IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/euf/ecopap/0346.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Adjustment capacity of labour markets of the Western Balkan countries

Author

Listed:
  • DG ECFIN
  • Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies

Abstract

Study on the adjustment capacity to shocks of EU candidate and potential candidate countries of the Western Balkans, with a focus on labour markets, and background studies on several countries of the region. The main question addressed in this study is the performance of the labour markets in the Western Balkans; to find out whether they can deliver growth of employment and decline of unemployment in the medium run and whether they can withstand short-term shocks due to changes in demand or supply. The study finds that there is an important case for improving the rule of law and the quality of public services in general in the fight against very low participation and employment rates in the region, as well as very high unemployment. Wages, with some exceptions in specific sectors, do not seem to be mis-aligned with respect to productivity developments. There is some indication of possible positive effects from adjusting employment protection legislation, especially for women. The study also identifies an important role for income policies in some of the countries as an important complement to labour market policies.

Suggested Citation

  • DG ECFIN & Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, 2008. "Adjustment capacity of labour markets of the Western Balkan countries," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 346, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    • Handle: RePEc:euf:ecopap:0346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/pages/publication13368_en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vasily Astrov & Edward Christie & Doris Hanzl-Weiss & Mario Holzner & Sebastian Leitner & Waltraut Urban & Hermine Vidovic, 2011. "Western Balkans: Employment in the Gas and Electricity Sectors," wiiw Research Reports 370, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    2. Valerija Botric, 2011. "Structural Unemployment And Its Determinants In Southeast Europe," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 20(1), pages 81-100, june.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adjustment capacity; external shocks; Western Balkan countries; South-East Europe; labour markets; EU candidate countries; potential candidate countries; employment protection legislation; rule of law; wages; productivity; taxwedge; remittances; migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • F24 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Remittances

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:euf:ecopap:0346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ECFIN INFO (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dg2ecbe.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.