Contributions to this volume review, in international perspective, the European social model of collective bargaining, minimum wages, employment rights, and social welfare support, which is seen as both cause and cure for joblessness and low-wage employment in Europe. They find that collective bargaining and minimum wages protect vulnerable workers, while wage flexibility is not economically effective in creating jobs for the low-skilled.

This book provides an accessible presentation of the standard statistical techniques used by labor economists. It emphasises both the input and the output of empirical analysis and covers five major topics concerning econometric methods used in labor economics: regression and related methods, choice modelling, selectivity issues, duration analysis, and policy evaluation techniques. Each of these is presented in terms of model specification, possible estimation problems, diagnostic checking, and interpretation of the output. It aims to provide guidance to practitioners on how to use the techniques and how to make sense of the results that are produced. It covers methods that are considered to be "standard" tools in labor economics, but which are often given only a brief and highly technical treatment in econometrics textbooks.
It will be a useful reference for postgraduates and advanced undergraduates, researchers embarking on empirical labor market analysis, and for more experienced economists wishing to apply these techniques for the first time.