McDowell, Manfred. (1993) "Labor in continental markets: Comparing the social dimensions of economic integration in Europe and North America". In: UNSPECIFIED, Washington, DC. (Unpublished)
Abstract
[From the Introduction]. References in Europe to American practice have long served as a foil in the criticism of domestic social and labor-market policy. In the 1980s, discussion of “Eurosclerosis”, a critical theme in advancing the '1992' Single Market project, was very largely driven by invidious comparison with the United States. Prodigious US job growth in the Reagan years demonstrated that; Europe's unemployed were victims of the excesses of the European social model--a 'discriminating and complex system' of work place rules and social benefits which, limiting 'both the freedom of action, of employers and the perceived need for mobility on the part of workers,' prevents wages from performing a market clearing function. (1) Reflecting domestic policy discontents, rather than dispassionate observation, the 'facts' in such trans-atlantic comparisons are highly selective and stylized to say the least. (2) Praise for the superior 'flexibility' of the US labor market, disregards some of the more disappointing features of the American experience, of which the most egregious, from an orthodox perspective, was the external financing of a stimulative fiscal policy.
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