André Carrascal Incera

Drivers of change in the European youth employment: a comparative structural decomposition analysis

ABSTRACT This paper uses a structural decomposition approach to examine the proximate causes of change in the EU15 youth workforce from 1995 to 2011. Besides the traditional sources considered by the literature, I include age-specific factors: a labor utilization index that accounts for the hours that employed youth work by showing the extent of part-time contracts; an age mix factor that indicates the share that youth comprise of total employment and, finally, changes in the inverse of the overall sectoral labor productivity, which describes variations in total labor demand. By applying this approach, I identify the core drivers behind the recent changes in the evolution of youth employment in each of the 15 countries; this is crucial for tailoring policy strategies. Results suggest that to foster youth employment, most Mediterranean countries should implement youth-specific measures while other EU15 countries could do so by enhancing overall employment.This paper uses a structural decomposition approach to examine the proximate causes of change in the EU15 youth workforce from 1995 to 2011. Besides the traditional sources considered by the literature, I include age-specific factors: a labor utilization index that accounts for the hours that employed youth work by showing the extent of part-time contracts; an age mix factor that indicates the share that youth comprise of total employment and, finally, changes in the inverse of the overall sectoral labor productivity, which describes variations in total labor demand. By applying this approach, I identify the core drivers behind the recent changes in the evolution of youth employment in each of the 15 countries; this is crucial for tailoring policy strategies. Results suggest that to foster youth employment, most Mediterranean countries should implement youth-specific measures while other EU15 countries could do so by enhancing overall employment.

The economic impact of international students in a regional economy from a tourism perspective

This paper assesses the economic impact of international students in a regional economy (Galicia) from the viewpoint of the tourism industry. The current extent of international student mobility and its potential future development make it an appropriate topic for analysis in terms of its local and regional economic impacts, first and foremost at the academic and political levels. A methodology to facilitate the estimation of both the direct effects on the education sector and the possible ‘externalities’ on the tourism industry will enable economic evaluation of financial efforts to attract international students. Without considering the potential increase of other visitors, the results indicate that international students have less economic impact than that associated with inbound tourism and, in the case of exchange students (as a constituent group of international students), the economic contribution could even be negative for a local economy.