit te roepen: het democratische vrijemarktdenken zou de ideologische slag voor altijd gewonnen hebben

Development Aid and Employment

Abstract. Globalization has led to a precarization of labour, which especially manifests in the unstable working conditions, a lower labour share in national income as well as in a growing income inequality, with the exception of some countries with high initial income inequality. The neglect of concern for employment and inequality in the formulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 is noted; the addition of a goal for full employment in a reformulation of the MDGs in 2005 did not lead to a change in focus in official development assistance (ODA). If the growing concern for employment and inequality is taken seriously, a refocus of development efforts is necessary, combining a greater share of development assistance for employment and productivity enhancing activities with a change in national and international economic and financial policies, so as to make employment creation (together with poverty reduction) an overarching goal

Redistribution Does Matter Growth and Redistribution for Poverty Reduction

Poverty, Inequality, Growth, Redistribution