Miroslav Beblavý

Education and Social Protection Policies in OECD Countries: Social Stratification and Policy Intervention

We examine the relationship between education and social protection policies across OECD countries and thereby contribute to the growing political and academic discussion on how social investment and social protection are interrelated. We focus on how government policy in two policy domains (education, social protection) affects social stratification. The paper is based on a principal methodological innovation, which lies in disaggregating the ways in which policy-makers influence stratification into two distinct dimensions: one is concerned with how much the state intervenes in the provision of education/social protection and how much it leaves to individual, family and market, and the second is concerned with the bias towards equality or stratification found in the state system itself. We find that countries can be grouped into a distinct number of education–social protection typologies, which differ from traditional clusterings and could indicate the need for multi-faceted pan-European education policies that take into account the longstanding differences in stratification as opposed to one-size-fits-all policy initiatives.

The surprisingly exclusive nature of medium- and low-skilled jobs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to learn more about demand for competences is crucial for revealing the complex relationship between employee selection, different strands of education and training and labor market regulation. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis and statistics of job advertisements. Findings – Employer skills requirements even for low- and medium-skilled jobs are highly specific. Formal education requirements are higher than they “should” be. No detectable “basic package” of general cognitive skills for low- and medium-skilled jobs was found. Employer demand focusses on non-cognitive skills and specific cognitive skills. Specificity of skill requirement across different sectors or occupation groups differs vastly between different types of low- and medium-skilled jobs and is linked to the interactive nature of the job, not to the qualifications or the experience required. Research limitations/implications – The analysis can be considered an initial feasibility test for a ...

Education Policy and Welfare Regimes in OECD Countries: Social Stratification and Equal Opportunity in Education

This Working Document looks at which OECD countries deliberately attempt to reproduce social stratification through educational policies, and which countries put greater emphasis on intervening in the stratification process. The research findings challenge a one-policy-fits-all approach that advocates education policy reforms designed to increase equal opportunities in education. The authors argue that the context of each country needs to be considered before the implementation of such policies.

The Changing Faces of Europeanisation: How Did the European Union Influence Corruption in Slovakia Before and After Accession?

The paper looks at the European Unions impact on corruption in Slovakia, both before and after the countrys accession to the European Union. It shows that even though pre-accession channels of influence diminish or disappear, membership brings new means of influence. Our methodology looks beyond institutional changes and explicit anti-corruption mechanisms. Before 1999, the European Unions influence on corruption was close to zero, and between 1999 and 2004, its influence was strong and positive. Post-accession developments are more ambiguous, but despite an apparent worsening of corruption after 2004, we observe a transformation rather than a loss of European Union influence.

Why Is "New" Europe More Neoliberal?: Pension Privatization and Flat Tax in the Postcommunist EU Member States

This paper examines why the postcommunist countries that joined the European Union (EU) during the 2000s tend to be more neoliberal in their social and economic policies than are the traditional EU members from Western Europe. To this end, the paper looks at two areas of reform in which new Europe has been significantly more neoliberal than old Europe—pension privatization and the flat income tax. Looking at two distinct policies and examining not just their introduction but also their resilience makes the papers claims more robust and allows for refinement or contradiction of some existing findings in the literature. The papers conclusion is that a more volatile political system with few veto points and weak interest groups, coupled with a developmental model reliant on foreign direct investment, can account for the difference in policy approach without resorting to cultural or value-based explanations. In addition, the influence of Europeanization and lower state capacity do not appear to be significant explanatory factors.

Into the First League: The Competitive Advantage of the Antivirus Industry in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

The antivirus industry is the only innovation-intensive sector in which home-grown companies from Central Europe have been able to gain and retain global leadership. We review the literature on sources of national competitive advantage and evaluate the relative importance of different factors, drawing on evidence gained from semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and existing research about the IT sectors global and regional trends. Highly-skilled, technical human capital played a crucial and positive role. Paradoxically, a lack of available foreign finance also had a positive impact by steering the best people towards a sector with smaller capital needs. Unlike other leading sectors in Central Europe, where state support and foreign capital were important, these factors were absent in this sector. This article contributes to understanding of the emergence of a home-grown, highly competitive, high-technology sector under the conditions of market transformation, liberalization and internationalization in small economies.

The (Future) European Unemployment Insurance and Its Role as an Automatic Stabiliser

In this paper, we examine possibilities and limitations of a potential European Unemployment Insurance in alleviating impact of both symmetric and asymmetric shocks on national budgets and workers’ welfare. We present various policy options and their assessment. In the paper, we first discuss the framework in which an automatic stabiliser would operate and present different options for such a stabiliser. We then focus on the idea of a European unemployment insurance, and review a range of proposals that have been made in this domain. We conclude by listing the challenges and strengths of a common insurance scheme. In terms of challenges, we consider the size, funding and stabilisation impact of the scheme, the countries involved, political feasibility and harmonisation and the issue of moral hazard and permanent transfers. We also explain how these challenges can be overcome.

Age effects in Okun’s law with different indicators of unemployment

We reassess the results from the literature on the relationship between the youth unemployment rate and GDP growth (Okun’s law), based on the concern that the unemployment rate is not an ideal indicator for teenagers and young adults. Using the unemployment ratio instead, we find that youth unemployment (15–24 years old) is not significantly more responsive to economic growth than prime-age (25–64) unemployment. However, compared to prime-age unemployment, teenagers’ unemployment (15–19) is relatively unresponsive, whereas young adult’s (20–24) unemployment is more strongly correlated with economic growth. These results are quite different than those obtained with the unemployment rate as the dependent variable.

When Do Adults Learn? A Cohort Analysis of Adult Education in Europe

Adult learning is seen as a key factor for enhancing employment, innovation and growth, and it should concern all age cohorts. The aim of this paper is to understand the points in the life cycle at which adult learning takes place and whether it leads to reaching a medium or high level of educational attainment. To this end we perform a synthetic panel analysis of adult learning for cohorts aged 25 to 64 in 27 European countries using the European Labour Force Survey. We find, as previous results suggest, that a rise in educational attainment as well as participation in education and training happens mostly at the age range of 25-29. However, investment across the life cycle by cohorts older than 25 still occurs: in most countries in our sample, participation in education and training as well as educational attainment increases observably across all cohorts. We also find that the decline with age slows down or is even reversed for older cohorts, for both participation in education and educational attainment. Finally, we can identify a Nordic model in which adult learning is achieved through participation in education and training, a Central European model in which adult learning occurs in the form of increasing educational attainment and a liberal model in which both approaches to adult learning are observable.