This book studies the interaction between labour and social policies, showing the crucial role labour plays in both the scope and the speed of transition. By including the influence of education systems, institution-building, and policy-enforcement mechanisms, this book goes beyond previous studies of the transition experience to provide a detailed analysis of the many contributing factors to the success or failure of the transition process.

This study provides a comprehensive overview of Korea’s macroeconomic growth and structural change since World War II, and traces some of the roots of development to the colonial period. The authors explore in detail colonial development, changing national income patterns, relative price shifts, sources of aggregate growth, and sources of sectoral structural change, comparing them with other countries.

Going for Growth is the OECD’s annual report highlighting developments in structural policies in OECD countries. It identifies structural reform priorities to boost real income for each OECD country and key emerging economies.

This book examines, theoretically and empirically, the key aspects and differences of economic growth. It provides a comprehensive investigation of the numerous features of development in transition countries, covering the last two decades, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the current financial crisis.

The integration of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe into the EU is one of the success stories of European development. The region has seen significant economic convergence, dramatic changes in socio-economic indicators and improvements in the natural environment. However, some challenges remain, such as political divergence, public governance issues and population demographics. This book identifies and analyses the key post-1990 developments across the New Member States at the sub-national and national levels, with frequent country-level and regional comparisons. Careful attention is paid to drawing out commonalities in development trajectories while appreciating each country’s unique context. Drawing on the academic literature and illuminating empirical material, the broad range of topics discussed in the book paints a detailed picture of both change and stability in Central and Eastern Europe. It will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers in regional studies, European studies, human geography, political economy and transition economics.

This study, on the role of flexibility and security on labour market performance, argues that flexicurity is the most relevant approach for Central and Eastern European countries. The book follows the pattern of analysis used in "Labour markets in transition", a previous monograph by the authors, and re-examines the different dimensions of flexibility, including flexible forms of employment. It studies fluctuations of labour turnover over the economic cycle. Then it review changes in the regulatory provisions, collective bargaining, labour taxation and labour market policies and their impacts on key labour market indicators for the period 1999-2003 as compared with the end of the 1990s. Through a series of national case studies, the volume examines how the countries of Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland have attempted to balance labour market flexibility and security since the late 1990s. A discussion on wage flexibility is also included. The search for abetter combination of flexibility and security has been a major challenge within the European Union and it is often seen as indispensable for improving competitiveness and at the same time maintaining the European social model. This book looks into how this can be achieved through the flexicurity approach and shows how "activation" of labour market policies and social dialogue can be the keys to success.