Labor Economics

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects on unemployment from the legal obligation in Greece to compensate employees for their previous experience, measured by the years of employment in a similar job. If mandatory wage compensation according to this ‘typical’ experience leads to wages higher than the equilibrium, then the existence of this obligation is likely to be associated with higher rates of unemployment. The analysis of wage data from a sample of 1673 employees and the responses from 2370 unemployed people showed that increases in wages that are not combined with increased productivity can create distortions in the labour market which often result in layoffs and unemployment.

This article empirically assesses the evolution of European regions in terms of both employment and unemployment during the recent financial crisis and global recession. Our specific research questions are as follows: (i) has there been a reversal in employment and unemployment dynamics at a regional level during the crisis (2007–10) compared with the previous period (2004–07)? (ii) have the western regions (‘old’ EU states) behaved differently in response to the crisis compared with the eastern regions (NMS)? Finally, (iii) are the differences between the two groups of regions related to structural or institutional variables? After a review of the literature on the key determinants of regional unemployment, we summarise our main findings concerning the impact of the global crisis on the labour market. Our econometric investigation aims to answer the questions we pose. Structural characteristics are considered in terms of sector specialisation of regional economies. In addition, we consider certain institutional characteristics, by including indicators of the share of temporary workers and of long-term unemployed. Our analysis is then targeted at sub-samples of western and eastern European regions: we show that the critical factors for labour market performance during the crisis in these two groups differ greatly. From a methodological viewpoint, we exploit a spatial filtering technique which allowed us to greatly reduce any unobserved variable bias – a significant problem in cross-sectional models – by accounting for latent unobserved spatial patterns.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

""The Report presents insights which illuminates the intertwinements of European regulatory policies and global governance arrangements. By pinning down the exact nature of the interaction between these two levels, the EU’s dilemma becomes obvious: On the one hand, stronger global governance can be a chance, through which the EU can clarify its own raison d’être of increased integration to the wider world. On the other hand, the design of the European project is being challenged by more assertive global structures. This is especially the case in relation to the WTO regime, which is constraining the decisional autonomy of the EU, regarding the appropriateness of its content and its external effects. Thus, the regulation of services in the EU and the WTO are discussed in the first section of this report. Section two focuses on labour standards, which are analysed from different angles in order to clarify the functions of the WTO and the ILO, multinational companies as well as other private actors within this specific field. The final section deals with the legitimacy problematic of transnational governance.

Table of contents:

Introduction
Christian Joerges and Poul F. Kjaer

Section One: Freedom of Services

Chapter 1
The Multiple Understandings of Conflict between Trade in
Services and Labour Protection
Alexia Herwig
Chapter 2
Competing in Markets, not Rules:
The Conflict over the Single Services Market
Susanne K. Schmidt
Chapter 3
Competitiveness and Labour Protection: A Comment
Markus Krajewski
Section Two: Labour Standards
Chapter 4
WTO and ILO: Can Social Responsibility be maintained
in International Trade?
Josef Falke
Chapter 5
Reframing RECON: Perspectives on Transnationalisation and
Post-national Democracy from Labour Law
Claire Methven O’Brien
Chapter 6
Transnational Governance and Human Rights: The Obligations of
Private Actors in the Global Context
Regina Kreide
Section Three: The Legitimacy of Transnational Governance
Chapter 7
Legitimacy through Precaution in European Regulation of GMOs?
From the Standpoint of Governance as Analytical Perspective
Maria Weimer
Chapter 8
The Justice Deficit of the EU and other International Organisations
Jürgen Neyer
Chapter 9
Towards Normative Legitimacy of the World Trade Order
Alexia Herwig and Thorsten Hüller
Chapter 10
From Utopia to Apology – The Return to Inter-state Justice
in Normative IR Scholarship: Comments on Neyer and
Herwig & Hüller
Jens Steffek""

This paper examines the relative performance of individuals in each profession affects the demand for this profession by college entrants. The performance in the labor market is measured by the mean and standard deviation of wages earned by individuals in each profession and by the unemployment rate in the census in the years close to the entrance exam. The demand for the profession is measured by the number of students enrolled in the entrance exam in each career. We use panel data for the years of 1991 and 2000 to control for the specific effect of each career. The results show a positive and robust effect of the average income on the demand for the profession, which persists even in the panel data analysis, and negative effects of the wage dispersion and unemployment, which were not robust, however.