Labour Economics in an European Perspective

Unipi Team Leader: Lorenzo Corsini, Department of Economics and Management

Labour markets (LMs) are a crucial part of all societies: their outcomes affect the workers, the economy and whole society. Key issues like wages, productivity, employment, well-being and social exclusion emerge as a consequence of labour outcomes. Moreover, LMs affect mobility and migration. The importance of LMs has been greatly acknowledged within the European integration process: in the Treaty of European Union several references to this are made. Among the stated aim there are reaching high level of employment, social protection and fighting social exclusion. Other key aspects in the Treaty are the coordination of employment policies and freedom of movement for workers.The working of LMs depends on institutions that regulate it (e.g. wage bargaining or labour policies) and it is important to compare the institutions across-countries and to analyse how, within the EU, these institutions are, or should be, directly coordinated at the Union level.The aim of this module is to develop and disseminate the discipline of Labour Economics in a perspective that highlights how the topics studied should be applied in a context of a union of states in general and of the EU in particular. We will focus on how labour policies and institutions affect the economy and on how they should be coordinated to promote European integration.We will promote develop knowledge on labour economics on three lines: how LMs work, how country-specific LMs work (using a comparative perspective) and how the LMs and labour institutions are or should coordinated to move toward European integration.Some aspects that are particularly relevant for European union will receive great emphasis: labour polices; workers mobility and migration; productivity, income and social exclusion; industrial relations and their consequences on workers and on the production sector. All these aspects are very important in the education of future European citizens, workers, economists, politicians and decision-maker.

Start date: 01-09-2017

End date: 31-08-2021

EU Grant: 25.009,2 €

Project website: https://labourecoeu.ec.unipi.it