The World Bank Research Observer
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13:
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Labour Market Reforms in Portugal 2011-15 A Preliminary Assessment
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2017-02-21
Total Pages: 179
ISBN-13: 9264269576
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis report evaluates the comprehensive labour market reforms undertaken in Portugal in 2011-15. It reviews reforms in employment protection legislation, unemployment benefits, activation, collective bargaining, minimum wages and working time, and assesses the available evidence on their impact.
Reforming the Welfare State
Author: Richard B. Freeman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010-04-15
Total Pages: 350
ISBN-13: 0226261913
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOver the course of the twentieth century, Sweden carried out one of the most ambitious experiments by a capitalist market economy in developing a large and active welfare state. Sweden's generous social programs and the economic equality they fostered became an example for other countries to emulate. Of late, Sweden has also been much discussed as a model of how to deal with financial and economic crisis, due to the country's recovery from a banking crisis in the mid-1990s. At that time economists heatedly debated whether the welfare state caused Sweden's crisis and should be reformed—a debate with clear parallels to current concerns over capitalism. Bringing together leading economists, Reforming the Welfare State examines Sweden's policies in response to the mid-1990s crisis and the implications for the subsequent recovery. Among the issues investigated are the way changes in the labor market, tax and benefit policies, local government policy, industrial structure, and international trade affected Sweden's recovery. The way that Sweden addressed its economic challenges provides valuable insight into the viability of large welfare states, and more broadly, into the way modern economies deal with crisis.
Working Together for Integration Working Together: Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Sweden
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2016-05-13
Total Pages: 206
ISBN-13: 9264257381
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith 16% of its population born abroad, Sweden has one of the larger immigrant populations among the European OECD countries. This report looks at the challenges of integrating migrants and their families into the Swedish labour market.
The Welfare State in Transition
Author: Richard B. Freeman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2008-04-15
Total Pages: 490
ISBN-13: 0226261859
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOnce heralded in the 1950s and 1960s as a model welfare state, Sweden is now in transition and in trouble since its economic plunge in the early 1990s. This volume presents ten essays that examine Sweden's economic problems from a U.S. perspective. Exploring such diverse topics as income equalization and efficiency, welfare and tax policy, wage determination and unemployment, and international competitiveness and growth, they consider how Sweden's welfare state succeeded in eliminating poverty and became a role model for other countries. They then reflect on Sweden's past economic problems, such as the increase in government spending and the fall in industrial productivity, warning of problems to come. Finally they review the consequences of the collapse of Sweden's economy in the early 1990s, exploring the implications of its efforts to reform its welfare state and reestablish a healthy economy. This volume will be of interest to policymakers and analysts, social scientists, and economists interested in welfare states.
Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Sweden 2011
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2011-12-19
Total Pages: 162
ISBN-13: 9264167218
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book answers the question of whether Sweden’s labour migration policy is efficiently working to meet labour market needs that were not being met, without adversely affecting the domestic labour market.
Do Active Labor Market Policies Increase Employment?
Author: Mr.Marcello M. Estevão
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Published: 2003-12-01
Total Pages: 31
ISBN-13: 1451875649
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUsing panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to job creation were the most effective. ALMPs also affected employment rates by reducing real wages below levels allowed by technological growth, changes in the unemployment rate, and institutional and other economic factors. However, part of this wage moderation may be linked to a composition effect because policies were targeted to low-paid individuals. Whether ALMPs are cost-effective from a budgetary perspective remains to be determined, but they are certainly not substitutes for comprehensive institutional reforms.
Strong Governments, Precarious Workers
Author: Philip Rathgeb
Publisher: ILR Press
Published: 2018-12-15
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 1501730592
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy do some European welfare states protect unemployed and inadequately employed workers ("outsiders") from economic uncertainty better than others? Philip Rathgeb’s study of labor market policy change in three somewhat-similar small states—Austria, Denmark, and Sweden—explores this fundamental question. He does so by examining the distribution of power between trade unions and political parties, attempting to bridge these two lines of research—trade unions and party politics—that, with few exceptions, have advanced without a mutual exchange. Inclusive trade unions have high political stakes in the protection of outsiders, because they incorporate workers at risk of unemployment into their representational outlook. Yet, the impact of union preferences has declined over time, with a shift in the balance of class power from labor to capital across the Western world. National governments have accordingly prioritized flexibility for employers over the social protection of outsiders. As a result, organized labor can only protect outsiders when governments are reliant on union consent for successful consensus mobilization. When governments have a united majority of seats, on the other hand, they are strong enough to exclude unions. Strong Governments, Precarious Workers calls into question the electoral responsiveness of national governments—and thus political parties—to the social needs of an increasingly numerous group of precarious workers. In the end, Rathgeb concludes that the weaker the government, the stronger the capacity of organized labor to enhance the social protection of precarious workers.
Defending the Swedish Model
Author: Gregg Bucken-Knapp
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 194
ISBN-13: 9780739138168
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAcross Europe the prospect of a rapidly shrinking workforce has put increased labor migration back on the political agenda However for many on the political left concerns exist that less restrictive labor migration policies threaten core features of the social democratic project. This is perhaps clearest in Sweden which in late 2008 adopted a liberal approach to third-country national labor migration allowing employers to hire freely from outside the European Union. Defending the Swedish Model explores the debate leading up to this reform focusing on the preferences of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the Swedish trade union confederation (LO). While generally positive to the economic potential of increased labor migration these allies remained highly skeptical toward calls from employers and bourgeois parties for liberalization Gregg Bucken-Knapp argues that the SAP and LO develop their labor migration policy preference on the basis of whether specific reform alternatives are perceived as being consistent with or as undermining the Swedish model in the case of third-country nationals both allies considered liberalization a threat to full employment aims instead seeking to preserve an influential role for the state labor market board and organized labor. Bucken-knapp also focuses on the Swedish labor migration debate prior to the 2004 enlargement of the European union showing how SAP concerns over potential abuse of the universal welfare sate led to its support for transitional arrangements defending the Swedish model illuminates the challenges faced by social democrats and trade unions when considering the need for increased labor migration Book jacket.
Transformations of the Swedish Welfare State
Author: B. Larsson
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2012-01-25
Total Pages: 329
ISBN-13: 0230363954
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUsing an analytical framework based on Foucault's concept of governmentality and through unique case-studies, this volume explores the ongoing transformations taking place in the Swedish welfare state.
