The Labour Market Impact of the Eu Enlargement: A New Regional Geography of Europe?

ISBN-13: 9783790828207 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 342 str.

Floro Ernesto Caroleo; Francesco Pastore

Opis

Floro Ernesto Caroleo and Francesco Pastore This book was conceived to collect selected essays presented at the session on The Labour Market Impact of the European Union Enlargements. A New Regional Geography of Europe? of the XXII Conference of the Italian Association of Labour Economics (AIEL). The session aimed to stimulate the debate on the continuity/ fracture of regional patterns of development and employment in old and new European Union (EU) regions. In particular, we asked whether, and how different, the causes of emergence and the evolution of regional imbalances in the new EU members of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are compared to those in the old EU members. Several contributions in this book suggest that a factor common to all backward regions, often neglected in the literature, is to be found in their higher than average degree of structural change or, more precisely, in the hardship they expe- ence in coping with the process of structural change typical of all advanced economies. In the new EU members of CEE, structural change is still a consequence of the continuing process of transition from central planning to a market economy, but also of what Fabrizio et al. (2009) call the second transition, namely that related to the run-up to and entry in the EU."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"This book deals with a highly topical issue: various labour market impacts of the recent EU enlargement. The book consists of a number of research papers that were originally presented at a seminar. ... the book provides several important new insights about structural change and regional labour markets in Europe. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in regional labour market analysis with a European focus." (Petri Böckerman, Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 12 (4), July, 2012)

"This book collects a number of thought-provoking papers and raises important policy-relevant issues with respect to structural change, convergence, labour mobility and regional labour market policy in the EU that are likely to inspire further research. Furthermore readers ... will find the literature surveys both in the review and in most of the research papers useful." (Peter Huber, Scienze Regionali, Vol. 11 (2), 2012)

"The book's chapters (essays) are able to capture the main issues under discussion, while also providing a comprehensive set of theoretical and econometric methodologies used in the field of contemporary regional economic research. ... The book is useful to all academics, university students of economics - especially labor economics - as well as bureaucrats in international organizations and policy makers and union members interested in these themes. Thus, they can broaden and enrich their knowledge of such important issues of the day." (Alka Obadic, Croatian Economic Survey, Vol. 13 (1), April, 2011)

Spis treści

An Overview of the Main Issues and the Role of Structural Change.- Structural Change and Labour Reallocation Across Regions: A Review of the Literature.- Organized Labour and Restructuring: Coal Mines in the Czech Republic and Romania.- New Evidence on Spatial Convergence.- Labour Productivity Polarization Across Western European Regions: Threshold Effects Versus Neighbourhood Effects.- Transition, Regional Features, Growth and Labour Market Dynamics.- Regional Dynamics of Unemployment in Poland A Convergence Approach.- Spatial Distribution of Key Macroeconomic Growth Indicators in the EU-27: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation.- Is Migration Reinforcing Regional Unemployment Differences?.- Internal Labour Mobility in Central Europe and the Baltic Region: Evidence from Labour Force Surveys.- Spatial Search and Commuting with Asymmetric Changes of the Wage Distribution.- Where Do the Brainy Italians Go?.- Some Policy Tools.- Assessing Active Labour Market Policies in Transition Economies.- Regional Female Labour Force Participation: An Empirical Application with Spatial Effects.

Blurb

Until recently, regional labour market imbalances were considered transitory phenomena, a consequence of state failure in generating distorted investment incentives in depressed regions as well as of excessive labour market rigidities. Labour mobility and wage flexibility were at the core of the debate over the causes of and cures for regional labour market imbalances. This book bears witness to the changed perspective of research on these issues. In the recent literature, internal labour migration is depicted as a cause of further divergence between advanced and backward regions, as higher returns on human and physical capital are expected to be paid in those regions where these factors are already concentrated.

The book contributes to the debate by presenting important new findings on: a) the reasons why structural change in some sectors causes a slump in some regions, but not in others; b) the extent to which poverty traps explain regional imbalances as compared to such other alternative factors as spatial dependence and nonlinearity in growth behaviour; c) the degree of convergence across EU countries and regions; d) the role of labour mobility in reducing/increasing regional labour market imbalances, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe; e) and the role of an active labour market policy and child care facilities in alleviating the hardship of the weakest segments of the population.