The impact of European integration on labour market institutions

Explanations for ‘social exclusion’ are often derived from an apparently new set of employment circumstances that have developed since the beginning of the 1980s. Economic restructuring is said to have driven restructuring in the labour market which has led, in some accounts, to the growth of the underclass and, in others, to the marginalization of particular social groups. This paper criticizes such analyses by questioning the spirit of ‘novelty’ that has imbued social theory in recent years, and insists on a balanced assessment of change and continuity in recent social development. The idea of labour market restructuring is interrogated and the alleged collapse of traditional employment systems is challenged. Much of the paper is focused on the pressures for adjustment within the public sector labour market in Europe that have arisen in the cold fiscal climate of the mid‐1990s. It is concluded that national systems of labour market regulation are deeply ‘embedded’ institutions and are remarkably resistant to change. In these circumstances fiscal pressures are often resolved in a welfare reform programme of a more broadly encompassing nature than is implied in the contemporary discourse of social exclusion.     

Spatial activity and labour market patterns: A connectivity analysis of commuting flows in Germany

The spatial activity patterns of firms in a multi-regional system are closely connected with the structure and evolution of regional labour markets. Based on an extensive data set (cross-section) on commuting flows in Germany, this paper aims to identify the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and spatial labour markets, by employing in particular the concept of ‘entrepreneurial city’. A network connectivity model is adopted to assess connectivity patterns, using the power-law and exponential law as a statistical test framework, in order to detect the presence of economic activity hubs that may resemble the concept of entrepreneurial cities. Various results are presented and interpreted in the final part of the paper.     

Regional labour market dynamics in the Netherlands

This article analyzes the response of regional labor markets in the Netherlands to region-specific labor demand shocks. Previous studies show remarkable differences in response between regions in European countries and regions in the United States. The analysis shows that, in Dutch regions, the speed of adjustment is similar to that of the US, but the primary adjustment mechanism is the same as in Europe. Whereas previous studies analyze only average patterns of all regions in a country, we also provide a more in-depth analysis of within country differences in labor market adjustment processes, thus showing remarkable differences between regions within the Netherlands.     

Examining homelessness in Germany: The impact of regional housing market conditions on homelessness in North Rhine‐Westphalia,Germany

This paper proposes a simple model of the housing market and homelessness by taking into consideration both flat size and quality. A critical income ensuring positive housing consumption can be determined. The empirical analysis of districts in North Rhine‐Westphalia suggests that conditions on the housing market, income levels and several variables depicting a district's social environment are important drivers of homelessness: high rents and relatively few vacant small flats lead to an increase in homelessness. The condition of vacant flats significantly affects homelessness levels too. Homelessness also increases when the share of those with a very low income is higher, since this makes it more difficult to reach the critical income.     

Rank-size distribution of urban employment in labour market areas

This paper examines the rank-size distribution of employment in cities considering the designation of unified labour market areas (LMAs). The empirical application refers to Greece and the dataset includes population and employment at the municipal and local commune levels as well as LMAs originating from commuting patterns between communes. It is found that the employment rank-size distribution based on municipalities substantially overestimates the size of smaller peripheral town areas, where labour agglomerations typically take place at finer spatial scales, and underestimates agglomerations around larger urban areas. The use of LMAs as an alternative spatial unit of analysis entails a less even geographical distribution of workers, particularly when adopting a 10% commuting threshold. Moreover, a threshold regression is used to facilitate the distinction between urban and rural areas, specifying the LMA size beyond which substantial urbanisation effects arise and signifying that about 80% of the total employment corresponds to urban employment. The findings can have important implications for the formulation and evaluation of policies to manage labour agglomeration economies in metropolitan and peripheral urban and rural areas for the sustainable and equitable growth of a country.     

Modelling regional labour market dynamics in space and time

This paper extends the seminal Blanchard and Katz regional labour market model to include interaction effects using a dynamic spatial panel data approach. Three key contributions of this extended model are: (i) the unrealistic assumption that regions are independent of one another no longer has to be made, (ii) the magnitude and significance of so‐called spillover effects can be empirically assessed, and (iii) both the temporal and spatial propagation of labour demand shocks can be investigated. Using annual data from 1986–2010 for 112 regions across eight EU countries, both the non‐spatial and spatial models are estimated. It is found that the majority of the spillover effects are highly significant. Consistent with economic theory, the impact of a region‐specific demand shock is largest in the region where the shock instigates. The shock also propagates to other regions, especially impacting the first and second‐order neighbours.     

Structural pavement assessment in Germany

The aging structure as well as the considerable increase of heavy-traffic load on Germany’s motorways and trunk roads encourages the use of innovative, sound and reliable methods for the structural assessment on network level as well as on project level. Essential elements for this are data, which allow a reliable assessment. For a holistic approach to structural pavement assessment performance orientated measurements will be necessary. In combination with functional parameters as well as write-down models, strategically motivated decision making processes will be useful combined with technically motivated decision processes. For the application at the network level, the available methods for performance orientated measurements are still challenging, as they are based either on testing drill-cores or on nontraffic speed methods. In recent years significant innovation steps have been made to bring traffic speed bearing capacity measurements and methods for evaluating pavement structures on the road. The paper summarizes the actual assessment procedures in Germany as well as the ongoing work on the development and implementation of new methods and techniques.     

Determinants of regional female labour market participation in the Netherlands

The paper analyses the determinants of female labour participation. Structural equation modelling is used to handle theoretical concepts and to solve the typical problem of multicollinearity. The proposed methodology is applied to a dataset for the year 2002 made up of a sample of 278 municipalities in the Netherlands. The structural model and measurement model of the latent variables are estimated simultaneously by means of maximum likelihood. Model estimation and tests are performed using LISREL. Female participation is found to be positively influenced by the added-worker effect and negatively by the discouraged worker effect. The results show a negative impact of demographic pressure and a positive impact of socio-economic status and female-dominated sector structure.     

The impact of a call centre on communication in a programme and its projects

Call centres are increasingly being utilised in public sector programmes to facilitate and manage communication between numerous stakeholders. Yet, the impact of call centres on projects has not been investigated. This paper reports on a survey with 92 respondents that assessed the impact of a call centre for a repair and maintenance programme. An empirically verified model is presented to illustrate the relationship between call centre communication and project performance. A balance of frequent informal and formal communication is shown to reduce mistrust and conflict of interest resulting from each party trying to maximise his respective economic position in the principal–agency relationship. The data provides evidence that a call centre improves the communication, collaboration and trust in project principal–agency relationships which, in turn, is perceived to contribute to project performance.     

A multiregional labour supply model for Austria: The effects of different regionalisations in multiregional labour market modelling

The design of a spatial framework in multi-and interregional modelling is a crucial element of the research process. In this paper an attempt is made to present some empirical evidence with respect to two hypotheses, the scale hyothesis and the aggregation hypothesis. This will be achieved by estimating the parameters and testing the performance of a multiregional labour supply model for Austria. Five regionalisation approaches are specified for delineating (functional) labour market regions. The paper shows that it is by no means admissible to ignore possible effects of the spatial representation choice. The fundamental question of which regionalisation should be chosen should be decided on the basis of relevant evaluation criteria.     

The accessibility to employment offices in the Spanish labour market*

This paper focuses on the differences in the levels of accessibility to public employment offices in the Spanish municipalities. Hence the main purpose is to evaluate the role of the public employment services in local labour markets by considering the physical distance to employment offices and the spatial structure of their catchment areas. First, we propose an accessibility measure and, second, we estimate a spatial model and test whether a higher accessibility to employment offices could contribute to reduce local unemployment rates. The results suggest that policy‐makers should strive to improve the accessibility to employment offices so that adequate assistance to find suitable employment may be ensured to every jobseeker. Resumen Este artículo se centra en las diferencias en los niveles de accesibilidad a las oficinas públicas de empleo en los municipios españoles. El objetivo principal es por tanto evaluar el papel de los servicios públicos de empleo en los mercados laborales locales, en función de la distancia física a las oficinas de empleo y la estructura espacial de sus zonas de influencia. Primero, se propone una medida de accesibilidad y, a continuación, se estima un modelo espacial y se comprueba si una mayor accesibilidad a las oficinas de empleo podría contribuir a reducir las tasas de desempleo local. Los resultados sugieren que los responsables de formular políticas deberían esforzarse por mejorar la accesibilidad a las oficinas de empleo, a fin de poder asegurar a cada demandante de empleo la ayuda apropiada para que logre encontrar un empleo adecuado.      

Ethnic minority unemployment and local labour market conditions in Great Britain

"The authors use the 2% Individual Sample of Anonymised Records (SAR) in conjunction with area-based census data for pseudo travel-to-work areas, to explore the relative importance of individual characteristics and area characteristics on ethnic minority unemployment rates [in Great Britain].... The most important differences in the propensity to unemployment are shown to be between individuals, and, compared with whites, ethnic minority groups are shown to be disadvantaged wherever they live.... In all, it is argued that at the spatial scale which is identifiable in the Individual SAR, ethnic minority unemployment cannot be attributed to geographical distribution, though data at a finer geographical scale are needed to test this hypothesis more fully."     

Historical and current spatial differences in female labour force participation: Evidence from Germany

Female labour force participation (FLFP) increased significantly in the 20th century. Nevertheless, there are persisting spatial differences in FLFP. Using data from Germany, this paper demonstrates that regional differences in the degree of industrialization in the 1920s explain spatial variation in FLFP at that time and almost 100 years later. The latter finding is not explained by persisting industry structures. Additionally, there is evidence that regions with historically high FLFP have a higher social acceptance of working women. Together these results suggest that policies to increase FLFP should account for the historical context of each region.