Information Guide: European Union information from Italian sources

No abstract.

An Italian job: the need for collective wage bargaining reform. Bruegel Policy Brief ISSUE 2016/11 - JULY 2016

Highlights: Since the mid-1990s, Italy has been characterised by a lack of labour productivity growth, combinedwith a 60 percent growth in labour costs, 20 percentage points above euro-area average consumer price growth. As a consequence, Italy has become less competitive compared to its euro-area partners, the profitability of its firms has dropped and real GDP-per-capita has flatlined. • At the root of the substantial discrepancy between wages and productivity is Italy’s system of centralised wage bargaining which, in many ways, is designed without regard for the underlying industrial structure and geographical heterogeneity of the Italian economy.This has fostered perverse incentives and imbalances within Italy. • Collective wage bargaining, and in particular the determination of base salaries, should be moved from the national to the regional level for all contracts, in the public and private sectors.The Mezzogiorno,which might superficially be seen as losing out from this policy, would actually gain the most in competitiveness terms. • Furthermore, measures should be taken so that, in the long run, the Italian industrial structure evolves into a less fragmented small-company-based economy. This firm consolidation would likely expand the use of firm-level agreements and performance payments, and would improve Italy’s productivity and competitiveness overall.

Social Rights in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia: Is a Consensus-driven Policy Still on The table? EUSpring Policy Brief/Citizenship Review No. 17, June 2016

The immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi and the demonstrations that followed in December 2010 triggered the Tunisian revolution. But there were more deep-seated issues at stake: unemployment, poverty and exclusion, coupled with a deep sense of injustice, humiliation and helplessness of the peripheries to influence the political centre. Five years after the revolution, the social and economic problems are still persistent and arguably worse. Many people believe Tunisians are facing a distorted revolution; political progress has not coincided with reforms leading to welfare.