The European Labour Market

This book brings together up-to-date findings on the regional dimensions of European labour markets. It provides a conceptual and empirical study of the interactions between the European economy and its regions, paying particular attention to the issue of the transition of Central and Eastern European countries to a market economy. The topics analysed include: the structure of the shocks affecting employment (regional, industrial, national), the relationships between labour market efficiency and the regional distribution of unemployment, wage flexibility in EU member countries or in their regions and the role of active labour market policies in affecting the regional distribution of employment and unemployment.

and Overview.- Regional Disparities in Europe.- Regional Unemployment in the OST Literature.- Regional Employment Dynamics in the EU: Structural Outlook, Co-Movements, Clusters and Common Shocks.- Does Space Matter for Labour Markets and How? A Critical Survey of the Recent Italian Empirical Evidence.- Labour Market Reform and the Beveridge Curve across Italian Regions.- Enterprise Defensive Restructuring: Cross-country Evidence within Transitional Settings.- Widening Unemployment Differentials in Italy: the Role of Wage and Labour Productivity.- Skill Mismatch and Regional Unemployment in Poland.- The Wage Curve and Agglomeration.- A Panel of Regional Indicators of Labour Market Flexibility: the UK, 1979–998.- Regional Wage Flexibility: the Wage Curve in Five EU Countries.- Large-Scale Labour Market Restructuring and Labour Mobility: the Experiences of East Germany and Poland.- Macroeconometric Evaluation of Active Labour Market Policies in Germany. A Dynamic Panel Approach Using Regional Data.- Evaluating Asymmetries in Active Labour Market Policies: the Case of Italy.