Download or read book Labor Market Issues in Belgium written by Mr.Reza Moghadam and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1993-04-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The characteristics of the Belgian labor market are examined using international comparisons in order to assess the government’s recent labor market initiatives. The labor market in Belgium is found to suffer from a number of structural problems compared to other industrial countries: the non-employment rate is very high, there are large regional disparities in unemployment, female and youth unemployment are prevalent and there is an unusually pronounced incidence of long-term unemployment. The causes of these problems are investigated. The empirical results, using cross section data from 15 industrial countries, show that the generosity of long-term unemployment benefits helps to explain the prevalence of long-term unemployment. Unemployment compensation also appears to be paid to many who are not actively seeking work. The recent labor market initiatives in Belgium will help to ameliorate some of the underlying problems but they are unlikely to completely address the underlying structural problems.
Download or read book Belgium written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2002-03-13 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Selected Issues paper analyzes the regional labor markets for Belgium. The paper examines labor market performance, and argues that a number of factors—poor worker-job matching, a compressed wage structure, and low geographical mobility—contribute to economic disparities. The paper describes the divergences in local labor markets, and offers potential explanations for them, including an analysis of variations in the relationship between regional unemployment rates and regional vacancy rates. The paper also describes how labor markets adjust in Belgium and in its two main regions.
Download or read book Belgium written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2004-02-27 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Belgium has effected a remarkable fiscal adjustment, best illustrated by the decline in its public debt. While benefiting from an appreciable decline in interest rates, most of the underlying consolidation reflected a considerable increase in the tax burden, one of the highest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. This paper analyzes the social transfer system in Belgium. Belgium has a very accessible and equitable health care system. The system is characterized by high input levels and service volumes.
Download or read book Belgium written by International Monetary Fund. European Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses two key issues of the Belgian economy: (1) making public expenditure more efficient and (2) addressing the Belgian labor market-segmentations and distortions. Belgium faces fiscal challenges that call for a substantial consolidation over the medium term. The sizable expenditure reduction contemplated by the authorities will be difficult without deeper structural reforms. Reforms that improve the efficiency of public spending can help underpin fiscal adjustment while minimizing the drag on growth and protect social cohesion. The Belgian labor market suffers from rigidities and fragmentation. The design of policies to increase employment rates among these vulnerable labor market segments requires a thorough reflection of symptoms and underlying causes.
Download or read book Regional Labor Market Disparities in Belgium written by Marcello M. Estevão and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2002-08 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regional labor market discrepancies have been widening in Belgium in the last two decades and are more evident within particular demographic groups. These developments can largely be accounted for by worse matching of people to jobs in the high-unemployment provinces. Using a structural VAR, it is also shown that labor market dynamics in Belgium produce a strong attenuating effect on employment growth, in contrast to the United States where initial labor demand shocks are expanded in the long run. After the short-run adjustment is over, there is less labor migration in Belgium than in the United States or Europe, corroborating the perception that Belgians move "too little."
Download or read book Belgium written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Selected Issues Paper on Belgium provides an overview of the extent of trade and financial openness of Belgium and the links to particular countries. With an export-to-GDP ratio of 79 percent, Belgium belongs to the most open economies in Europe and also globally. Its exports are highly concentrated with a share of three-fourths of total merchandise exports accounted for by the European Union, of which close to two-thirds go to Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
Download or read book Unemployment Hysteresis Wage Determination and Labor Market Flexibility written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1994-12-01 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the potential contribution of unemployment hysteresis theories to the understanding of the Belgian labor market. It estimates models of wage determination using aggregate and firm-level panel data. Two main conclusions emerge: (i) the long-term unemployed do not exert a negative impact on wages; and (ii) there is some evidence that the incumbent workers, the “insiders,” exercise market power in wage determination, taking greater account of their own interests than those of the unemployed “outsiders.” In addition, it is argued that the automatic indexation of wages to prices in Belgium can cause a downward rigidity in real wages, given the multi-tier real wage bargaining process. Recent initiatives, including the introduction of a competitiveness norm for indexation, and labor market programs aimed at the long-term unemployed and the young, such as the plan d’accompagnement and the plan d’embauche des jeunes, are appropriate in view of the existence of insider power in wage determination.
Download or read book Belgium Selected Issues written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unemployment Hysteresis Wage Determination and Labor Market Flexibility written by Reza Moghadam and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World written by Courtney Coile and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the two decades since the project began, the dramatic decline in men's labor force participation has ended and been replaced by sharply rising participation rates. Older women's participation has been rising as well. In this eighth phase of the project, we explore this phenomenon of working longer. We document trends in participation and employment and also consider factors that may help to explain these changes in behavior. We conclude that social security reforms as well as other factors such as the movement of women into the labor force have likely played an important role.
Download or read book A Matter of Time written by Jens Bastian and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses work sharing as a redistributive labour market strategy designed to achieve a more equal distribution of employment. Focuses on policy making and the role of labour market institutions such as collective bargaining and the legal context of industrial relations. Covers the period 1975-1994. Countries are treated separately.
Download or read book Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World written by Axel Börsch-Supan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ninth phase of the International Social Security project, which studies the experiences of twelve developed countries, examines the effects of public pension reform on employment at older ages. In the past two decades, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased, reversing a long-term pattern of decline; participation rates for older women have increased dramatically as well. While better health, more education, and changes in labor-supply behavior of married couples may have affected this trend, these factors alone cannot explain the magnitude of the employment increase or its large variation across countries. The studies in this volume explore how financial incentives to work at older ages have evolved as a result of public pension reforms since 1980 and how these changes have affected retirement behavior. Utilizing a common template to analyze the developments across countries, the findings suggest that social security reforms have strengthened the financial returns to working at older ages and that these enhanced financial incentives have contributed to the rise in late-life employment.
Download or read book Job Security in America written by Katharine G. Abraham and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the onset of the recession in 1990, job security has moved to the forefront of labor market concerns in the United States. During economic downturns, American employers rely heavily on layoffs to cut their work force, much more than do their counterparts in other industrialized nations. The hardships imposed by these layoffs have led many to ask whether U.S. workers can be offered more secure employment without burdening the companies that employ them. In this book, Katharine Abraham and Susan Houseman address this question by comparing labor adjustment practices in the United States, where existing policies arguably encourage layoffs, with those in Germany, a country with much stronger job protection for workers. From their assessment of the German experience, the authors recommend new public policies that promote alternatives to layoffs and help reduce unemployment. Beginning with an overview of the labor markets in Germany and the United States, Abraham and Houseman emphasize the interaction of various government policies. Stronger job security in Germany has been accompanied by an unemployment insurance system that facilitates short-time work as a substitute for layoffs. In the United States, however, the unemployment insurance system has encouraged layoffs and discouraged the use of work-sharing schemes. The authors examine the effects of job security on the efficiency and equity of labor market adjustment and review trends in U.S. policy. Finally, the authors recommend reforms of the U.S. unemployment insurance system that include stronger experience rating and an expansion of short-time compensation program. They also point to the critical link between job security and the system of worker training in Germany and advocate policies that would encourage more training by U.S. companies.
Download or read book Belgium Selected Issues written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-09-05 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
