In most European countries, the prevailing terms of employment, including the nominal wage, can only be changed by mutual consent. I show that this feature implies that workers have a strategic advantage in the wage negotiations when they try to prevent a cut in nominal wages. If inflation is so low that some nominal wages have to be cut, the strategic advantage of the workers' induces higher unemployment in equilibrium. The upshot is a long run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment for low levels of inflation. The prediction that low inflation involves higher unemployment in Europe but not in the US, is consistent with previous empirical findings.

By an international forum of contributors, this is the result of a conference organized by the Department of Economics of the University of Limburg and the European Production Study Group. All aspects of labour market research were discussed relating them to the unemployment situation in Europe.

Recoge: 1. Introduction. - 2. Wage and unit labour cost developments. - 3. Phillips curve estimates. - 4. The cyclical responsiveness of relative compettitive positions in the euro area. - 5. Concluding remarks.

This book brings together up-to-date findings on the regional dimensions of European labour markets. It provides a conceptual and empirical study of the interactions between the European economy and its regions, paying particular attention to the issue of the transition of Central and Eastern European countries to a market economy. The topics analysed include: the structure of the shocks affecting employment (regional, industrial, national), the relationships between labour market efficiency and the regional distribution of unemployment, wage flexibility in EU member countries or in their regions and the role of active labour market policies in affecting the regional distribution of employment and unemployment.

. . . the book is an interesting contribution to the literature on labour market practices in Europe. The important statistics and analysis conducted by the authors in the book have important implications for scholars in the international entrepreneurship field wanting to know more about the diverse labour practices in Europe. Vanessa Ratten, Journal of International Entrepreneurship It is now widely accepted that expansionary fiscal or monetary policies alone are unlikely to help Europe s ailing economies. Solving Europe s economic problems requires reform of the economic institutions that influence economic activity and the way the economy responds to macroeconomic shocks. This volume employs novel approaches to the study of some of these institutions. The group of contributors in this book come from academia and international organizations in Europe and the USA. They focus on trade unions, which affect real-wage flexibility and the provision of training to workers. They also concentrate on employment protection legislation, which discourages firms from firing old workers and also from hiring new ones. The structure of housing market imperfections that can greatly affect regional mobility is also discussed. Labour economists and scholars of European studies, as well as economic policymakers, will read Labour Market Adjustments in Europe with great interest.