IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10310.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Economic Future of Europe

Author

Listed:
  • 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 higher in Europe than in the United States. Productivity levels are roughly similar in the European Union and in the United States today. The main difference is that Europe has used some of the increase in productivity to increase leisure rather than income, while the U.S. has done the opposite. Turning to the present, a deep and wide ranging reform process is taking place. This reform 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 will eventually take place, but not overnight and not without political tensions. These tensions have dominated and will continue to dominate the news; but they are a symptom of change, not a reflection of immobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Blanchard, 2004. "The Economic Future of Europe," NBER Working Papers 10310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10310
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10310.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans Gersbach, 2004. "Structural Reforms and the Macroeconomy: The Role of General Equilibrium Effects," International Economic Association Series, in: Robert M. Solow (ed.), Structural Reform and Economic Policy, chapter 2, pages 9-22, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 1-33, March.
    3. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2003. "Macroeconomic Effects of Regulation and Deregulation in Goods and Labor Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(3), pages 879-907.
    4. Stephen Nickell, 2003. "Employment and Taxes," CESifo Working Paper Series 1109, CESifo.
    5. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 2004. "The European Union: A Politically Incorrect View," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    7. Olivier Boylaud, 2000. "Regulatory Reform in Road Freight and Retail Distribution," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 255, OECD Publishing.
    8. Isabelle Joumard, 2003. "Tax systems in European Union countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2002(1), pages 91-151.
    9. Giavazzi, Francesco & Danthine, Jean-Pierre & von Thadden, Ernst-Ludwig, 2000. "European Financial Markets After EMU: A First Assessment," CEPR Discussion Papers 2413, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Does Entry Regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence from the French Retail Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1369-1413.
    11. Monique Ebell & Christian Haefke, 2002. "Product Market Deregulation and Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers 02.08, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    12. Siebert, Horst, 2003. "Why Germany has such a weak growth performance," Kiel Working Papers 1182, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. 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.
    14. Gordon, Robert J., 2004. "Two Centuries of Economic Growth: Europe Chasing the American Frontier," CEPR Discussion Papers 4415, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Sébastien Jean & Giuseppe Nicoletti, 2015. "Product market regulation and wage premia in Europe and North America: An empirical investigation," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 144, pages 1-28.
    16. Spector, David, 2004. "Competition and the capital-labor conflict," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 25-38, February.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    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. 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.
    21. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eijffinger, S.C.W. & Rossi, A., 2006. "Structural Reforms and Growth : Product and Labor Market Deregulations," Discussion Paper 2006-112, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    2. Jo Seldeslachts, 2008. "Synchronising Deregulation In Product And Labour Markets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(5), pages 591-617, November.
    3. Adriana D. Kugler & Giovanni Pica, 2006. "The Effects of Employment Protection and Product Market Regulations on the Italian Labour Market," Chapters, in: Julián Messina & Claudio Michelacci & Jarkko Turunen & Gylfi Zoega (ed.), Labour Market Adjustments in Europe, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Giuseppe Nicoletti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2005. "Regulation And Investment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 791-825, June.
    5. Joanna Tyrowicz, 2009. "When Eastern Labour Markets Enter Western Europe CEECs. Labour Market Institutions upon Euro Zone Accession," Working Papers 2009-03, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    6. Bokan, Nikola & Hughes Hallett, Andrew, 2008. "The Impact of Tax and Market Distortions on the Phillips Curve and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-28.
    7. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2003. "The effects of employment protection and product market regulations on the Italian labor market," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0310, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    8. Zhiqi Chen & Bo Zhao, 2014. "Unemployment and product market competition in a Cournot model with efficiency wages," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(2), pages 555-579, May.
    9. Johannes Hörner & L. Rachel Ngai & Claudia Olivetti, 2007. "Public Enterprises And Labor Market Performance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(2), pages 363-384, May.
    10. Piton Céline & Rycx François, 2019. "Unemployment Impact of Product and Labor Market Regulation: Evidence from European Countries," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, June.
    11. Monique Ebell & Christian Haefke, 2009. "Product Market Deregulation and the U.S. Employment Miracle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 479-504, July.
    12. Monique Ebell & Christian Haefke, 2002. "Product Market Deregulation and Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers 02.08, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    13. Davis, Steven J. & Henrekson, Magnus, 2004. "Tax Effects on Work Activity, Industry Mix and Shadow Economy Size: Evidence from Rich-Country Comparisons," Ratio Working Papers 57, The Ratio Institute.
    14. Helge Berger & Stephan Danninger, 2007. "The Employment Effects of Labor and Product Market Deregulation and Their Implications for Structural Reform," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 591-619, July.
    15. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries," Post-Print halshs-00120584, HAL.
    16. Céline Piton, 2018. "The unemployment impact of product and labour market regulation: Evidence from European countries," Working Paper Research 343, National Bank of Belgium.
    17. Horst Feldmann, 2012. "Product Market Regulation and Labor Market Performance around the World," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 26(3), pages 369-391, September.
    18. Kauppi, Heikki & Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2004. "Equilibrium unemployment and investment under product and labour market imperfections," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 11/2004, Bank of Finland.
    19. Janiak, Alexandre, 2013. "Structural unemployment and the costs of firm entry and exit," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 1-19.
    20. Horst Feldmann, 2008. "Business regulation and labor market performance around the world," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 201-235, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:10310. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.