The global financial crisis has changed finance and the global economy forever. The debate over its causes and consequences has only just begun. This book brings together VoxEU.org columns written during the height of the storm from June to December 2008, offering a glimpse of history in the...

This book brings together the views and predictions of leading economists published on VoxEU.org months before the developments of late 2008 in a volume that holds its own against the events that followed.

This paper presents information on wage bargaining institutions, collected using a standardised questionnaire. Our data provide information from 1995 and 2006, for four sectors of activity and the aggregate economy, considering 23 European countries, plus the US and Japan. Main findings include...

Inflation can “grease” the wheels of economic adjustment in the labor market by relieving the constraint imposed by downward nominal wage rigidity, but not if there is also substantial downward real wage rigidity. At the same time, inflation can throw “sand” in the wheels of economic...

This paper considers salary determination and the gender salary gap in the academic labour market utilizing a particularly detailed data set of academics from five old established Universities. Results reveal an aggregate gender salary differential for academic staff of 15%. Most of this...

In samples of employees from two firms, women are segregated in low-pay occupations and therefore receive lower returns on their (similar) educational qualifications than men. In the primary-sector, capital-intensive, unionized firm, all wages are much higher. In the secondary-sector firm,...

Previous studies of job satisfaction in the labour force as a whole have found that women generally express themselves as more satisfied at work than men. This paper examines the relationship between age and individual job satisfaction using a uniquely detailed dataset on Scottish academics. The...

In samples of employees from two firms, women are segregated in low-pay occupations and therefore receive lower returns on their (similar) educational qualifications than men. In the primary-sector, capital intensive, unionised firm, all wages are much higher. In the secondary-sector firm,...

There has been a revolution in telecommunications technologies in recent years. New technologies with myriad applications have helped transform markets, industrial structures and the organisation of firms throughout the economy. These changes have had important spatial effects which are the...