Search

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, fiscal policies become essential in combating the crisis effects on both the labour market and the business sector. Thus, finding the most effective fiscal policy solutions to ensure a smoother economic recovery from the pandemic effects becomes a major concern worldwide. As compared to more developed countries, developing economies tend to have harder and usually longer recovery periods from economic crises. Therefore, this paper aims to study the changes in fiscal policies in correlation with the evolutions and transformations of the labour market for a case of a developing country. Evidence for the case of Romania is provided, where labour force participation is very low and youth unemployment is among the highest in Europe. This paper discusses the national legislative framework of fiscal policies and the recent labour market changes. Forecasts of moderate levels of economic growth are radically changed following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Copyright © 2021. Madalina Ecaterina POPESCU, Larisa STANILA, Ana-Maria GATEA and Amalia CRISTESCU. Distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International CC-BY 4.0

An inclusive labor market, with equal opportunities for all, is a desideratum of all states, and one of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations for the year 2030. Discrimination can take many forms, based on many reasons, and has a strong impact on the living standards of individuals. Discrimination in the labor market can negatively affect economic performances. The aim of the research is to investigate the perception of individuals regarding discrimination, with a focus on the characteristics of the individuals who feel discriminated in Romania in a work-related context. In order to capture the relevant aspects, we turned to descriptive analysis and logistic regression. The analysis revealed that around 14% of the respondents participating in the survey faced a discriminating situation in a work-related context during the last year. Moreover, less than half of these individuals have taken any action against the discrimination act, the others believing that nothing would have changed. The logistic regression results indicated that Roma people have 6.7 times higher chances to be discriminated in a work-related context as compared to a Romanian individual. Moreover, higher educated individuals are more likely to experience discrimination in the labor market.

In the aftermath of Angola&rsquo, s civil war, strong economic relations developed between the country and the People&rsquo, s Republic of China. Our study addresses China&rsquo, s investment risks in Angola, considering an infrastructure-for-petroleum partnership between these two countries. The main working hypothesis is that the recovery of Chinese investments made in Angola is has translated into thousands of barrels of petroleum being imported daily from Angola. We analyzed the main economic, social, and political indicators that describe the situation in Angola that could impact the recovery of Chinese loans in the form of oil exports. Data processing implied involved regression-based imputation, MinMax data normalization, the use of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and econometric analysis, next to the construction of a composite risk indicator. The results of the econometric analysis highlighted that an increase in the composite risk indicator of 1% leads to a decrease in the quantity of petroleum exported by almost 6377 barrels per day. Because, at least in the short run, the economic diversification in Angola is weak, and the most important asset is its oil, the partnership with China will continue to exist. This cooperation model represents a source of economic growth and infrastructure development for Angola and a source of energy that fuels China&mdash, one of the most powerful economies in the world.

In the context of European economic recovery, undeclared work has become a true challenge for the labour market policies, mainly because it affects tax revenue, social security and labour standards. Without better understanding of the main determinants of undeclared work, little can be done to prevent it. Having these in mind and based on the Eurobarometer survey, the paper aims to find the main factors that trigger undeclared work. Our findings suggest that after the economic crisis, the trust in national authorities has dropped and generated more undeclared payments, especially for the case of small and medium firms.

Over the last twenty years, Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) experienced a specific pattern of economic and social evolution. In the post-communism period these countries have initiated a comprehensive process of catching-up the capitalist economies. This process involved a series of institutional reforms and the liberalization and integration of some important markets (capital market, labor market, etc.). In these circumstances, the actual economic crisis represented a major challenge for these economies, which moreover were quite affected and the recovery is slow. For the purpose of the statistic data analysis, we decided to form two groups of countries, based on their history, background and recent development. We first made an analysis of the evolution of macroeconomic indicators to see how economic policy measures were favourable overcoming the crisis for each country. Using a panel date model, we aim to illustrate the influence of some important macroeconomics indicators (unemployment rate, GDP, FDI) on the labour market (real average net earnings, employment rate). The econometric results revealed that the GDP and FDI have a positive influence upon the two dependent variables, reflecting a normal economic situation.

This paper aims at contributing to the better understanding of the income inequality determinants in Romania. In spite of positive economic evolutions and considerable governmental concerns, income inequality is still high in Romania and has remained almost unchanged during the past 15 years. Neither economic growth, nor the economic crisis that followed during recent years, has been equally distributed across households. The contribution of our paper lies in the decomposition of income inequality by groups of households based on socio-economic characteristics and the estimation of between and within group inequality. We assess the size of income inequality by using the Theil inequality index. Our findings suggest that education and status in employment are amongst the main determinants of income variability.

Taking into consideration the recent debates on adopting a progressive tax system over the flat-rate taxation, our paper aims to investigate the impact of a change in the current Romanian personal income tax policy system from the 10% flat-rate tax system to some alternative progressive taxation scenarios. The methodological approach consisted in using the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database to micro-simulate the impact upon poverty and income inequality. Through our ex-ante tax policy analysis we bring empirical evidence of a modest, but positive effect upon poverty rate and income inequalities in favor of a progressive taxation system. However, when looking at the government financial implications through the personal income tax budget revenues, we discuss upon the possible trade-off between the benefits on poverty and income inequalities and the possible budgetary drawbacks. Despite the data limitations, this study has the benefit of being among the first attempts to evaluate the impact of a personal income tax policy reform for the case of Romania.

In this paper we focus on analysing the evolution of the main relevant macroeconomic E.U. indicators by studying the changes occurred in the last years. We first apply a Hierarchical cluster analysis in order to classify the E.U. countries in two distinct groups. We then estimate a panel data model for each cluster, highlighting the indicators affecting the employment rate. The results indicate a positive influence of earning on employment rate for both clusters, while some particularities were also noticed. Further on, we build a simulation scenario to predict the employment rate for the E.U. member countries.

The European Social Model acknowledges the central role that the labour market plays in the transformation of European society into a society based on sustainable growth, a smart and inclusive society. Lately, unemployment which affects a large part of the European working population has become a main topic in all economic and political programs. In the other hand one in five people in the European Union is at risk of poverty or social exclusion and 40 million people are in a condition of severe deprivation and the recent economic crisis has further aggravated this situation. Thus, in this article we have tried to estimate the effects that the European Social Model has on the EU labour market and living standards. Through a panel date model we tried to illustrate the impact of certain variables representative of the European social economy (tax rate on labour, social benefits, the growth rate of real gross domestic product, employment rate) on unemployment and poverty rate.

In this paper we examine the impact of minimum wages upon the labour market in Romania through econometric modelling using quarterly data for the period 2000-2013. Several age groups differentiated by gender were considered in the analysis in order to see if and how much does the minimum wage affect employment variation at different age and gender groups. Other explanatory variables were also considered in the analysis, such as: the average monthly gross earnings, the gross domestic product and the net investments expressed in comparable prices. The model used in our analysis is a linear one, used by other researchers as well, for which the international literature has either identified a negative impact of the minimum wage upon employment, or a statistically insignificant one. When the impact is negative, the most affected groups are generally young people and women, which is the reason why we decided to study the employment on different age and gender groups. Our results indicate a statistical significant impact, but of alternating signs depending on the age group. Based on these results we then made predictions based on various scenarios regarding the evolution of the independent variables.

In this paper we investigated the earnings inequalities in Romania. Our approach starts with a statistical analysis regarding the Gini index among several personal characteristics (level of education, seniority, economic activity), for males and females and for the major groups of occupation. Second, we estimated two panel data models corresponding to each gender, aiming at observing different influences upon gross monthly earnings at industry level. We included in the analysis the turnover and the employees by educational attainment level for each gender and obtained that the variables considered have a positive impact on earnings, but with different intensities.