The Role of Parliaments in European foreign policy

This book addresses the debate on the democratic deficit of European foreign and defence policies. This debate revolves around two dimensions. The first one has to do with the accountability of CFSP institutions. Is the current degree of parliamentary oversight of these policies the most appropriate? Has the disengagement of national parliaments regarding European foreign policy been counterbalanced by giving sufficient powers to the European Parliament? And, regarding the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), are national parliaments effectively controlling it? The second dimension of the debate is related to the wider question of whether the European Parliament is capable of legitimising EU policy outcomes. In the absence of a Europe-wide demos and of a true party system, what interests do Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent when dealing with foreign policy issues? Are there transnational cleavages in foreign policy or are they mainly national? Furthermore, is the European Parliament developing a transnational, autonomous stance on foreign policy issues, different from that of the Council or the Commission? The present volume is the result of the 2nd Meeting of the FORNET Working Group on “Evolution and Accountability of CFSP Institutions” organised by the Observatory of European Foreign Policy (Research line of the Institut Universitari d’Estudis Europeus), which took place in Barcelona, the 4 and 5 March 2005.

Health-related quality of life assessment in people with multiple sclerosis and their family caregivers. A multicenter study in Catalonia (Southern Europe)

Objectives: To measure the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and their caregivers, and to assess which factors can best describe HRQoL. Methods: A cross-sectional multicenter study of nine hospitals enrolled MS patients and their caregivers who attended outpatient clinics consecutively. The instruments used were the SF-36 for patients and the SF-12 and GHQ-12 for caregivers. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to analyze the explanatory factors of HRQoL. Results: A total of 705 patients (mean age 40.4 years, median Expanded Disability Status Scale 2.5, 77.8% with relapsing-remitting MS) and 551 caregivers (mean age 45.4 years) participated in the study. MS patients had significantly lower HRQoL than in the general population (physical SF-36: 39.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 39.1–40.6; mental SF-36: 44.4; 95% CI: 43.5–45.3). Caregivers also presented lower HRQoL than general population, especially in its mental domain (mental SF-12: 46.4; 95% CI: 45.5–47.3). Moreover, according to GHQ-12, 27% of caregivers presented probable psychological distress. Disability and co-morbidity in patients, and co-morbidity and employment status in caregivers, were the most important explanatory factors of their HRQoL. Conclusions: Not only the HRQoL of patients with MS, but also that of their caregivers, is indeed notably affected. Caregivers’ HRQoL is close to population of chronic illness even that the patients sample has a mild clinical severity and that caregiving role is a usual task in the study context

Health at work and risk factors related to ergonomics: some results from the Swiss sample of the 4th European working conditions survey

Introduction The European Foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions conducts a survey every 5 years since 1990. The foundation also offers the possibility to non-EU countries to be included in the survey: in 2005, Switzerland took part for the first time in the fourth edition of this survey. The Institute for Work and Health (IST) has been associated to the Swiss project conducted under the leadership of the SECO and the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz. The survey covers different aspects of work like job characteristics and employment conditions, health and safety, work organization, learning and development opportunities, and the balance between working and non-working life (Parent-Thirion, Fernandez Macias, Hurley, & Vermeylen, 2007). More particularly, one question assesses the worker's self-perception of the effects of work on health. We identified (for the Swiss sample) several factors affecting the risk to report health problems caused by work. The Swiss sample includes 1040 respondents. Selection of participants was based on a random multi-stage sampling and was carried out by M.I.S Trend S.A. (Lausanne). Participation rate was 59%. The database was weighted by household size, gender, age, region of domicile, occupational group, and economic sector. Specially trained interviewers carried out the interviews at the respondents home. The survey was carriedout between the 19th of September 2005 and the 30th of November 2005. As detailed in (Graf et al., 2007), 31% of the Swiss respondents identify work as the cause of health problems they experience. Most frequently reported health problems include back pain (18%), stress (17%), muscle pain (13%), and overall fatigue (11%). Ergonomic aspects associated with higher risk of reporting health problems caused by work include frequent awkward postures (odds ratio [OR] 4.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.1 to 5.4), tasks involving lifting heavy loads (OR 2.7, 95% CI 2.0 to 3.6) or lifting people (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.4 to 3.5), standing or walking (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.1 to 1.9), as well as repetitive movements (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.3 to 2.3). These results highlight the need to continue and intensify the prevention of work related health problems in occupations characterized by risk factors related to ergonomics.

Iowa Workforce, Today and Tomorrow, 2004

Demographic and employment information are used by economic developers, market researchers, counselors and curriculum developers for educational institutions, academic researchers, government planners, and private businesses. Occupational information on employment and wages also provides guidance for students making their first career choices and older workers considering a change of profession. In the last decade, Iowans have grown older and more diverse. The median age (2000) stood at 36.6 years, with 38 counties recording a median age of 40 or above. In the last decade, Hispanics accounted for a third of Iowa’s population growth. The most highly educated Iowans were Asians, with 43 percent earning a minimum of a bachelor’s degree. The Iowa labor force has been growing erratically since 1980, but still reached a record 1,663,000 in 2002 before inching downward. In the next 25 years, the labor force will see dramatic changes with the impending retirement of the baby boom generation and the influx of new immigrants and younger college-educated workers. While Iowa nonfarm employment declined by 7,000 workers during 2003, it did show improvement in the second half of the year. In a prosperous year, the Iowa economy generates an average of 2,500 jobs per month. This number was negative during the recession and has been below average this year. National economic events will continue to have a strong impact on Iowa job growth. Occupations requiring higher education are among the higher-paying Iowa jobs. Computer software engineers, computer support specialists, and customer service representatives are expected to be among the faster-growing occupations. Also, the aging population will bring opportunities for workers in healthcare. Occupations requiring higher education are among the higher-paying Iowa

Labor Relations Information and News, October 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.

Labor Relations Information and News, July 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.

Labor Relations Information and News, August 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.

Labor Relations Information and News, September 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.

Human capital, the structure of production and growth

Do high levels of human capital foster economic growth by facilitating technology adoption? If so, countries with more human capital should have adopted more rapidly the skilled-labor augmenting technologies becoming available since the 1970 s. High human capital levels should therefore have translated into fast growth in more compared to less human-capital-intensive industries in the 1980 s. Theories of international specialization point to human capital accumulation as another important determinant of growth in human-capital-intensive industries. Using data for a large sample of countries, we find significant positive effects of human capital levels and human capital accumulation on output and employment growth in human-capital-intensive industries.

The hotel industry and its importance in the technical and economic development of a region : the Lake Geneva case (1852-1914)

The historiography dedicated to tourism has emphasised how some socio-economic evolutions such as urbanisation, mechanisation of transport or the advent of leisure time in society have supported pleasure trips and therefore the development of the hotel industry. On the contrary, the research has too often neglected or at least minimised the impact of the hotel sector on a region's development. This contribution seeks to fill this gap by analysing the Geneva Lake region, one of the most important birthplaces of the European tourism. In this space not much touched by the first industrial revolution, the hotel business has in fact played the role of an economic motor, stimulating investment and employment. This dynamism provoked a domino effect on several other sectors of the economy (industry, bulding sector, banking). To please their customers, the hoteliers have not only given impulses on housing modernisation, but also to the revitalisation of transport, energy and communication networks. The necessity to remain on the state-of-the-art of technical issues, with the concern of competitiveness, has called forth an acceleration of the technology transfer and stimulated the constitution of technical know-how.

Active civic participation of immigrants in Portugal

Portugal’s historical past strongly influences the composition of the country’s immigrant population. The main third-country foreign nationals in Portugal originate traditionally from Portuguese-speaking African countries (namely Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea Bissau, and S. Tomé e Príncipe) and Brazil. In 2001, a newly created immigrant status entitled “permanence” authorization uncovered a quantitative and a qualitative change in the structure of immigrant population in Portugal. First, there was a quantitative jump from 223.602 foreigners in 2001 to 364.203 regularized foreigners in 2003. Secondly, there was a substantial qualitative shift in the composition of immigrants. The majority of the new immigrants began coming from Eastern European countries, such as Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, and the Russian Federation. Thus, European countries outside the E.U. zone now rank second (after African countries) in their contribution of individuals to the stocks of immigrant population in Portugal. The differences between the new and traditional immigration flows are visible in the geographical distribution of immigrants and in their insertion into the labour market. While the traditional flows would congregate around the metropolitan area of Lisbon and in the Algarve, the new migratory flows tend to be more geographically dispersed and present in less urbanized areas of Portugal. In terms of insertion in the labour market, although the construction sector is still the most important industry for immigrant labour, Eastern European workers may also be found in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. The institutional conditions that encourage immigrants’ civic participation are divided at three different levels: the state, the local, and the civil society levels. At the state level, the High Commissioner for Migrations and Ethnic Minorities is the main organizational structure along with a set of interrelated initiatives operating under specific regulatory frameworks, which act as mediators between state officials and the Portuguese civil society, and more specifically, immigrant communities. At the local level, some municipalities created consultative councils and municipal departments aiming at encouraging the participation and representation of interests from immigrant groups and association in local policies. In the civil society sphere, the main actors in Portugal spurring immigrants civic participation are immigrant associations, mainstream associations directed toward immigration topics, and unions. The legal conditions framing immigrants’ access to social housing, education, health, and social security in Portugal are also considered to be positive. Conditions restricting immigrants’ civic participation are mainly normative and include the Portuguese nationality law, the regulations shaping the political participation of immigrants, namely in what concerns their right to vote, and employment regulations restricting immigrants’ access to public administration positions. Part II of the report focuses on the active civic participation of third country immigrants. First, reasons for the lack of research on this issue in Portugal are explained. On the one hand, the recent immigration history and the more urgent needs regarding school and economic integration kept this issue out of the research spotlight. On the other hand, it was just in the beginning of the 1990s that immigrants took the very first steps toward collective mobilisation. Secondly, the literature review of Portuguese bibliography covers research on third country immigrants’ associative movement, research on local authorities’ policies and discussion about ethnic politics and political mobilisation of immigrants in Portugal. As political mobilisation of these groups has been made mainly through ethnic and/or migrant organisations, a brief history of immigrants' associative movement is given. Immigrant associations develop multiple roles, covering the social, the cultural, the economic and the political domains. Political claiming for the regularisation of illegal immigrants has been a permanent and important field of intervention since the mid-1990s. Research results reveal the com5 plex relations between ethnic mobilisation and the set of legal and institutional frameworks developed by local and national governmental authorities targeted to the incorporation of minority groups. Case studies on the Oeiras district and on the Amadora district are then presented. Conclusions underline that the most active immigrant groups are those from Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, since these groups have constituted a higher number of ethnic associations, give priority to political claiming and present a more politicised discourse. Reflecting on the future of research on civic participation of third country immigrants in Portugal, the authors state that it would be interesting and relevant to compare the Portuguese situation with those of other European countries, with an older immigration history, and analyse how the Portuguese immigrants’ associative movement will be affected by a changing legal framework and the emergence of new opportunities within the set of structures regarding the political participation of minority groups.

Are changes in education important for the wage premium and unemployment?

A generalized rise in unemployment rates for both college and high-schoolgraduates, a widening education wage premium, and a sharp increase incollege education participation are characteristic features of thetransformations of the U.S. labor market between 1970 and 1990. This paperinvestigates the interactions between these changes in the labor marketand in educational attainment. First, it develops an equilibrium searchand matching model of the labor market where education is endogenouslydetermined. Second, calibrated versions of the model are used to studyquantitatively whether either a skill-biased change in technology or amismatch shock can explain the above facts. The skill-biased shock accountsfor a considerable part of the changes but fails to produce the increasein unemployment for the educated labor force. The mismatch shock explainsinstead much of the change in the four variables, including the wage premium.

Inflation and output dynamics with firm-owned capital

We model firm-owned capital in a stochastic dynamic New-Keynesian generalequilibrium model à la Calvo. We find that this structure impliesequilibrium dynamics which are quantitatively di¤erent from the onesassociated with a benchmark case where households accumulate capital andrent it to firms. Our findings therefore stress the importance ofmodeling an investment decision at the firm level in addition to ameaningful price setting decision. Along the way we argue that the problemof modeling firm-owned capital with Calvo price-setting has not been solvedin a correct way in the previous literature.

Employee referrals and the inter-industry wage structure

This paper investigates the role of employee referrals in the labor market.Using an original data set, I find that industries that pay wage premia andhave characteristics associated with high-wage sectors rely mainly on employeereferrals to fill jobs. Moreover, unemployment rates are higher in industries which use employee referrals more extensively. This paper develops an equilibrium matching model which can explain these empirical regularities. Inthis model, the matching process sorts heterogeneous firms and workers into two distinct groups: referrals match "good" jobs to "good" workers, while formalmethods (e.g., newspaper ads and employment agencies) match less-attractive jobs to disadvantaged workers. Thus, well-connected workers who learn quickly aboutjob opportunities use referrals to jump job queues, while those who are less well placed in the labor market search for jobs through formal methods. The split of firms and workers between referrals and formal search is, however, not necessarily efficient. Congestion externalities in referral search imply that unemployment would be closer to the optimal rate if firms and workers 'at themargin' searched formally.

Gross capital flows: Dynamics and crises

This paper analyzes the behavior of international capital flows by foreign and domestic agents,dubbed gross capital flows, over the business cycle and during financial crises. We show thatgross capital flows are very large and volatile, especially relative to net capital flows. Whenforeigners invest in a country, domestic agents invest abroad, and vice versa. Gross capital flowsare also pro-cyclical. During expansions, foreigners invest more domestically and domesticagents invest more abroad. During crises, total gross flows collapse and there is a retrenchmentin both inflows by foreigners and outflows by domestic agents. These patterns hold for differenttypes of capital flows and crises. This evidence sheds light on the sources of fluctuations drivingcapital flows and helps discriminate among existing theories. Our findings seem consistent withcrises affecting domestic and foreign agents asymmetrically, as would be the case under thepresence of sovereign risk or asymmetric information.