From Bismarck to Maastricht: The March to European Union and the Labor Compact

No 7456, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper considers the likely impact that European Union (EU) will have on the labor compact. It is argued that, despite increased economic integration in Europe, countries will still be able to maintain distinct labor practices if they are willing to bear the cost of those practices. The incidence of many social protections probably already falls on workers. In addition, it is argued that imperfect mobility of capital, labor, goods and services will limit the pressure that integration will place on the labor compact. Evidence is presented suggesting that labor mobility among EU countries has not increased after the elimination of remaining restrictions on intra-EU labor mobility in 1993. Moreover, immigration from non-EU countries, which is much larger than intra-EU migration, has declined since 1993. Evidence is also reviewed suggesting that the demand for social protection rises when countries are more open, and therefore subject to more severe external shocks. This finding suggests that increased economic integration and European Monetary Union could lead to greater demand for social protection. The U.S. experience with state workers' compensation insurance programs is offered as an example of enduring differences in labor market protections in highly integrated regional economies with a common currency.

JEL-codes: J29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-his and nep-lab
Note: LS
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Published as Labour Economics, Vol. 7, no. 2 (March 2000): 117-134

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7456.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: From Bismarck to Maastricht: The March to European Union and the Labor Compact (1999)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7456

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7456

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().