The enlargement of the European Union has increased concerns about the role of generous welfare transfers in attracting migrants. This paper explores the issue of welfare migration across the 15 countries of the pre-enlargement Union and finds a significant but small effect of the generosity of...

The UK was one of only three countries to allow migrants from accession countries to enter their labour markets more or less without restriction following EU enlargement in May 2004. Therefore, it is important to establish the characteristics and labour market performance of migrants from these...

The European Employment Strategy has set the goal of raising the retirement age of workers in the EU through a strategy of "active ageing". Yet despite some progress over the last decade, empirical data show persistent diversity across EU member states. Institutional arrangements of social and...

The paper takes a comparative perspective on the labour market impact on G20 and EU countries of the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. It starts from the observation that the decline in employment and rise in unemployment in relation to output or GDP reductions varies...

This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed...

In contrast to the recently decreasing unemployment rates in the EU, long-term unemployment remains at alarming levels. An economic recovery will not be sufficient to get all long-term unemployed back to work; rather, there is a need for effective policies addressing the long-term unemployed. To...

This paper provides an overview of the employment situation of young and old workers in the EU Member States, setting out the most recent development during the crisis and dealing with policies implemented to promote the employment of both groups. The evidence collected shows that there is no...

This paper examines UK migration policy and recent migration flows from Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to the UK. Although inflows of migrant workers were relatively large in the mid-2000s, especially amongst Ukrainians, these have fallen following changes to UK immigration policy,...

This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995...

Labor market segmentation refers to a salient divide between secure and insecure jobs and is related to problems in important areas, including macro‐economic efficiency, workers' wellbeing and repercussions for social cohesion. European countries have started a new wave of labor market reforms...