1st THEMATIC SESSION
Labour, productivity and growth
SESSION CO-ORDINATORS: Alessandra Del Boca and Enrico Marelli (Università di Brescia)
This session is dedicated to the relation between labour market dynamics, productivity and growth. In Europe, reforms of labour markets, taxation and industrial relations have deeply changed the trade-off between employment growth and the dynamics of productivity. In Italy the dramatic fall of productivity, which lost 15 percentage points over a decade compared to the European average, prompted us to investigate the long-run causes of the “decline”. These include the tertiarisation of the economy and the enhanced role of financial versus real capital, labour market transformations, the increasing share of immigrants in employment as well as of people employed in temporary or non-standards contracts (frequently in low-skilled or low-earnings jobs) and the characteristics of human capital.
Current explanations of the strong productivity slowdown relate to technological, organisational or institutional reasons. This session intends to stimulate a wide debate and direct academic research, the political choices and strategies of the social actors. AIEL encourages university professors, researchers, experts and professionals in labour disciplines to present contributions on this topic. In addition to theoretical contributions, empirical papers may include comparisons between different countries, analysis of individual countries (Italy is a very interesting case study because here the productivity slowdown have been more substantial).
Possible research themes within this session are the following:

i. Productivity and growth: macroeconomic, structural and institutional aspects (Labour in growth models. Hourly
productivity, output per employee and total factor productivity. Growth accounting: empirical studies. Employment
growth and productivity dynamics: international comparisons. Sector and regional differences in productivity growth.

Productive specialisation model and labour productivity. Labour market reforms, employment dynamics and
productivity growth. Immigration, employment and productivity).

ii. Human capital and productivity (Economic growth and human capital. Skill-bias of labour demand and economic
growth. Skill-mismatch and labour mobility. Quality of education and economic growth. Education and the transition of young people to work. Human capital, wages and returns to education. Generation features in human capital appreciation. Flexibility of labour, specific human capital and on-the-job training).
iii. Organisation, human resources management and productivity (Technical and organisational innovations. ICT and productivity. New organisational methods. Productivity and business environment. Competences, multi-functionality and productivity. High performance work practices, high performance work organisations and productivity.

Productivity: sectors and firm size. Productivity in the services, in particular in the public services. Firms’ wage
policies. Productivity and efficiency wages).

iv. Industrial relations and policies to support productivity (Productivity and R&D expenses. Policies to support R&D. Productivity, competition and market liberalisation. Industrial relations and wage bargaining systems. Income productivity). For a more detailed analysis of this session project, please link to the following web address: http://www.aiel.it