Services and Employment: Explaining the U.S.-European Gap

(Hardback)

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Why is Europe's employment rate almost 10 percent lower than that of the United States This "jobs gap" has typically been blamed on the rigidity of European labor markets. But in Services and Employment, an international group of leading labor economists suggests quite a different explanation. Drawing on the findings of a two-year research project that examined data from France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, these economists argue that Europe's 25 million "missing" jobs can be attributed almost entirely to its relative lack of service jobs. The jobs gap is actually a services gap. But, Services and Employment asks, why does the United States consume services at such a greater rate than Europe Services and Employment is the first systematic and comprehensive international comparison on the subject. Mary Gregory, Wiemer Salverda, Ronald Schettkat, and their fellow contributors consider the possible role played by differences in how certain services--particularly health care and education--are provided in Europe and the United States.They examine arguments that Americans consume more services because of their higher incomes and that American households outsource more domestic work. The contributors also ask whether differences between U.S. and European service sectors encapsulate fundamental trans-Atlantic differences in lifestyle choices. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Victor Fuchs, William Baumol, Giovanni Russo, Adriaan Kalwij, Stephen Machin, Andrew Glyn, Joachin Moller, John Schmitt, Michel Sollogoub, Robert Gordon, and Richard Freeman.

Reviews

"The significance of this volume for public policy is that the authors' hypotheses offer a rebuttal to the more familiar explanations criticizing European labor laws and social service policies as the rationale for substantial changes in employment in the past few years."--Choice "[I]t becomes apparent from this book, which we would highly recommend reading, that the problem of contemporary developed economies is less their degree of de-industrialisation than their gap in servicisation."--Faiz Gallouj, Journal of Evolutionary Economics "Services and Employment is an impressive and stimulating book that takes an unconventional supply-side oriented look at the employment gap between the USA and Europe and offers theoretical as well as empirical insights."--Engelbert Stockhammer, Intervention

Author Bio

Mary Gregory is Deputy Head of the Department of Economics, Fellow, and Tutor at St Hilda's College, University of Oxford. Wiemer Salverda is Director of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labor Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Ronald Schettkat is Professor of Economics at the University of Wuppertal in Germany. All three have published widely on labor economics.