Europe / Single Currency and Labour Markets

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This paper addresses aspects of the interaction between labour market institutions and the process of Economic and Monetary Union in Europe. With special attention to the geographic dimensions of labour market rigidity, it reviews the nature and possible motivation of institutions which limit both wage and employment flexibility in Europe. As a fully integrated economic area, the European Union is, in many ways, comparable to the United States, though institutionally compressed regional wage differentials and limited labour mobility within each European country contrast sharply with U.S. labour market patterns. In the aftermath of EMU, European labour markets will need to be different from their own past selves, but may also find it politically difficult to come close to their American counterparts.

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