Assessing the Social and Macroeconomic Impacts of the High-Skill Labour Market Integration: The European Qualifications Framework

In the age of the knowledge economy and globalisation, the skill mobility is perceived as one of the key factors for fully unlocking the human capital potential. The European Qualifications Framework (EQF) aims at increasing the workers' and learners' mobility among the EU Member States by making national qualifications readable across the EU. The present study analyses the impact of the EQF on education, skills, migration and the economic growth by performing a conceptual analysis and numerical simulations of the high-skill market integration through the EQF with a newly developed macroeconomic model of the European Commission. Whereas education is the main driver of the upward skill mobility, migration drives the spatial skill mobility. Our results suggest that the EQF would facilitate the high-skill labour market integration, which in turn would generate significant welfare gains for the EU. Both the social and macroeconomic effects of the EQF are positive at the aggregate level. However, their distribution across different Member States, regions, economic sectors and skill levels is differentiated. Hence, accompanying policy measures may be required to ensure an inclusive growth arising from the high-skill market integration.