Suchergebnisse

The aim of this technical note is to shed some light on relationship between labor market institutions and labor market outcomes in the member states of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in North America and East Asia; the New Member States of the European Union who are not members of the OECD (e.g. the Baltic states); countries in the European "Neighborhood" with aspire to accede to the EU (e.g. countries in the Western Balkans); and other European transitions countries (e.g. Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus). Several estimation approaches for different data samples and explanatory variables were used to analyze the impact of labor market institutions on the labor market outcomes in European and OECD countries. This technical note, nevertheless, analyzes the impact of labor market institutions in above-mentioned regions and finds that they do affect major labor market indicators. The results show that the minimum wage tends to increase unemployment in non-European OECD sample, which is in accordance with the text-book pricing out effect. To examine the potential differences in the role of explanatory variables between the two OECD sub-samples the author applied modified Chow tests.The results of applied Chow tests examining the potential differences in the role of explanatory variables between the particular sub-samples are inconclusive. Generally, the author was not able to reject the hypothesis of stability of regression coefficients between the examined groups of countries in all tested models. While some of the estimated coefficients suggest different behavior, the available data did not allow to study this issue in detail.

This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions in explaining developments of shadow economies in European countries. We use several alternative measures of the shadow sector, and we examine effects of labor institutions on shadow sector in two specific regions: new and old European Union member countries, as their respective shadow sectors exhibited a different development in the last decade. While the share of shadow economy in GDP averaged 27.7% in the new member countries in 1999-2007, the respective share in the old member states stood at 18.0% only. In our paper, we estimate effects of labor market institutions on two sets of shadow economy indicators - shadow production and shadow employment. Comparing alternative measures of the shadow sector allows more granulated analysis of the labor market institutions effects. Our results indicate that the one institution that unambiguously increases shadow economy production and employment is the strictness of employment protection legislation. Other labor market institutions - active and passive labor market policies, labor taxation, trade union density and the minimum wage setting - have less straightforward and statistically robust effects and their impact often diverge in new and old EU member countries. The differences are not robust enough, however, to allow us to reject the hypothesis of similar effect of labor market institutions in new and old EU member states.

This article analyses the effects of minimum wage on employment in the Czech and Slovak Republics based on 2005–17 EU-SILC data. Our results contribute to the scant literature on minimum wage effects in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. While prior empirical findings concurred with the effects of minimum wage on labour market outcomes in CEE countries when the minimum wage is relatively high, there is ambiguity when the minimum wage is relatively low. In Slovakia we find that regular minimum wage hikes had insignificant effects on employment. Similarly, we find no negative employment consequences from irregular hikes in the comparatively low minimum wage (MW) of the Czech Republic. Moreover, the groups assumed to be most affected by MW hikes did not experience greater negative consequences following hikes when compared to the overall population of workers in either country.

Purpose: The authors aim to demonstrate the impact of allowing for unequal intra-household distribution of resources on income poverty and income inequality. Design/methodology/approach: The paper applies a collective consumption model to study the intra-household distribution of resources in Visegrád countries (V4). It utilises subjective financial satisfaction as a proxy for indirect utility from individual consumption to estimate the indifference scales within couples instead of the traditional equivalence scale. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2013 and 2018 data are applied. Findings: This study's results indicate substantial economies of scale from living in a couple that are generally higher than implied by the commonly applied equivalence scale. The sharing rule estimates suggest that at the mean of distribution factors, women receive a consumption share between 0.4 and 0.6; however, some of the results are close to an equal sharing of 0.5. The female consumption share rises with her contribution to household income. Regarding income poverty and inequality, the authors show that both these measures might be underestimated in the traditional approach to equal sharing of resources. Originality/value: The authors add to the empirics by estimating indifference scales for Czechia (CZ), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK), countries that have not been involved in previous research.

This article focuses on the role of labour market institutions in explaining different labour market developments in European countries, with a special attention to the new European Union member countries. This may allow us to analyse effects of various institutional setups and of their changes on major labour market indicators. We aim at complementing several studies from the late 1990's by using more recent data that allow us to compare institutional setups from the mid 1990's and early 2000's both in old" and new" EU member states. We estimate effects of labour market institutions on various performance indicators (unemployment, long-term unemployment, employment, activity rate). Our results confirm that high taxes increase unemployment, while active labour market policies tend to reduce it. We also show that stricter employment protection, higher taxes and larger economic burden represented by the minimum wage decrease employment and activity rate. Moreover, statistical tests indicate that there is a difference in the institutional effects between old" and new" EU members.

AbstractWe show that economies of scale estimated individually for each EU country differ from the officially adopted OECD‐modified scale; the differences across the countries further confirm the prevailing East‐West disparity. Using the minimum income question in the 2019 EU‐Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey, we demonstrate that applying the estimated country‐specific subjective equivalence scales, instead of the uniform OECD‐modified scale, results in up to a 6 pp change in the at‐risk‐of‐poverty rate. If inadequate equivalence scales are used, the equivalised income fails to inform the statistics of income poverty and prevents national social policies from being correctly targeted.

This book reflects the political, welfare, and general social attitudes in the Czech Republic, which has 30 years of existence, in European comparison. The contributors address the understanding and evaluations of democracy and attitudes towards migration in pre- and post-COVID-19 times.