Suchergebnisse

This paper analyses the extent to which the Italian welfare system provides monetary compensation for those who lost their earnings due to the lockdown imposed by the government in order to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. In assessing first-order effects of the businesses temporarily shut down and the government's policy measures on household income, counterfactual scenarios are simulated with EUROMOD, the EU-wide microsimulation model, integrated with information on the workers who the lockdown is more likely to affect. This paper provides timely evidence on the differing degrees of relative and absolute resilience of the household incomes of the individuals affected by the lockdown. These arise from the variations in the protection offered by the tax-benefit system, coupled with personal and household circumstances of the individuals at risk of income loss.

In the past two decades privatisation and liberalisation of network industries providing services of general economic interest (SGEI), have been particularly significant in the European Union. Wide variations around a common policy trend can, however, be observed across countries and sectors. We focus on electricity and gas sectors because energy sectors have usually been profit makers, not affected by direct government transfers, in contrast to other SGEI. We study the effects of privatisation and other reforms on consumer prices using both subjective data on consumers' perception of utility prices and data on average prices paid.

Can political parties, social movements and governments influence market outcomes and shape the functioning of a capitalist economy? Is it possible for social democratic parties, and the labour movement in general, to promote a significant redistribution of income in favour of labour? According to proponents of the structural dependence thesis, the answer to both questions is negative, because the structural dependence of labour upon capital severely constrains feasible income distributions. This article provides a long-run analysis of the UK, which casts doubts on the structural dependence thesis. There is some evidence of a short-run profit-squeeze mechanism, but income shares are much more variable in the long-run than the structural dependence argument suggests, and the power resources available to social classes are among the key determinants of distributive outcomes.

In this paper we analyze the response of career, employment and wage of native Europeans to immigration. We then ask how individual country's policies affect these responses. We use data on 11 EU countries, over the period 1995-2001. We also use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by nationality across European labor markets to construct a version of the enclave-based instrument to proxy for the flow of immigrants, that is exogenous to local demand shocks. We find that native Europeans are more likely to upgrade to more skilled and better paid occupations, when a larger number of immigrants enter their labor market. We find no evidence of an increased likelihood of non-employment or geographical mobility. We find that more flexible labor markets in a country are a key factor to have employment upgrading in response to immigration.

Abstract
In this paper we analyze the response of career, employment and wage of native Europeans to immigration. We then ask how individual country's policies affect these responses. We use data on 11 EU countries, over the period 1995–2001. We also use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by nationality across European labor markets to construct a version of the enclave-based instrument to proxy for the flow of immigrants, that is exogenous to local demand shocks. We find that native Europeans are more likely to upgrade to more skilled and better paid occupations, when a larger number of immigrants enter their labor market. We find no evidence of an increased likelihood of non-employment or geographical mobility. We find that more flexible labor markets in a country are a key factor to have employment upgrading in response to immigration.

JEL Codes

J61; O15

ln the last three decades, two questions have been central for the Left. ls there a future for electoral socialism and social democracy? And, is it any longer possible to promote a significant redistribution of income in favour of labour? Political and economic events seem to suggest negative answers. ln his influential work, Adam Przeworski suggests that this is an irreversible trend that makes it impossible in the long-run to promote genuinely socialist objectives in capitalist democracies. ln particular, the structural dependence of labour on capital severely constrains feasible income distributions. ln this paper, a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the post-war UK economy is provided which casts doubts on the structural dependence thesis. A short run profit-squeeze mechanism seems to exist, but income shares are more variable than the structural dependence argument suggests, and the power resources available to the two main classes in the economy are among the key determinants of distributive outcomes, different political-economic equilibria corresponding to different configurations of the balance of power between the two classes. JEL Categories:

In this paper we analyze the response of career, employment and wage of native Europeans to immigration. We then ask how individual country's policies affect these responses. We use data on 11 EU countries, over the period 1995-2001. We also use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by nationality across European labor markets to construct a version of the enclave-based instrument to proxy for the flow of immigrants, that is exogenous to local demand shocks. We find that native Europeans are more likely to upgrade to more skilled and better paid occupations, when a larger number of immigrants enter their labor market. We find no evidence of an increased likelihood of non-employment or geographical mobility. We find that more flexible labor markets in a country are a key factor to have employment upgrading in response to immigration.