politics, economy and employment & labour
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher that publishes content examining issues in politics, economy, society and ecology. This archive brings together Social Europe articles on the economy.
Next month will mark the tenth anniversary of the global financial crisis, which began on August 9, 2007, when Banque National de Paris announced that the value of several of its funds, containing what were supposedly the safest possible US mortgage bonds, had evaporated. From that fateful day, the advanced capitalist world has experienced its […]
As the Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow noted in 1987, computers are “everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Since then, the so-called productivity paradox has become ever more striking. Automation has eliminated many jobs. Robots and artificial intelligence now seem to promise (or threaten) yet more radical change. Yet productivity growth has slowed across the […]
Central banks have a problem: growth in much of the world is accelerating, but inflation has failed to take off. Of course, for most people, growth without inflation is the ideal combination. But central banks have set the goal of achieving an inflation rate of “below, but close to 2%,” as the European Central Bank […]
The EU has finally recovered all the net employment losses sustained since the global financial crisis. It has been a long and painful process. But there is at last growing evidence of positive momentum in EU labour markets, if not quite ‘animal spirits’. Many of those member states most affected by the global downturn have […]
We talk a lot about inequality but the data we rely on is subject to substantial errors since much income and wealth goes unmeasured and is never seen by the official tax systems which are the main sources of information. Obviously, the global rich have major incentives to evade taxation and some insight into the […]
The statutory minimum wage has significantly improved job quality and work satisfaction of low-paid employees in Germany. Hourly as well as gross wages increased after its introduction despite a drop in working time. Although jobs of minimum wage employees have become more demanding, workers have also reported a more motivational management style, an improved atmosphere […]
In the Euro Area there is a scarcity of risk-free securities; these are issued today only by a few sovereigns with a very high rating, but not by any European institution given strong German opposition. This situation creates huge capital flows in stress periods (flight-to-quality) and it contributes to the diabolic loop between bank and […]
The Italian government has launched a package of extraordinary measures to handle the crisis at Veneto Banca (VB) and Banca Popolare di Vicenza (BPVI). The two Venetian banks have long been under surveillance by the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of the ECB due to repeated breaches of the supervisory capital requirements. A first extraordinary intervention […]
The Greek case of the Eurozone crisis from 2010 onwards has, by now, turned into a multi-series drama. Another instalment came in the June 2017 Eurogroup discussions on the second review of the third Greek financial assistance program (FAP). The review has limped on for more than a year since the conclusion of the first […]
In all major economies, the so-called productivity puzzle continues to perplex economists and policymakers: output per hour is significantly lower than it would have been had the pre-2008 growth trend continued. The figures are stark, particularly so in the United Kingdom, but also across the OECD. And while it goes without saying that economists have […]
As in any other religion, faith lies behind capitalism. Faith that capital is a panacea always and in any situation: to push economic growth or to help less developed countries to catch up. Yet the fact is that the EU countries that were the main receivers of cohesion funds, before the extension to the East, […]
The case for an Investment State rests with three propositions: The first is the diminishing credibility of the Welfare State. Flourishing mid-20th century, it has struggled politically as a result of economic inequality, capital flight, bureaucratic inertia, damage to citizens, and the proliferation of subprime vendors. In response to the global financial crisis and the […]
