The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality

(With some lessons for the Ukraine Crisis.)

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The event is jointly organized by Global Labor Organization (GLO), the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE) and POP @ UNU-MERIT.

The event is chaired by Klaus F. Zimmermann (President of GLO, Editor-in-Chief of JOPE, and Co-Director of POP)

Oded Galor speaks about his new book just published with Penguin Random House in twenty-eight languages worldwide. It is released on March 22 in the USA and on April 7 in the UK.

Further details on the book (see also below) and how it can be purchased:
USA-LINK —– UK-LINK

He is Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University and the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory, which seeks to uncover the fundamental causes of development, prosperity and inequality over the entire span of human history. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economic Growth and an Editor of the Journal of Population Economics.

In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity’s great mysteries.

Why are humans the only species to have escaped – only very recently – the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today? Immense in scope and packed with astounding connections, Galor’s gripping narrative explains how technology, population size, and adaptation led to a stunning “phase change” in the human story a mere two hundred years ago. But by tracing that same journey back in time and peeling away the layers of influence – colonialism, political institutions, societal structure, culture – he arrives also at an explanation of inequality’s ultimate causes: those ancestral populations that enjoyed fruitful geographical characteristics and rich diversity were set on the path to prosperity, while those that lacked it were disadvantaged in ways still echoed today.

As we face ecological crisis across the globe, The Journey of Humanity is a book of urgent truths and enduring relevance, with lessons that are both hopeful and profound: gender equality, investment in education, and balancing diversity with social cohesion are the keys not only to our species’ thriving, but to its survival.

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The Handbook in “Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics” provides an integrated picture of knowledge about the economic and social behaviors and interactions of human beings on markets, in households, in companies and in societies. A fast evolving project by the GLO with a core basis in labor economics, human resources, demography and econometrics, it will provide a large and complete summary and evaluation of the scientific state of the art. Chapters are developed under the guidance of an engaged team of editors led by the GLO President administered in 30 sections.

See LINK for more details

• to examine the already available chapters, and
• to find out how to contribute to this exciting venture with an own chapter.

The Section “Technological Changes and the Labor Market” is directed by Marco Vivarelli, who is also the GLO Cluster Lead of the “Technological Change” area. The Section is just completing its set of 20 published papers now available for use, review and debate. List of the articles and links to access them are below.

The Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics
Editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann

Section – Technological Changes and the Labor Market
Marco Vivarelli, Section Editor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Department of Economic Policy, Milan, Italy

Note: Find abstract links of the articles below the chapter titles.

Testing the Employment and Skill Impact of New Technologies
Laura Barbieri, Chiari Mussida, Mariacristina Piva, Marco Vivarelli
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Innovation, technology adoption and employment: Evidence synthesis
Mehmet Ugur
University of Greenwich Business School

Technology and Work: Key Stylized Facts for the Digital Age
Mario Pianta
Scuola Normale Superiore

The Digital Transformation and Labor Demand
Flavio Calvino, Vincenzo Spiezia
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Digitization and the Future of Work: Macroeconomic Consequences
Melanie Arntz^1,2, Terry Gregory^3,1, Ulrich Zierahn^5,1,4
1 Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, ²University of Heidelberg, ³Institute of Labor Economics, IZA,⁴CESifo Research Network, ⁵Utrecht University

artificial-intelligence-Pixabay

AI and Robotics Innovation
Vincent Van Roy, Daniel Vertesy, Giacomo Damioli
European Commission

Robots at Work: Automatable and Non-automatable Jobs
Cecily Josten, Grace Lordan
London School of Economics

Innovation, Employment, and the Business Cycle
Bernhard Dachs¹, Martin Hud², Bettina Peters^2,3
1AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, ²Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, ³University of Luxembourg

Technological Innovations and Labor Demand Using Linked Firm-Level Data
Martin Falk¹, Eva Hagsten^2
1USN School of Business, ²University of Iceland

Why do employees participate in innovations? Skills and organisational design issues and the ongoing technological transformation, in production
Nathalie Greenan, Silvia Napolitano
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers

Note: Report and video of this presentation in the GLO Virtual Seminar.

Technologies and “Routinization”
Federico Biagi¹, Raquel Sebastian^2
1European Commission, ²Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Skill-Sets for Prospective Careers of Highly Qualified Labor
Natalia Shmatko, Leonid Gokhberg, Dirk Meissner
National Research University Higher School of Economics,Moscow

Quantity and Quality of Work in the Platform Economy
Francesco Bogliacino¹, Cristiano Codagnone^2,3, Valeria Cirillo⁴, Dario Guarascio^5
1Universidad Nacional de Colombia, ²Università degli Studi di Milano, ³Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, ⁴INAPP, National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policies, ⁵Università degli Studi di Roma

Digital Platforms and the Transformations in the Division of Labor
Ivana Pais
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Innovation and Self-Employment
Tommaso Ciarli, Matthia Di Ubaldo, Maria Savona
University of Sussex

Photo-by-Andy-Kelly-on-Unsplash

The Present, Past, and Future of Labor-saving Technologies
Jacopo Staccioli, Maria Enrica Virgillito
¹Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, ²Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna

Robots, Structural Change, and Employment: Future Scenarios
Ben Vermeulen¹, Andreas Pyka¹, Pier Paolo Saviotti^2
1University of Hohenheim, ²Utrecht University

The Role of Innovation in Structural Change, Economic Development, and the Labor Market
Önder Nomaler, Bart Verspagen
UNU-MERIT, Maastricht

Integration in Global Value Chains and Employment
Filippo Bontadini¹, Rinaldo Evangelista², Valentina Meliciani³, Maria Savona^1
1University of Sussex, ²University of Camerino, ³University Luiss Guido Carli

Employment Impact of Technologies in the Developing World
Arup Mitra¹, Chandan Sharma^2
1South Asian University, ¹Indian Institute of Management Lucknow

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Walls and Fences: A Journey Through History and Economics – Download PDF
by Vernon, Victoria & Zimmermann, Klaus F.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 330: 2019

Pre-publication version.


In: Kourtit, K., Newbold, B., Nijkamp, P., Partridge, M. (Eds.), The Economic Geography of Cross-Border Migration, pp. 33-54. Published.

Article Abstract

Throughout history, border walls and fences have been built for defense, to claim land, to signal power, and to control migration. The costs of fortifications are large while the benefits are questionable. The recent trend of building walls and fences signals a paradox: In spite of the anti-immigration rhetoric of policymakers, there is little evidence that walls are effective in reducing terrorism, migration, and smuggling. Economic research suggests large benefits to open border policies in the face of increasing global migration pressures. Less restrictive migration policies should be accompanied by institutional changes aimed at increasing growth, improving security and reducing income inequality in poorer countries.

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New book!
Alfredo Toro Hardy (Venezuelan Scholar and Diplomat):
China versus the US. Who will prevail?
2020, World Scientific, 304 Pages. MORE INFORMATION.

Some core messages of the interview:

• None will be ready to yield to the other.
• The Chinese have made their aims more difficult to attain.
• China would not accept to subordinate itself indefinitely to America’s leadership in its own part of the world.
• Although the US possesses overall technological superiority, China will be able to match it or surpass it in a group of key technologies.
• America’s democratic but utterly dysfunctional political system is being globally compared to China’s authoritarian but responsive one. There is no doubt that for many the latter results more attractive.
• While globalization has allowed China to lift 800 million people out of poverty, nationalism identifies itself with the belief that the country’s ancient history and its tradition of centrality entitles it to a position of privilege.
• Technological human displacement is not privative to China.
• The confrontation between China and the US has become structural and not simply conjectural.

GLO Fellow Alfredo Toro Hardy, Venezuelan Scholar and Diplomat, is a former Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the US, UK, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Ireland and Singapore.

Interview

GLO: Why has US-China competition become inevitable?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: Both countries perceive themselves as pinnacles within human history. The Middle Kingdom and the Exceptional Nation feel entitled to leadership by history or providence. Both look at the future under the lenses of their national myths. Under those circumstances none will be ready to yield to the other. Specially so as the gap in their comprehensive national power is rapidly closing.

GLO: Was China challenging the US too early?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: There seems to be no doubt that by speeding times, heralding their ambitions and boasting about their capabilities, while at the same time hardening their geopolitical and military stance, the Chinese have made their aims more difficult to attain. They have created for themselves many unnecessary problems. However, for a county as obsessed as China in continuously measuring its comprehensive national power, it would seem to be out of context to have provoked U.S. reaction if they have felt unprepared for a measurement of forces.

GLO: The obvious US response would be a long-term containment policy of China. How could this work?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: A long-term containment of China by the United States, would be the latter’s preferred option. Specially so, given the final success of this policy in relation to the Soviet Union. However, there is a big difference in both cases. During the Cold War, neither the Americans nor the Soviets challenged each other’s main spheres of influence (Cuba excepted, and this almost led to war). The contrast with the current situation is notorious. The United States’ containment of China not only includes Taiwan (which China considers to be an integral part of its territory) but takes place in an area that for millennia was a tributary dependent region of China. China would not accept to subordinate itself indefinitely to America’s leadership in its own part of the world.

GLO: You seem to suggest that China has the better cards to win the competition for world leadership, why?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: Although the United States still prevails in military, economic and technological capabilities, reverse trend in motion favor China. Economically, China’s ascendancy and its surpassing of the US seems inevitable. Militarily, China’s asymmetric power has the capacity to neutralize much of the current US superiority, while the inversely evolving budgetary capability of both countries will clearly play in favor of China. Moreover, America’s superiority in nuclear weapons may prove to be more theoretical than real if China’s overwhelming advantage in conventional ballistic missiles can match the US tactical nuclear capability, while China’s second-strike capacity can deter an American first strike. Finally, although the US possesses overall technological superiority, China will be able to match it or surpass it in a group of key technologies. On the other hand, China’s emphasis on strategically oriented basic research outweighs America’s market oriented applied research.

GLO: Globalism is under thread anyway. There is a global tendency to strengthen nationalism and autocratic regimes. A good time to popularize the Chinese model?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: Contrary to the Cold War with the USSR, America’s emerging Cold War with China is not based in ideology but in the efficiency that both countries’ models can exhibit. If we measure such efficiency by the handling of the Covid 19 pandemic, a clear difference emerges. Although the initial lack of transparency by China had a great impact in the global diffusion of the Coronavirus (and this certainly plays against its model), the extraordinary efficiency shown by this country in the domestic containment of the virus grossly contrasts with the botched response by the United States. America’s democratic but utterly dysfunctional political system is being globally compared to China’s authoritarian but responsive one. There is no doubt that for many the latter results more attractive.

GLO: In the Chinese understanding, there is complementarity of nationalism and globalization. What is the explanation?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: Chinese culture includes the complementary of opposites as exemplified by the duality of yin and yang. Within that context, globalization (so far synonymous of economic prosperity) and nationalism are seen as interdependent expressions of state policy, which converge in the aim of legitimizing the regime in the eyes of its citizens. While globalization has allowed China to lift 800 million people out of poverty, nationalism identifies itself with the belief that the country’s ancient history and its tradition of centrality entitles it to a position of privilege. Moreover, a century of humiliation by foreign powers impose the need to stand tall. This dual policy has been conceptualized under the aphorism of “grabbing with the two hands”. However, keeping the equilibrium between these forces is a daunting task. One false step, one overreach, one overreaction and everything might be blown to pieces.

GLO: Unlike the US, China’s future is burdened with its demographic problems (ageing, immigration pressure) and the need to achieve welfare increases through international trade, e.g. by importing necessary food. Is this not a challenge for the Chinese ambitions?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: With a rapidly aging population, as a result of the combination of low fertility rate and rising life expectancy, technology becomes a providential answer to the country’s quest to attain its “rejuvenation” –a nationalistic catchword that glues together the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese population. Technology and rejuvenation thus become inseparable notions. Under those circumstances the search of economic prosperity and nationalism, the two strongest legitimizing forces of the regime, blend in their support to technology. However, even if technology “rejuvenate” the country it also displaces human labor and can significantly affect the welfare of many segments of society. Technological human displacement, though, is not privative to China. On the contrary, it is in the process of becoming one of the world’s biggest challenges of the Twenty First century. For the US, with a much larger percent of relay population and a lack of unifying national banners, this may lead to a more complex situation than China’s.

GLO: What role can the results of the forthcoming US Presidential elections play for the next phase of the US-China competition?

Alfredo Toro Hardy: I am afraid that a change in the White House may not change much. The confrontation between China and the US has become structural and not simply conjectural. Xi Jinping pursues fenfa youwei, meaning the attainment of great aims. This translates into a position of leadership in world affairs and a redefinition of its geopolitical footprint in Asia. For the United States this represents an unacceptable challenge to its leadership. In the same manner in which an expansive Chinese nationalism upholds Xi’s aims, a wide domestic coalition and an anti China popular sentiment sustain America’s reaction to that country’s assertiveness. Under those circumstances, Trump’s departure from the White House would only bring down Washington’s circus show, but not the emerging Cold War.

*************
With Alfredo Toro Hardy spoke Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President.

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See for more details on the book series. And study the flyer below.

The GLO network is also supporting this product, which may carry some of the research and policy output of its groups and clusters in the future.

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Given the sum total of these vulnerabilities, the book argues that the EU may not survive beyond 2025 in its present form. It puts forward a number of workable solutions: a European economic model to secure full employment, a stronger European Court of Human Rights, a points-based immigration system, clear exit options from the Eurozone and an Open Education Area with a common second language. These solutions may reduce the number of EU countries in the core-EU, but would increase cohesion and overall sustainability.

INVITATION: The United Nations University – MERIT and Maastricht University Campus Brussels invite to the book launch of

Una segunda oportunidad para Europa edited by Jo Ritzen

on December 3, 2019, 16:00-18:00. Venue: Maastricht University Campus Brussels | Avenue de Tervueren 153, 1150, Brussels. The event will be in both Spanish and English.

Please confirm your attendance by email to: s.brodin@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Program

• Presentation of the book in Spanish by Mr. Salvador Pérez-Moreno, Professor of Economic Policy, University of Malaga
• Comments in Spanish by Mr. Javier López, Member of the European Parliament
• Discussion in English between Prof. Moreno, Prof. Inmaculada Serón-Ordoñez, Lecturer of Translation and Interpretation at Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, and Mr. Javier Lopez, led by Prof. Klaus F. Zimmermann, President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), UNU-MERIT and Bonn University
• Drinks

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Jo Ritzen is a professorial fellow in the International Economics of Science, Technology and Higher Education at United Nations University-MERIT and its School of Governance. UNU-MERIT is a joint institute of the United Nations University (UNU) and Maastricht University. Prof. Ritzen is a former Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands, served in the Dutch Cabinet at the Maastricht Treaty, a former Vice President of the World Bank and former President of Maastricht University. Jo Ritzen is also a Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO).

How to order the book:
https://www.edicionespiramide.es/libro.php?id=5928108
https://www.amazon.fr/Una-segunda-oportunidad-para-Europa/dp/8436841166

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David G. Blanchflower: Not Working. Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone? Princeton University Press, 2019

GLO Research Director David G. Blanchflower. GLO bio. He is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

GLO Fellow Hélène Syed Zwick. GLO bio. She is Executive Director of the ESLSCA Research Center and Associate Professor in Economics at ESLSCA University (Egypt).

Book review for the LSE Review of Books website:

“In Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?, David Blanchflower contributes to the already substantial stream of scholarship on job quality, happiness and economic downturns. The author, a prominent economist and former external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) between 2006 and 2009, offers a praiseworthy, didactic and anticipated analysis ‘on well-paying [or good] jobs and the failure of policymakers to deliver them’ (11).

In the first part of the book, the author skillfully argues that most Western countries, especially the US and the UK, are far away from full employment, despite their respective low unemployment rates. Through a heavy reliance on data, he argues, and brilliantly demonstrates, that the unemployment rate is no longer an accurate signal of labour market slack. He repeats throughout his book that the main signal that confirms this hypothesis is the lack of sustained wage and price growths. Normally, Blanchflower explains, in a situation of full employment, there ‘would be so few people looking for jobs’ (25) that wages would grow rapidly and ‘workers would be able to climb the occupational ladder’ (140). Unfortunately, he writes, this is not happening either in the US or the UK. On the contrary, underemployment  – which relates to ‘unstable, precarious, low-paying, and temporary jobs’ (35) and which expanded after the Great Recession in most rich Western countries – appears as a significant new predictor of wage and inflation growth. Here we reach the central argument of the book: underemployment associated with weak bargaining power on the part of workers leads to contained wage pressure. Blanchflower advises that we therefore rely on underemployment rather than unemployment to analyse the labour market situation, especially within this post-recession period characterised by ‘an extended semi-slump, of subnormal prosperity’ (80).

If such a proposal is quite orthodox, three elements transversal to this first part capture the reader’s attention: the economics of walking about (EWA); the societal consequences; and house-ownership and mobility. Firstly, thanks to Blanchflower’s EWA approach which is ‘fundamental’ to the book (184), he is in contact with what has been happening to ordinary people. As he explains, Blanchflower believes in data from the real world. His thinking has been ‘driven mostly by observing how the world works and attempting to uncover fundamental truths and patterns in the data’ (9). Discussions with London cabbies or looking at jingle mails (the act of mailing the keys back to the mortgage lender) are common ways for Blanchflower to feel what is going on in societies. Secondly, he discusses the links between feelings of insecurity on the labour market, happiness and societal outcomes like obesity, mental disorders, depression and even suicide. Thirdly, he examines the negative impact of house ownership on mobility. He evokes the fall in the homeownership rate, especially in the US and the UK, and explains that an unconstrained housing market leads to more efficient labour markets and to a fall in the equilibrium unemployment rate thanks to higher mobility. These effects have too often been neglected by researchers, he argues.

The second part of Not Working is composed of five chapters and aims to study the response to the Great Recession. Blanchflower’s analysis led him to anticipate the crisis in 2007, while most of his colleagues did not. The author calls therefore for a ‘big rethink’ (11, 315), especially among policymakers, central bankers and economists. Scathingly, he denounces their obstinacy in relying on theoretical, mathematical-based models and prescriptions from the 1970s. As he argues, ‘the elites were stuck in the past’ (171) and ‘the experts were looking in the wrong places’ (162). Policymakers decided in 2009-10, under the recommendations of economists, to launch what Blanchflower names a ‘reckless and unnecessary austerity’ (173) ‘attacking the Keynesian school of thought from multiple directions’ (171). The author writes that this was a ‘unique opportunity [for them] to decrease the size of the state’ (173).

In this section of the book, Blanchflower’s efforts may appear overly detailed to the less specialised reader and not especially innovative for the specialists. Yet, he convincingly establishes the socio-economic, demographic and geographic profile of the ‘left-behinds’ in the US, the UK and Eurozone countries after 2010. Unsurprisingly, decreases in expenditure ‘hit the weak, the disabled and vulnerable’ (214). Such fractures between the have-nots and haves were already present before the Great Recession, which only ‘exacerbated them’ (37). He notes that the left-behinds from the US, the UK, France and Austria have been ‘strongly opposed to political and social developments they see as threatening sovereignty, identity and continuity’ (258). He therefore indicates that he was already expecting in 2010 a political ‘backlash’ (265) after all the pain and suffering. Why should politics not therefore suffer? Few can have ignored recent populist movements in the US with Donald Trump’s presidency, in the UK with the Brexit vote and in France with Marine Le Pen. The author establishes a direct relationship between the profile of the left-behinds and those who voted for populist parties.

This inquiry leads us to the third part dedicated to prescriptions and policy recommendations. Whilst the quality of analysis and richness of its scholarly references impresses across two-thirds of the book, here the author fails in making the reader optimistic or confident about the future. Why? First, because the recommendations he formulates are unoriginal and lack ambition, and second, because several dimensions elsewhere detailed in the book, like the decline in unionism and bargaining power, are not even discussed. Strictly speaking, the use of idioms and expressions in the titles and subtitles in this third part appear by far insufficient to convince me. Most of the Keynesian recommendations that he formulates are well-known and have been debated for decades. For instance, he recommends reaching full employment by decreasing the interest rate to boost wages and therefore living standards, investing more in infrastructure to create jobs, subsidising childcare services and providing incentives for low-skilled workers. From my point of view, such advice relies far too much on the intervention of public authorities, which seems quite inconsistent with Blanchflower’s lack of trust in policymakers and politicians that he claims throughout his book: ‘Why believe them?’ he asks several times. ‘Why should we trust any of them now? I don’t,’ he writes (211).

It could certainly be argued that this third part is disappointing as Blanchflower fails to provide sufficient depth in the formulation of his recommendations, which is essential once the analysis has been delivered. However, even with this limitation, this encyclopedic book is highly welcome and will be an unquestionably worthy addition to the bookshelves of a general readership as well as scholars in labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics and political science.”

Dr. Hélène Syed Zwick, Executive Director of ESLSCA Research Center, ESLSCA University, Egypt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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The United States is still debating its wall with Mexico. As Victoria Vernon & Klaus F. Zimmermann have documented, building walls between countries has become fashion over recent decades signalling the widespread rising fears about globalization. The number of walls have increased from under 10 to nearly 80 within half of a century.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 330, 2019. Walls and Fences: A Journey Through History and Economics – Download PDF
by Vernon, Victoria & Zimmermann, Klaus F.

Now climate change may bring a dramatic shift into the game of walls: “Even though estimates about rising sea levels vary, the Center for Climate Integrity has published an analysis which estimates that the U.S. will have to invest $416 billion in constructing seawalls between now and 2040. At state level, Florida is expected to have to spend $76 billion on seawalls over the next two decades with while Louisiana will have the second-highest bill at $38 billion. ” (statista, see also chart below.)

Will climate change soon replace our fears about migration? Surely not, since forced mass migration is already predicted around the world as a consequence of rising sea levels.

A recent novel has thought the (our?) story to the end:

John Lanchester: The Wall, Faber & Faber, Ltd. London, 2019.

After the change, Britain is surrounded by a wall facing endless water. The Young have to serve on the wall as Defenders to kill the Others as soon as they attack as boat people to invade the island. Shooting climate refugees is a daily business. A brutal, if not boring exercise where some Defenders are forced to become Others and are lost on the sea, with a surviving couple left alone with their love.

More statista details for an analysis behind the figure.

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Author Jo Ritzen, who is a former Dutch Minister of Education, a former Vice-President of the World Bank and the Past-President of Maastricht University, and has been a Professor of Economics before his remarkable career in politics, is currently working as Honorary Professor of Maastricht University and Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). At the book launch, he was presenting the major contributions of the book, which is based on joint research with a number of GLO Fellows.

Also present and serving in a panel discussion after the book presentation were Alexander Kritikos, Research Director of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Professor at the University of Potsdam and GLO Fellow, and GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann, currently visiting the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest as the George Soros Chair Professor. Zimmermann is also co-author of two chapters in the book.

In the view of Ritzen, key challenges for Europe are (i) the social market economy, (ii) governance including corruption, (iii) internal and external labor mobility, (iv) the asylum issue, (v) the dept crisis and the Euro, and (vi) the knowledge society. It was common sense among the speakers that more Europe and not less is needed in the future to manage the current and forthcoming challenges.

Latest news: The next version, Jo Ritzen announced at the meeting, will be in Spanish.

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The launch of the German book will be in German. Next to the author Jo Ritzen (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University), who will present the book, Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner, Minister of North Rhine – Westphalia, will introduce the event, and Christoph Schmidt, President of the RWI Leibniz Institute for Economic Research and Head of the German Council of Economic Experts, will provide a keynote speech. GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann, currently visiting the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest as the George Soros Chair Professor, will moderate the discussion in a panel that includes Alexander Kritikos, Research Director of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and Professor at the University of Potsdam. Ritzen and Kritikos are also Fellows of the Global Labor Organization (GLO).

FURTHER DETAILS on the book

Jo Ritzen, (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and GLO) has been previously among others a Vice President of the World Bank, the Dutch Minister for Education and the President of Maastricht University.

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