Seminar: On the sources of slow wage growth on both sides of the Atlantic

Wage growth has been sluggish in both the US and EU over the past six years. This initially looked like a ripple effect of the Great Recession and part of a cyclical adjustment of labor markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Now, however, lackluster wage growth continues in spite of very tight labor markets in many countries. This suggests that we are seeing a slow rate of trend wage growth in both the EU and the US. In this presentation, we briefly review the potential cyclical adjustments that might still affect wage growth in some countries. We then provide a framework to think about trend wage growth in terms of (i) inflation, (ii) relative price movements, (iii) productivity growth, and (iv) changes in labor shares (real unit labor costs). We use this framework to review the literature on each of these drivers of wage growth and discuss common factors that might subdue wage growth on both sides of the Atlantic.

IPEPS Final Conference: What education and jobs for the next generation of students?

For three years running, CEPS has organised the Integrated Programme in European Policy Studies (IPEPS), as a complement to master’s degree programmes in universities across Europe. Thanks to financial support from the Erasmus+ programme, IPEPS has increased the understanding among European students of real-life policy issues facing EU leaders, built valuable networks of students from many different backgrounds and improved their understanding of the internal and external workings of the EU. Based on a partnership with nine universities across the EU, IPEPS has also taken up the challenge of using innovative learning methods to foster teamwork, dialogue and constructive exchange of ideas.

How to educate future generations and equip them with the knowledge and skills required to perform the jobs of tomorrow? What are the implications of the digitalisation of the labour market for industrial business models? What can the EU do to help the new generation of students to become better integrated into the labour market? Please join us at the IPEPS Final Conference on July 4th to explore these and other important questions.

Digitized Labor: the Impact of the Internet on Employment

Book Presentation:

“Digitized Labor: the Impact of the  Internet on Employment” by Lorenzo Pupillo, Eli Noam and Len Waverman

This book provides new evidence for the Impact of the Internet on jobs. All of the empirical articles indicate that the Internet has indeed created many new jobs, but that a large number of jobs may have been destroyed or downgraded, at least in the short run. Furthermore, routinization, job market polarisation and new labour market inequalities have emerged. Thus, while the diffusion of the Internet is generating opportunities it also comes with ambiguous trends that by themselves will not generate a more resilient and inclusive labour market. These changes cannot be dealt with as business-as-usual by governments and the private sector. Failing to mitigate short-term job losses risks pushbacks and restrictive policy responses that threaten to slow down the ICT Revolution.

Discussion: The entrepreneurial capacity of knowledge driven institutions for improving the competitiveness of regions

Introduction by Ludovit Garzik

Many economies invest heavily into their education and research ecosystem. In order to keep these investments the regional innovation system has to transform the knowledge into economic models to design products and services that have in the end macro-economic impacts and create the money that can be furthermore invested into new knowledge. Following the stream of money pouring in the knowledge ecosystem we should be able to find the best spots where to bridge the gaps to innovation: Universities, research institutions, as well as industry. Human capital working in these institutions seems not to be motivated to implement their knowledge. One of the key findings is that the majority stream of human capital getting available each year flows into career models that are risk averse and do not call for transforming the knowledge into innovation. The impetus for that development is to be found in the cultural framework of the respective ecosystem. The hypothesis is that the mindset of the management of the respective knowledge driven institutions plays a major role. Entrepreneurial spirit is inherited and transferred top-down and is therefore a major driver of the capacity of those institutions for improving competitiveness of regions.

Ludovit Garzik is Managing Director of the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development (RFTE). Prior to this position, he worked for the Managing Board of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency and served as Head of Galileo Unit at the Austrian Space Agency. He holds a PhD from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, an MBA from the Danube University Krems, and a Master of Science in Geodesy from the Technical University of Vienna. Ludovit Garzik is Guest Professor in Shanghai University. In 2015, he founded the company InnovationOrbit.com, which provides Executive Education programs for Innovation Culture in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA.

Seminar: An Up-to-Date Joint Labor Supply and Child Care Choice Model

Norwegian parents of preschool children make their care choices from a completely different choice set compared to what their predecessor did. Now, there is essentially only one type of nonparental care, center-based care, and at the parental side fathers take a more pivotal role in the early childhood care. In the present paper we develop and estimate a joint labor supply and child care choice model that accounts for these new characteristics, assuming that this model points to current and future modeling directions for several other economies too. Estimations suggest that the average wage elasticity for mothers is 0.25–0.30.

The Broken Housing Market Conference

A joint NIESR/RICS/CaCHE/CFM conference 

This free one-day conference will bring together leading academics, policymakers and practitioners to discuss what is “broken” about the UK housing market and how we might go about fixing it. The event will take place at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Westminster, SW1P 3AA.