Erik Türk and David Mum, author at Social Europe

About Erik Türk and David Mum

Mag. Erik Türk is an economist and pensions expert at the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour, Vienna. Dr. David Mum is an economist and head of the department on research of the Union of salaried private sector employees in Vienna.

Why The OECD And The European Commission Should Significantly Lower Their Assumptions For Returns On Pension Funds

by Erik Türk and David Mum on 7th October 2016

In pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems claims are tied to the development of GDP as well as wages and salaries. This not only makes economic sense, because the pensioner’s claims are tied to the volume of goods and services available, but provides considerably more reliability. While rates of return on financial markets fluctuate drastically and unpredictably, […]

Living and working in Europe 2019

Living and working in Europe, Eurofound’s 2019 yearbook, provides a snapshot of the latest developments in the work and lives of Europeans as explored in the agency’s research activities over the course of 2019. The range of topics as a result is broad, from the growing diversity of employment across EU regions to rising trust in national institutions to developments in minimum wages. This overview also describes how Eurofound's activities connect with the policy priorities of the European Commission.

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The European Union is excellently equipped to pursue the most urgent issues facing the advanced world: combating environmental damage and climate change, coping with the massive aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, reforming globalisation, regulating financialised capitalism, reducing material inequalities and reconciling the future of work in a rapidly changing economy with workers’ needs for secure lives. But, argues Colin Crouch in this manifesto for a return to the ‘social Europe’ agenda, to achieve these goals the EU needs to face the two menaces stalking today’s politics: neoliberalism and xenophobic nationalism. To do so it must confront the weakness of social democracy, historically the main political protagonist of the causes of co-operation and inclusion on which the strategy depends.

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For a Sound Fiscal Policy

The public sector in Germany has massively neglected its investments in the past two decades. The result is a public capital stock that does not meet the requirements of a modern economy and is inadequate to meet the challenges posed by the imminent demographic change and the international commitments for decarbonisation. If the requirements in the areas of education, transport, communication networks and decarbonisation are added together, the additional public investment or public investment promotion required over the next 10 years is around €450 billion, i.e. around €45 billion per year. From a macroeconomic perspective, this amount can be shouldered well, but it is unrealistic to finance these investments solely by redeploying funds in existing budgets. For this reason, the debt rules in the Germen constitution should be extended to include a golden rule allowing borrowing to the extent of net investment. Until such a rule is implemented, room for manoeuvre should be used, for example through extra-budgetary entities. It is also important to provide sustainable debt relief for municipalities, which play a central role in public investment, especially in transport infrastructure.

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Institutional experimentation for better (or worse) work

Transfer, volume 26, issue 2

Transfer stimulates dialogue between the European trade union movement and the academic and research community. It contributes research findings on issues of strategic relevance for trade unions, in particular with regard to developments at the European level. Transfer publishes original peer-reviewed research on issues such as new developments in industrial relations, social policy and labour-market developments. This issue is now online and freely available until the end of July 2020.

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Why The OECD And The European Commission Should Significantly Lower Their Assumptions For Returns On Pension Funds

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