The impact of product and labour market deregulation

Abstract

Economists have often talked about the European Paradox:” - Europe having the necessary knowledge and research but failing to utilize these advantages and bring them to the markets. The perception, largely attributable to the media reporting, is that Europe lags behind the United States in innovation. While it is true that most of the e-commerce innovations were developed in the United States, Europe’s economies did well over the 1990s despite the lack of major breakthroughs in high-tech sphere. Thus, it is hard to say that Europe is facing an innovation crisis, and I will argue that Europe has other advantages that make it competitive globally. While Europe might not have as much success in innovation as the United States, it nevertheless, has been successful in more developed and mature segments of the markets. Moreover, I will argue that country’s specialization depends on the setup of the institutions in the political economy. The countries utilize their comparative institutional advantage (CIA) to maintain competitive globally. Finally, I will argue against the idea of drastic deregulation of the product and labor markets in Europe. Doing so would be like shooting yourself in the foot since individual European countries would lose their comparative institutional advantage that allows them to stay competitive globally in the market for incremental innovation products.