European Social Models From Crisis to Crisis : Employment and Inequality in the Era of Monetary Integration

Europeans use 'social models' to refer to the combination of welfare state, industrial relations, and educational institutions jointly structuring what we can think of as the supply-side of the labor market. The dominant view in controversy over the social models has been that in the name of equity they have impaired the labor market's efficiency, thereby causing unemployment. But doubt is cast on this supply-side-only diagnosis by powerful macroeconomic developments, from the Europe-wide recession following Germany's post-unification boom to the deepest economic crisis since the interwar Great Depression, which the Eurozone's truncated economic governance structure transformed into a sovereign debt crisis, threatening the Euro's and even EU's very survival. This book explores the interaction of Europe's diverse social models with the major developments that shaped their macroeconomic environment over the quarter century since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It concludes that this environment rather than the social models are primarily responsible for the immense social costs of the crisis.

1: Introduction, Jon Erik Dølvik and Andrew Martin 2: Eurozone Economic Governance: "A Currency Without a Country", Andrew Martin 3: The Transformation of the German Model, Wendy Carlin, Anke Hassel, Andrew Martin and David Soskice 4: France in the Middle, Jacques le Cacheux and George Ross 5: The United Kingdom's Social Model: From Labour's New Deal to the Economic Crisis and the Coalition, Ken Mayhew and Mark Wickham-Jones 6: The Evolution and Crises of the Social Models in Italy and Spain, Sofia Pérez and Martin Rhodes 7: The Liberal Road to High Employment and Low Inequality? The Dutch and Swiss Social Models in the Crisis, Alexandre Afonso and Jelle Visser 8: The Nordic Social Models in Turbulent times: Consolidation and Flexible Adaptation, Jon Erik Dølvik, Jørgen Goul Andersen, and Juhana Vartiainen 9: Redistribution and the Power of the Advanced Nation State: Government Responses to Rising Inequality, Torben Iversen and David Soskice 10: When Institutions Reciprocate: Turning European Social Models Around, Erling Barth and Karl Ove Moene 11: From Crisis to Crisis: European Social Models and Labor Market Outcomes in the Era of Monetary Integration, Jon Erik Dølvik and Andrew Martin 12: Conclusion, Andrew Martin and Jon Erik Dølvik