IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ces/eeagre/vy2005ip51-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Chapter 3: Longer Working Hours - the Beginning of a new Trend?

Author

Listed:
  • Lars Calmfors
  • Giancarlo Corsetti
  • Seppo Honkapohja
  • John Kay
  • Willi Leibfritz
  • Gilles Saint-Paul
  • Hans-Werner Sinn
  • Xavier Vives

Abstract

This chapter reviews working time developments in Western Europe. The main issue is whether recent agreements on longer working time (at unchanged pay) in Germany represent a reversal of the earlier trend towards shorter working time that could also spread to other Western European countries with low working hours, such as Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The chapter views the agreements on longer working hours in Germany as a response to credible employer threats of outsourcing jobs. Increases in working time will certainly raise output, but they are also likely to increase the number of jobs, especially in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Lars Calmfors & Giancarlo Corsetti & Seppo Honkapohja & John Kay & Willi Leibfritz & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Xavier Vives, 2005. "Chapter 3: Longer Working Hours - the Beginning of a new Trend?," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 51-68, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:eeagre:v::y:2005:i::p:51-68
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/eeag_report_chap3_2005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Has Work-Sharing Worked in Germany?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 117-148.
    2. Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan & Zaidi, Asghar, 2004. "The myth of worksharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 293-313, June.
    3. Nickell, Stephen & Layard, Richard, 1999. "Labor market institutions and economic performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 46, pages 3029-3084, Elsevier.
    4. Gene M. Grossman (ed.), 1996. "Economic Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 553.
    5. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    6. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1998. "A framework for analyzing the political support for active labor market policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 151-165, February.
    7. Olivier Blanchard, 2004. "The Economic Future of Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    8. repec:bla:scandj:v:87:y:1985:i:2:p:160-93 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. R. A. Hart & T. Sharot, 1978. "The Short-run Demand for Workers and Hours: A Recursive Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 45(2), pages 299-309.
    10. repec:bla:scandj:v:91:y:1989:i:3:p:599-612 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1993. "On the Political Economy of Labor Market Flexibility," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 151-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Freeman, Richard B. & Topel, Robert H. & Swedenborg, Birgitta (ed.), 1997. "The Welfare State in Transition," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226261782, August.
    13. Earle, John S & Pencavel, John, 1990. "Hours of Work and Trade Unionism," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 150-174, January.
    14. Calmfors, L. & Nymoen, R., 1990. "Real Wage Adjustment And Employment Policies In The Nordic Countries," Papers 461, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    15. John T. Addison & Claus Schnabel (ed.), 2003. "International Handbook of Trade Unions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2705.
    16. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2000. "Employment and distributional effects of restricting working time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1291-1326, June.
    17. Oswald, Andrew J, 1982. "The Microeconomic Theory of the Trade Union," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(367), pages 576-595, September.
    18. Thomas Aronsson & James R. Walker, 1997. "The Effects of Sweden's Welfare State on Labor Supply Incentives," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 203-266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. repec:bla:econom:v:54:y:1987:i:214:p:237-48 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Linda Bell & Richard Freeman, 1994. "Why Do Americans and Germans Work Different Hours?," NBER Working Papers 4808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. McDonald, Ian M & Solow, Robert M, 1981. "Wage Bargaining and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 896-908, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    2. Davis, Steven J. & Henrekson, Magnus, 2004. "Tax Effects on Work Activity, Industry Mix and Shadow Economy Size: Evidence from Rich-Country Comparisons," Ratio Working Papers 57, The Ratio Institute.
    3. Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann, 2009. "Labour Market Reform in Europe," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann (ed.), Designing the European Model, chapter 2, pages 61-81, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Nordström Skans, Oskar, 2001. "The effects of working time reductions on wages, actual hours and equilibrium unemployment," Working Paper Series 2001:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    5. Peter Frase & Janet Gornick, 2009. "The Time Divide in Cross-National Perspective: The Work Week, Gender and Education in 17 Countries," LIS Working papers 526, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan & Zaidi, Asghar, 2004. "The myth of worksharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 293-313, June.
    7. Milan Vodopivec, 2004. "Income Support for the Unemployed : Issues and Options," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14922.
    8. de Regt, E.R., 2004. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Research Memorandum 028, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    9. Zwickl, Klara & Disslbacher, Franziska & Stagl, Sigrid, 2016. "Work-sharing for a sustainable economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 246-253.
    10. Erik de Regt, 2009. "Hourly wages and working time in the Dutch market sector 1962-1995," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 765-778.
    11. Altavilla, Carlo & Garofalo, Antonio & Vinci, Concetto Paolo, 2005. "Evaluating the effects of working hours on employment and wages," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 647-664, September.
    12. Lonnie Golden & Stuart Glosser, 2013. "Work sharing as a potential policy tool for creating more and better employment: A review of the evidence," Chapters, in: Jon C. Messenger & Naj Ghosheh (ed.), Work Sharing during the Great Recession, chapter 7, pages 203-258, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Kuroda, Sachiko, 2010. "Do Japanese Work Shorter Hours than before? Measuring trends in market work and leisure using 1976-2006 Japanese time-use survey," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 481-502, December.
    14. Lindquist, Matthew J., 2005. "The welfare costs of union wage compression," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 639-658, April.
    15. Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Has Work-Sharing Worked in Germany?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 117-148.
    16. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2005. "Work and Leisure in the U. S. and Europe: Why so Different?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2068, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    17. Koch, Susanne, 2001. "Arbeitszeit und Beschäftigung im gesamtwirtschaftlichen Zusammenhang : Arbeitszeitfragen und ihre Behandlung in ökonomischen Modellen: Literaturüberblick und Forschungsperspektiven (Working time and e," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 34(1), pages 28-44.
    18. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2009. "Critical Analysis of Some Well-Intended Proposals to Fight Unemployment," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2009 2009-17, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    19. Michael Huberman & Chris Minns, 2005. "Hours of Work in Old and New Worlds: The Long View, 1870-2000," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp95, IIIS.
    20. Michael C. Burda & Bernd Fitzenberger & Alexander Lembcke & Thorsten Vogel, 2008. "Unionization, Stochastic Dominance, and Compression of the Wage Distribution: Evidence from Germany," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-041, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:eeagre:v::y:2005:i::p:51-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.