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"The notion of flexicurity was introduced in the late 1990s. It promotes the idea of compensation of deregulation of labour markets (= flexibilization) by advantages in employment and social security, in particularly for flexibly employed (other than permanent full-time, called also atypically employed). This paper suggests an operational definition of flexicurity, taking into account different views of liberals and trade unions. The corresponding flexicurity indices are derived from (a) data on the dynamics of employment types, (b) scores of the strictness of employment protection legislation provided by the OECD, and (c) qualitative juridical data on social security. To convert the latter into numbers, eight employment types (permanent full-time, fixed- term part-time, etc.) in 16 European countries are ranked with respect to their eligibility to five social security benefits (unemployment insurance, public pensions, etc). To avoid known shortages of ranking, the Method of Total Ranks is proposed. The ranks replace continuous variables as index entries, and a dedicated model estimates the total index error which results from such an 'ordinal rounding' of the index input. The flexicurity indices are calculated for 16 European countries for the years 1994-2003. Contrary to theoretical opinions, the current deregulation of European labour markets is not compensated by improvements in the social security. If the flexicurity advantages/ disadvantages are accounted proportionally to the size of affected groups then the factual trends are negative even from the viewpoint of liberals, to say nothing of trade unions. The reciprocity of the advantages/ disadvantages turns out to be illusory, because gains are smaller than losses and winners are fewer than losers. Thereby the study warns against promoting flexicurity policies with no operational control and empirical feedback." (author's abstract)

"Reducing disparities among regions within European countries together with economic
development is the aim of European and national structural policies. In particular, a
European grant contributes to the German governmental program for reducing and equal-
izing regional unemployment. The goal is to bring unemployment down to the national
average by creating new and/or by safeguarding existing jobs, which also contributes to
decreasing national unemployment and to GDP growth.
The distribution of available aid among 271 German labor market regions is considered
as an econometric decision problem with three targets: (1) minimization of unemployment,
(2) maximization of GDP, and (3) equalization of regional unemployment rates, subject
to the budget constraint and some administrative restrictions. To prepare grounds for
optimization, econometric predictions are made for the year 2004 from regional data
1994-2001.

Compared with the previous Discussion Paper 115, the given work contains four new
items:
- The German regional policy is optimized not only with regard to equalizing the regional unemployment, but also with regard to reducing national unemployment and GDP growth.
- The source data are extended from a single period of observations 2000-2001 to yearly data 1994-2001.
- The analysis of past developments is no longer the goal of the model but a means to make decisions for the future.
- The number of control parameters is reduced to a necessary minimum implemented in a user interface in form of tables and ¯gures visualizing the topology of optimal planning.

The model can be regarded as a prototype of decision-aid for designing regional policy
at national and European levels." [author's abstract]

"Reducing disparities among regions within European countries is the aim of European and
national structural policies. In particular, a European grant contributes to the German
governmental program for equalizing regional unemployment. The goal is to bring it down
to the national average by creating new and/or by safeguarding existing jobs.
In the given paper the distribution of available aid among 271 German labor market
regions is considered as an econometric decision problem. At first, the dependence of the
unemployment rate on the amount of aid is estimated for each eligible region. Using this
dependence, the variance of regional unemployment rates is expressed as a function of the
regional subsidies. The optimal aid distribution among regions is obtained by minimizing
this variance subject to the total budget constraint and administrative restrictions.
The optimal figures computed are compared with statistical data for 2000-2002. They
show that the regional unemployment in West Germany could be equalized better (with
variance 3.50 against the actual 4.40) and with a simultaneous decrease in the average
unemployment in West Germany from 7.45 to 7.28%. In East Germany all regions are
eligible, implying no administrative constraints and a high optimization flexibility. It
enables almost perfectly equalize regional indices down to the variance 0.28 against the
actual 9.76. Under the model assumptions, the actual results of the equalizing policy could be
attained by half the budget granted. These underused possibilities explain the low efficiency of active labor market policies reported in empirical studies. To improve their
performance, some tools for optimally distributing subsidies and predicting their effects
are suggested." (author's abstract)

"It is empirically shown that the more flexible employment, the more it is precarious. For this purpose, two families of indices, of flexible work and of precarious work, are defined basing on the Fourth European Survey of Working Conditions 2005 by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Two methodologies of constructing composite indicators are applied, of the Hans Böckler Foundation, and of the OECD. Both methodologies give very similar results. After the indices have been constructed, the dependence between flexibility and precariousness of work is established by regression analysis with statistical certainty. Besides, it is revealed that the institutional regulation of employment does not necessarily imply the adequate factual effect. For instance, Turkey and Greece with a strict employment protection legislation have a high labour market flexibility due to a large fraction of employees who work with no contract. Among other things, it is shown that the employment flexibility has the strongest negative effect on the employability. It implies serious arguments against the recent reconsideration of the function of social security attempted by the European Commission within the flexicurity discourse. The suggested shift from income security towards a high employability cannot be consistently implemented. Our study provides empirical evidence that a high employability can be hardly attained under flexible employment." (author's abstract)

"Hitherto, discussion of flexicurity has focused on normal employment (permanent full-time), with atypical work receiving only cursory attention. Nevertheless, the most affected are just atypically employed (= other than normally employed). To monitor effects of flexicurity policies in Europe, flexicurity indices are constructed from: (a) scores of the strictness of employment protection legislation provided by the OECD, (b) qualitative juridical data on social security benefits (unemployment insurance, public pensions, etc.), and (c) data on the dynamics of employment types (permanent, temporary, full-time, part-time, self-employed, etc.). The empirical investigation shows that, contrary to political promises and theoretical opinions, the deregulation of European labour markets absolutely predominates. Its moderate compensation by advantages in social security occurred only twice: in Denmark and Netherlands at the end of the 1990s. The flexibilization reduces the average employment status, i.e. employees are more often employed not permanently but temporarily, not full-time but part-time, and more frequently they involuntary turn to self-employment. On the other hand, the eligibility to social benefits depends on the employment status. Thereby these trends disqualify employees from social benefits. The apparent compensation of the labour market deregulation by social advantages is therefore insufficient." (author's abstract)