Industrial And Labour Market Policy And Performance

Industrial issues are often inextricably linked with labour market concerns and policy approaches that attempt to consider production and employment separately are inherently flawed." This controversial statement sums up the heart of this important book. With contributions from such scholars as Keith Cowling, Malcolm Sawyer and Michael Kitson, Industrial and Labour Market Policy and Performance covers such topics as: * the increasing inequality between rich and poor * the links between innovation, competition and collaboration * education, skills formation and human resource management The evidence-led nature of the book will make it an important and useful read for students and academics involved in labour economics, industrial economics and industrial policy. The controversial findings of many of the chapters and its readable style will also appeal to informed policy commentators as well as policy-makers themselves.

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held to assess the current state of the analysis of the labour market and of industrial relations and their relationship to economic performance.

This working paper deals with the effects of collective bargaining and other forms of collective employee representation (such as works councils) on employment and unemployment. Collective bargaining is concerned with both substantive issues, such as rates of pay or weeks of notice to be given before lay-off, and procedural matters in which management and employee representatives jointly manage important areas of employee relations thereby contributing to workplace co-operation. Whereas many substantive rules can be said to cause lower levels of employment and enterprise efficiency, procedural rules by reducing transaction costs, improve co-operation and thus, indirectly, help jobs. The paper starts by examining some substantive rules and the evidence for their effects on employment in OECD countries. It then looks at some of the compensating flexibilities which are introduced by procedural rules. These may be dependent on substantive rules: for example, employment security may be a ...

There is a general consensus that deep-seated changes are reshaping the way production and work are organized, the way employees, employers and their representatives deal with each other, and the way governments seek to shape society. In this work a group of leading scholars take stock of the evidence and implications of the new workplace. Drawing on examples from a variety of national contexts, they seek to characterize the nature of contemporary workplace change, and assess its implications for the organization of work for workers, for employment relations and for public policy.

There is a growing consensus among academics and policy-makers that most industrialized economies are increasingly becoming "knowledge-based." Knowledge, both as an input and an output, is seen a key source of long-term growth and job creation. The study examines the relationship between structural change and the employment performance of the Canadian economy over the period 1971 to 1991, using Statistics Canada's input/output model. Though largely based on previous work by the OECD (1992), the study employs more timely data and a finer industrial disaggregation (111 industries as opposed to 33), and explores more closely the employment implications of the emergence of the knowledge- based economy.

From a post-war assumption that full employment could be maintained through demand management techniques, we now live in an entirely different world. The contributors to this volume consider whether full employment is possible or affordable.

Over the last fifteen years, the deregulation of Britain's labour market has led to economic growth, employment opportunities, and a more diverse workforce: the 'fat years'. However, now as Britain faces its lean years with job cuts, rising unemployment, income insecurity, and related social strains, how can and should the government and key labour market policy makers ensure the labour market provides job opportunities and reasonable levels of social justice? The fundamental changes that have occurred in labour market institutions mean that 'solutions' of previous decades no longer work. This volume sets out to address the major challenges faced: - Unemployment, immigration, housing and job subsidies - Key institutional changes, such as the decline of collective regulation and the rise of occupational licensing - Pay inequality and minimum wages - Pay and subsidies in the private and public sector Contributions from leading experts in the field employ the latest theory and empirical research to examine a different set of problems and the policies that could help to resolve them.