Advanced Search

The Economic Future of Europe

Contents:

Author Info

  • Olivier Blanchard

Abstract

After three years of near stagnation, the mood in Europe is definitely gloomy. Many doubt that the European model has a future. In this paper, I argue that things are not so bad, and there is room for optimism. Over the last thirty years, productivity growth has been much faster in Europe than in the United States. Productivity levels are roughly similar today in the European Union and in the United States. The main difference is that Europe has used some of the increase in productivity to increase leisure rather than income, while the United States has done the opposite. Still not everything is well. Unemployment is still high, and Europe suffers from inefficient regulation. Here also however, there is more action than often perceived, and a wide ranging reform process is taking place. This process is driven by reforms in financial and product markets. Reforms in those markets are in turn putting pressure for reform in the labor market. Reform in the labor market is slowly taking place, but not without political tensions. These tensions dominate the news; but they are a symptom of change, not a reflection of immobility.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/contents/Fall2004.html
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Volume (Year): 18 (2004)
Issue (Month): 4 (Fall)
Pages: 3-26
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:18:y:2004:i:4:p:3-26

Contact details of provider:
Email:
Web page: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Web: http://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Jane Voros) or (Michael P. Albert).

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 2004. "The European Union: A Politically Incorrect View," NBER Working Papers 10342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Jul, pages 2-13.
  3. Sapir, Andre & Aghion, Philippe & Bertola, Giuseppe & Hellwig, Martin & Pisani-Ferry, Jean & Rosati, Dariusz & Vinals, Jose & Wallace, Helen, 2004. "An Agenda for a Growing Europe: The Sapir Report," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199271498, December.
  4. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1993. "On the Political Economy of Labor Market Flexibility," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 151-196 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Gersbach, Hans, 2003. "Structural Reforms and the Macroeconomy: The Role of General Equilibrium Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 4043, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Isabelle Joumard, 2002. "Tax systems in European Union countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2002(1), pages 4.
  7. Stephen Nickell, 2004. "Employment and Taxes," CEP Discussion Papers dp0634, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  8. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2003. "Macroeconomic Effects Of Regulation And Deregulation In Goods And Labor Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(3), pages 879-907, August.
  9. Monique Ebell & Christian Haefke, 2002. "Product market deregulation and labor market outcomes," Economics Working Papers 726, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 2003.
  10. Robert J. Gordon, 2004. "Two Centuries of Economic Growth: Europe Chasing the American Frontier," NBER Working Papers 10662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Giuseppe Nicoletti & Stefano Scarpetta & Olivier Boylaud, 2000. "Summary Indicators of Product Market Regulation with an Extension to Employment Protection Legislation," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 226, OECD Publishing.
  12. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald & Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2003. "The Case of the Missing Productivity Growth: Or, Does Information Technology Explain why Productivity Accelerated in the US but not the UK?," NBER Working Papers 10010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Sébastien Jean & Giuseppe Nicoletti, 2002. "Product Market Regulation and Wage Premia in Europe and North America: An Empirical Investigation," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 318, OECD Publishing.
  14. Olivier Boylaud, 2000. "Regulatory Reform in Road Freight and Retail Distribution," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 255, OECD Publishing.
  15. Jean-Pierre DANTHINE & Francesco GIAVAZZI & Ernst-Ludwig VON THADDEN, 2000. "European Financial Markets After EMU: A First Assessment," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 00.03, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP, revised May 2000.
  16. Spector, David, 2004. "Competition and the capital-labor conflict," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 25-38, February.
  17. Marianne Bertrand & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Does Entry Regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence From The French Retail Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1369-1413, November.
  18. Giuseppe Nicoletti & Andrea Bassanini & Ekkehard Ernst & Sébastien Jean & Paulo Santiago & Paul Swaim, 2001. "Product and Labour Markets Interactions in OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 312, OECD Publishing.
  19. C.J. Krizan & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2002. "The Link Between Aggregate and Micro Productivity Growth: Evidence from Retail Trade," Working Papers 02-18, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  20. Horst Siebert, 2003. "Why Germany Has Such a Weak Growth Performance," Kiel Working Papers 1182, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:18:y:2004:i:4:p:3-26

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros) or (Michael P. Albert).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.