Corporatism and the European Labor-Market After 1992

This paper addresses the question of the effect of labour market institutions on economic performance. It reviews evidence to show that the performances of highly centralized, or 'corporatist' economies, such as Sweden and Austria, have in the past been superior to those of the current EC members. It considers the implications of this for European labour markets-given the process of European integration. It seems likely that Europe as a whole will gravitate to a weak form of corporatism which may be associated with poor economic performance. Therefore we contrast the prospects of a neo-liberal deregulatory with a more corporatist strategy as the optimum response for the Europe Community of the 1990s.