FLEXICURITY POLICIES AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH PRODUCTIVITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The paper examines the issue of flexicurity in the EU Member States and studies the association between flexicurity policy components (i.e. employment protection legislation, lifelong learning programs, active and passive labour market policies) and labour and total factor productivity growth in 20 EU Member States over the 1991-2008 period. The empirical analysis pointed on the existence of large differences in the level of implementation of flexicurity policies across EU Member States, by which the least successful are NMS, especially with regard to active labour market and lifelong learning programs. As regards the relation between flexicurity variables and productivity growth, panel regression estimates showed that active labour market policies and participation in lifelong learning programs have a statistically significant positive association with labour and total factor productivity growth. On the other hand, rigid employment protection and high expenditures for passive labour market policies negatively relate to productivity growth.