Why Deregulate Labour Markets?

Gøsta Esping-Andersen ( Professor University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona and University of Trento, Italia)Marino Regini (Professor of Sociology, University of Milano, and Director of IRES Lombardia)

• Introduction ; PART I. LABOUR MARKET REFORM IN EUROPE ; The dilemmas of labour market regulation ; The dynamics of labour market reform in European countries ; Who is harmed by Labour Market Regulations? Quantitative Evidence ; Regulation and context. Reconsidering the correlates of unemployment ; PART II. NATIONAL VARIATIONS ; River Crossing or Cold Bath? Deregulation and Employment in Britain ; Going different ways: labour market policy in Denmark and Sweden ; The Dutch miracle? ; Germany: A regulated flexibility ; France: The deregulation that never existed ; Italy: the long times of consensual re-regulation ; The Spanish experiment: pros and cons of the flexibility at the margin ; Conclusions

This is an important and very useful book in summarizing and synthesizing a vast and disparate literature on this issue and clarifying some of the trade offs implicit in pursing the high or low road to flexibility and modernizing labour markets. It should provide a very useful resource for teaching for courses in the humanities and at business schools, as well as providing an important contribution to a debate that has not ended.