For the last ten years, the Austrian labour market has been characterised by an increasing number of legal changes, especially in the area of social security law, leading to a diversification of labour market forms. Seen in a European context, the various structures encompassing the labour...

International examples clearly demonstrate that a high level of social policy does not necessarily correlate with slow growth rates. Empirical literature shows that incentives of social policy measures that lead to a growth-enhancing education, research and development policy are of utmost...

Consolidation measures will shape budgetary development until 2014. However, despite consolidation efforts reforming education and training policies as well as innovation policies is still possible and necessary. This is because these form the basis for sustainable growth. Increases in public...

The economic crisis has had a negative effect on the state of the public budgets. Consolidation measures and the slow recovery of the economy will continue to influence the budget until 2014. However, an increase in public spending on innovation and education is possible in principle, despite...

In an EU-wide comparison, Austria's overall labour market performance is fairly strong. The employment-to-population ratio is high. Unemployment, income inequality, and at-risk-of-poverty rate are at a rather low level. However, while employment stability is high for the core workforce, there is...

Education and training are central to innovative activities in highly developed economies and hence to economic growth. Empirical analyses at firm level show that the lack of qualified human resources is the most important barrier to innovation in economies at the technological frontier, much...

The present paper argues that in the retail gasoline industry, excise taxes, by amounting to a substantial part of prices, increase the firms’ degree of market power as demand elasticity is decreased. To avoid this market power effect, a ‘flexible value tax’ on gasoline is proposed. It...

Over the last decade Italy has seen a strong increase in the number of workers on the border between self-employment and employment. Depending on the data source the “parasubordinati”, i.e. workers with a “contract of continuous collaboration” (collaborators) represented between 1.8%...

The number of workers on the border between self-employment and employment strongly increased across Europe over the last decade. This paper investigates whether and in what respect these workers differ from employees and self-employed and analyses whether these work relationships are a stepping...

The number of workers on the border between self-employment and employment has strongly increased across Europe over the last decade. This paper investigates whether and in what respect these workers differ from employees and self-employed, and analyses whether these work relationships are a...