The majority of the Member States of the European Union have undertaken remarkably comprehensive welfare and labor market reforms in the years since the 1990s. Many of these reforms, however, have not followed the conventional retrenchment and deregulation recipes, but rather took a liking to...

The economic crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic leads to a substantial potential loss of personal incomes and jobs. European countries have given different answers to the rising challenge, which nevertheless point to the same direction. We give three examples of such courses of action,...

The year 2003 has witnessed several major reform policy initiatives in Germany intended to contribute to a solution to Germany's high unemployment problem and to improve the long-run sustainability of its social welfare policies. These economic reforms are discussed within a larger macroeconomic...

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has a severe impact on societies, economies and labor markets. However, not all countries, socio-economic groups and sectors within all countries are equally affected. Part of this difference can be related to the different role and extent of short-time work,...