Working Time and Employment

Presenting the first systematic and integrated analysis of working time and employment, this important book reaches the core elements of a vital area of labour economics. It offers the most comprehensive analysis ever of the impact of workweek reductions on employment and hours. There is also a thorough coverage of part-time employment, temporary layoffs, short-time working, labour subsidies, social security funding, mandatory and early retirement, and collective bargaining. As a background, it provides a wealth of international statistical and empirical detail on major OECD countries, including the USA, Japan, the UK, West Germany arid France. Both micro and macro aspects of research are covered, as well as detailed analyses of implicit contracts and temporary layoffs, demand and supply aspects of part-time employment, general and marginal employment subsidies, payroll tax rate and ceiling changes, and the employment impacts of changes in mandatory and early retirement. Further, it deals with employer, government and trade union attitudes to various types of working-time policy issue, and it provides a general assessment of the potential of policy initiatives in working time to create employment. The book provides the first comprehensive attempt to examine carefully the key economic issues involved in the general policy debate on working time and employment. It will be of serious interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in labour economics, and will also be relevant to the interests in microeconomics, macroeconomics, business economics and management studies.