Miroslav Beblavý

• PhD
• Managing Director at ESPRI

Digitalisation – or the transformation of processes through new digital technologies – is changing the skills required to work and live, but also how we acquire, assess, and demonstrate our skills and education. This broad trend is known as the digitalisation of learning. The Index of Readiness for Digital Lifelong Learning (IRDLL) attempts to shed...

This chapter analyzes the labor market integration of South–North and East–West migrants, together with intra-European and non-European Union migrants, vis-à-vis native peers in main European destinations. The analysis considers individual characteristics and labor market outcomes by migrant origins. Labor market outcomes are estimated, controlling...

The identification of new and emerging occupations has proven to be a challenging task, in which real-time information on labour market developments is key. At present, the most commonly used data sources do not provide up-to-date information, are narrow in scope or limited in size. In this light, online job portals have been suggested as an intere...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to overcome the problems that skill mismatch cannot be measured directly and that demand side data are lacking. It relates demand and supply side characteristics by aggregating data from jobs ads and jobholders into occupations. For these occupations skill mismatch is investigated by focussing on demand and sup...

In this paper, we examine possibilities and limitations of a potential European Unemployment Insurance in alleviating impact of both symmetric and asymmetric shocks on national budgets and workers’ welfare. We present various policy options and their assessment. In the paper, we first discuss the framework in which an automatic stabiliser would ope...

In a globalized world, knowledge of foreign languages is an important skill. Especially in Europe, with its 24 official languages and its countless regional and minority languages, foreign language skills are a key asset in the labor market. Earlier research shows that over half of the EU27 population is able to speak at least one foreign language,...

In this paper, we put to the test two innovative approaches, which are both based on web data, to examine occupations and skills. Driven by technological change, new tasks, occupations and skills have emerged whereas others have become redundant. At the same time, existing occupations have substantially transformed. These transformations have been...

This paper presents the findings of six case studies, each of which makes use of web data, to carry out research on occupations and skills. The idea behind the case studies is to put into test a series of methodologies and assess what one can learn. four case studies are based on job advertisements, one case study is based on meta data, and one cas...

Along with the advancement of the Internet in the last decade, researchers have increasingly identified the web as a research platform and a data source, pointing out its value for labour market analysis. This article presents a review of online data sources for this field. Specifically, the article introduces web-based research, focusing on the po...

As a result of technological progress and economic change, many new occupations have emerged in the labour market, while others have become redundant and disappeared. Along with these new and emerging occupations, new skills have been introduced that can be developed through formal education, on-the-job training or learning-by-doing (or in some oth...

In this CEPS Essay, Miroslav Beblavý takes stock of the changing situation in Spanish politics one month before the early elections, which are expected to take place on June 26th in the hope that a new government can finally be formed. He finds that in both in politics and in economics, Spain resides at an immensely important inflection point situa...

This State of the Art Report aims to provide an overview of the academic and the policy debate on the emergence of new occupations and skills in the 21th century. Although the discussion on new jobs and skills is not new to the literature or the public debate, the issue still receives a lot of attention because of the socio-ecological transition th...

Using a sample of approximately 2 million job advertisements published online, this paper assesses which educational, skills and other requirements US employers demand the most. The analysis is focused on the 30 most-frequently advertised occupations in the United States, of different levels of complexity, and finds that employers are quite demandi...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to learn more about demand for competences is crucial for revealing the complex relationship between employee selection, different strands of education and training and labor market regulation. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis and statistics of job advertisements. Findings – Employer skills req...

In an innovative use of government manifestos, this paper examines the salience and shape of anti-corruption policies in Slovakia and the Czech Republic during the period 1990–2013. Both the intensity and shape of anti-corruption efforts appear to be related less to the actual extent of corruption or external influences and more to the growing dome...

The paper is a case study of influence of international organizations on national/domestic policies. It analyses effect of major anti-corruption conventions of three organizations - OECD, Council of Europe and UN - on domestic policy in Slovakia to see whether these conventions matter for what actually happens in domestic policy. More broadly, it a...

This paper looks at the difference between the levels and nature of social policy expenditure in northern and northwest European countries and the countries of southern, central, and eastern Europe, and examines the relationship between social investment and state capacity in these country groupings. The authors show that southern and eastern count...

The last few years have witnessed the exponential growth of platforms like Uber and Airbnb and the creation of countless other less well-known examples. The expansion of the on-demand economy puts huge pressure on regulators to adapt it to the existing frameworks for labour and taxation. The rapid growth of the sector also divides experts: it is se...

This paper discusses methodological issues arising from the use of online job vacancy data and voluntary web-based surveys to analyse the labour market. We highlight the advantages and possible disadvantages of using online data and suggest strategies for overcoming selected methodological issues. We underline the difficulties in adjusting for repr...

We reassess the results from the literature on the relationship between the youth unemployment rate and GDP growth (Okun's law), based on the concern that the unemployment rate is not an ideal indicator for teenagers and young adults. Using the unemployment ratio instead, we find that youth unemployment (15–24 years old) is not significantly more r...

The paper “Making the State Work: Lessons from 20 Years of Public Administration Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union” reviews literature analysing more than 20 years transition in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with the main objective of bringing together existing research for practi...

We reassess the results from the literature on the relationship between the youth unemployment rate and GDP growth (Okun’s law), based on the concern that the unemployment rate is not an ideal indicator for teenagers and young adults. Using the unemployment ratio instead, we find that youth unemployment (15–24 years old) is not significantly more r...

This paper aims to frame the debate on a European Unemployment Benefits Scheme (EUBS), as a shock absorber for EU economies, around its origins on the one hand, and its most controversial aspects, on the other. The paper focuses on several key aspects of the EUBS, the first being the options for financing the scheme. This can be divided into those...

The massification of tertiary education means that a significant percentage of young people participate in tertiary education while also working. They can be seen as a threat – as cheap and highly qualified competition for low-skilled workers in casual jobs who are setting aside their studies for the time being in favour of immediate income. Or the...

With the huge growth in enrolment in higher education, the key question facing young people today is not so much “what to study” as “whether to study”. Taking a methodologically innovative approach, this paper measures the net present value of university education and compares returns from studying a range of different subjects. We use data from fi...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the size and composition of the student labour force in order to consider its potential impact on labour markets in the European Union. The paper is based on an analysis of EU Labour Force Survey data from 2011, supplemented by the findings of the EUROSTUDENT project. The structure of student labour is discu...

The massification of tertiary education means that a significant percentage of young people participate in tertiary education while also working. They can be seen as a threat – as cheap and highly qualified competition for low-skilled workers in casual jobs who are setting aside their studies for the time being in favour of immediate income. Or the...

This report offers a comparative policy study on adult learning within the scope of complementary research conducted by Beblavý et al. (2013)* on how people upgrade their skills during their adult lifetimes. To achieve their objectives, the authors identified regulatory policies and financial support in 11 countries for two main categories of learn...

In this CEPS Commentary, Ilaria Maselli and Miroslav Beblavý argue that the European economic governance system needs to be equipped with a supranational automatic stabiliser that would kick-in automatically in the event of an economic downturn, to avoid unduly burdening national public finances. In their view, the option of creating an unemploymen...

This article analyses online job advertisements to identify skills that are demanded in selected low- and medium-skilled occupations. We explore data from the publicly administered cross-European EURES job search portal and quantify the different cognitive and non-cognitive skills requested by employers in small European economies. While we find th...

Taking its inspiration from the ongoing debate on whether this time will be different for Greece and whether Syriza will deliver on its reform promises to the European partners, this Commentary expresses bemusement that the public debate on such an important issue as well as internal discussions among senior policy-makers frequently resort to ‘gut...

In this paper we construct a theory about how the expansion of higher education could be associated with several factors that indicate a decrease in the quality of degrees. We assume that the expansion of tertiary education takes place through three channels, and show how they are likely to reduce average study time, academic requirements and avera...

Work is both an essential part of our daily lives and one of the major policy concerns across Europe. In this second volume of The Future of Labour in Europe, the authors explain in accessible language the findings of the NEUJOBS project on the job prospects of key industries and groups of people. They use three colours – green, pink and silver – t...

European societies face profound global changes over the coming decades that will alter the nature of work and employment and require pro-active and anticipatory policy responses. These global changes are driven by the socio-ecological transition (SET), described and analysed in Volume 1. In this second volume, we map the impact of these changes on...

This study is a contribution to the debate around the creation of an unemployment insurance scheme for the EU/euro area by proposing an alternative mechanism to the Europeanisation of national insurance schemes. The authors make the case for a reinsurance mechanism and show that such a system delivers, for a small average contribution, large shock-...

In this paper we construct a theory about how the expansion of higher education could be associated with several factors that indicate a decrease in the quality of degrees. We assume that the expansion of tertiary education takes place through three channels, and show how they are likely to reduce average study time, academic requirements and avera...

This study offers an in-depth economic analysis of the two main proposals for the creation of a European unemployment insurance scheme. One proposes the creation of a harmonised European unemployment benefit scheme that would apply automatically to every eligible unemployed person. The alternative, termed ‘reinsurance’ here, would transfer funds to...

This paper, the third in a series for a CEPS project on the ‘The British Question’, is pegged on an ambitious exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union on the basis of evidence submitted by independent stakeholders. The reviews considered in this paper cover the following EU policies: the single market f...

This paper examines why the postcommunist countries that joined the European Union (EU) during the 2000s tend to be more neoliberal in their social and economic policies than are the traditional EU members from Western Europe. To this end, the paper looks at two areas of reform in which new Europe has been significantly more neoliberal than old Eur...

The antivirus industry is the only innovation-intensive sector in which home-grown companies from Central Europe have been able to gain and retain global leadership. We review the literature on sources of national competitive advantage and evaluate the relative importance of different factors, drawing on evidence gained from semi-structured intervi...

In presenting their priorities for the new European Commission, Miroslav Beblavý and Ilaria Maselli assert in this CEPS Commentary that the time has come to devise an EU-level shock absorption mechanism. In their view, the instrument that best aligns varying political and economic objectives is a form of reinsurance of national systems of unemploym...

Adult learning is seen as a key factor for enhancing employment, innovation and growth. The aim of this paper is to understand the points in the life cycle at which adult learning takes place and whether it leads to reaching a medium or high level of educational attainment. We perform a synthetic panel analysis of adult learning for cohorts aged 25...

This paper presents the first macro-level Narrative Policy Framework study. We examine how narrative strategies of institutions at the macro-level (OECD) influence policy processes and outcomes at the meso-level. Our findings are as follows. The importation of macro-narrative of less selective schooling to Czech Republic and Slovakia following thei...

Human society – willingly or not, slowly or quickly – is in a transition away from the use of fossil fuels. This transition is expected to have as many and equally far-reaching implications for human labour as the previous transition to a fossil-fuel based industrial society had. To understand this phenomenon better, we develop a simple scheme that...

This chapter will succinctly acquaint readers with the vision of the future on which the other chapters in this book are based. It is a vision of the future, or rather various possible futures, under the conditions of the socio-ecological transition and its consequences for employment overall, but also for key sectors and relevant groups. Specifica...

The article explores economics of public rental housing policy in Slovakia. Our principal research question is: why has construction of such housing not succeeded in activating rental market and labour mobility? The secondary question is: does the policy ensure that public housing projects are economically meaningful and well-targeted? Four case st...

In this article we use concentration of electoral support for individual candidates and divergence between party and electorate preferences for candidates to test hypotheses about the party–electorate relationship. We test these using data from preferential voting in Slovak general elections between 1998 and 2010. Our results suggest that low con-c...

The paper looks at the European Union’s impact on corruption in Slovakia, both before and after the country’s accession to the European Union. It shows that even though pre-accession channels of influence diminish or disappear, membership brings new means of influence. Our methodology looks beyond institutional changes and explicit anti-corruption me...

n this Working Paper, based on nearly 20 papers produced by the Centre for European Policy Studies, Slovak Governance Institute and the Conference Board Europe, we examine whether the current trends in the areas of education and skills are pushing the European Union, towards convergence or polarisation. We cover a wide range of questions related to...

This paper, which draws on research findings from the NEUJOBS project, encourages EU and national policy-makers to invest in a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon of ‘low-skilledness’. The ‘low-skilled’ label can hide a number of different scenarios: labour market detachment, migration and obsolete skills that are the result of macroeconomic...

Policy-makers often fret about the low number of university graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Proposed solutions often focus on providing better information for students and parents about the employability or average wages of different fields to emphasise that STEM professions pay. This paper argues...

Work is both an essential part of our daily lives and one of the major policy concerns across Europe. Yet the public debate of labour issues is all too often driven by political rhetoric and short-term concerns. In this volume, researchers from seven European countries explain, in accessible language, the findings from various social sciences and w...

We examine the relationship between education and social protection policies across OECD countries and thereby contribute to the growing political and academic discussion on how social investment and social protection are interrelated. We focus on how government policy in two policy domains (education, social protection) affects social stratificati...

There is general consensus that to achieve employment growth, especially for vulnerable groups, it is not sufficient to simply kick-start economic growth: skills among both the high- and low-skilled population need to be improved. In particular, we argue that if the lack of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a t...

With the spread of internet, online job portals have become important forums for job matching by employers and employees. Online job portals often collect large number of data in the form of job vacancies and resumes that can serve as a valuable source of information about the characteristics of labour market demand. Research using such data is lim...

Adult learning is seen as a key factor for enhancing employment, innovation and growth, and it should concern all age cohorts. The aim of this paper is to understand the points in the life cycle at which adult learning takes place and whether it leads to reaching a medium or high level of educational attainment. To this end we perform a synthetic p...

Conceptualizing Low-Skillness: A New Approach. This study reviews conceptual and empirical literature studying low-skilled and proposes more comprehensive and dynamic conceptualization of low-skillness. Our work is based on analysing the sources of being and of becoming low-skilled by reviewing structural processes underlying changes in labour mark...

In this paper we construct a theory about how the expansion of higher education could be associated with several factors that indicate a decrease in the quality of degrees. We assume that the expansion of tertiary education takes place through three channels, and show how they are likely to reduce average study time, academic requirements and avera...

The effect of specific education policies, such as ability grouping, preschool attendance on educational outcomes and equity has been the subject of much scholarly and political debate. Our paper adds to this debate by examining the association between such policies and equity for children of different abilities. In this way we arrive at a nuanced...

This paper analyses job advertisements to identify the specific skills and characteristics that are demanded in the Slovak labour market in selected low- and medium-skilled occupations in different sectors. It is innovative in exploring online job advertisement data and in quantifying the different skills, personal attributes and characteristics re...

With higher education increasingly available to young people regardless of their socio-economic status, the question "what to study" is steadily replacing "whether to study" as the key question facing students today. This paper examines, in a comparative and methodologically innovative manner, incentives for studying various fields measured by net...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of routine on jobs using the European Working Condition Survey dataset. Statistics indicate that the share of routine jobs decreased between 2000 and 2010, from 49% to 43% of total jobs, consistently with the task-biased technological change theory by Autor et al. (2003). Yet, it is unlikely that...

This study examines why countries adopt or do not adopt pro-equality educational reforms from the political economy and historical perspective. Our study steps into a century-long debate on advantages and disadvantages of less selective schooling and analyzes the conditions, which enable the spillover of international and domestic educational disco...

This study reviews theoretical, conceptual and empirical literature concerning the low-skilled and proposes more comprehensive and dynamic conceptualization of who the low-skilled are. Our conceptualization is based on analyzing the sources and processes of being and of becoming low-skilled by reviewing macro-structural external processes underlyin...

This paper examines whether social capital has an impact on adult learning. We test empirically the effects of various types of social capital according to different prominent sociological theories or other previous findings -using the German Socioeconomic Panel. We address endogeneity issues by using predetermined variables, panel data and instrum...

This paper analyses job advertisements posted on the public EU portal EURES to identify the specific skills and characteristics that are demanded in the European labour market in selected low-and medium-skilled occupations and in different sectors. This research is innovative in exploring online job advertisement data from the EURES website and qua...

The paper examines use of electronic auctions (e-auctions) as an allocation mechanism in public procurement in Slovak public sector. It is based on data from 32 procurement bodies and 725 procurements in the public sector in the period 2008 – 2010. Our findings are that e-auctions bring average savings of 10 – 12% though their implementation is not...

Adult learning and a resulting up-skilling of the population is seen as a key factor for employment, innovation and growth as the vast literature on “lifelong learning” suggests. Commonly, adult learning is understood as the participation in training classes, which either provide a formal degree or not. There are also forms of adult learning that n...

In many European and other Western countries, labour markets will continue to be reformed in order to accommodate further adjustments to economic, demographic and socio-ecological developments. Moreover, labour market institutions and other aspects of labour markets receive a lot of attention in EU policy debates because they are regarded as key fa...

In this paper we study theoretically how the expansion of higher education could be associated with several factors indicating a decline in the quality of degrees. We assume that the expansion of tertiary education happens through three channels and show how they are likely to reduce average study time, average wages and increase grades. Firstly, u...

The paper examines use of electronic auctions (e-auctions) as an allocation mechanism in public procurement in Slovak public sector. It is based on data from 32 procurement bodies and 725 procurements in the public sector in the period 2008-2010. Our findings are that e-auctions bring average savings of 10-12% though their implementation is not fre...

/ Abstract Discussion of politico-administrative relations as well as the research on agencies generally treats the “politicisation” of agency management as a single, “black-box” concept, according to which agency managements (and other senior civil servants) are either political or not. Our paper shows that, using a strict, but widely applied defi...

This paper explores the extent to which that elusive phenomenon called 'workplace innovation' has pervaded workplaces in Europe and whether it could be one of the answers to Europe’s long-term social and economic challenges that stem from an aging workforce and the need for more flexibility to stay competitive. Basic data drawn from European Workin...

This study examines why countries adopt or do not adopt pro-equality educational reforms from the political economy and historical perspective. Our study steps into a century-long debate on advantages and disadvantages of less selective schooling and analyzes the conditions, which enable the spillover of international and domestic educational disco...

NEUJOBS Working Documents are intended to give an indication of work being conducted within the NEUJOBS research project and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. Texts published in this series are ultimately destined for academic publishing. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represen...

This paper examines whether social capital has an impact on adult learning. We test empirically the effects of various types of social capital according to different prominent sociological theories or other previous findings - using the German Socioeconomic Panel. We address endogeneity issues by using predetermined variables, panel data and in...

The effect of specific education policies, such as ability grouping, preschool attendance on educational outcomes and equity has been the subject of much scholarly and political debate. Our paper adds to this debate by examining the association between such policies and equity for children of different abilities. In this way we arrive at a nuanced...

In this paper, we present the historical time series of enrolment rates in upper secondary schooling in five European countries. The presented data were examined in light of reform attempts aimed at expansions of schooling with the aim to derive lessons for the expansion of the tertiary sector. We were particularly interested in the speed and the d...

This Working Document looks at which OECD countries deliberately attempt to reproduce social stratification through educational policies, and which countries put greater emphasis on intervening in the stratification process.The research findings challenge a one-policy-fits-all approach that advocates education policy reforms designed to increase eq...

This paper examines two questions related to the sustainability of the major neoliberal, economic and social reforms in the new EU member states, namely the flat income tax and private pension pillars. First, we look at the relationship between the political consensus/controversy at the time major policy reforms were passed and the future sustainab...

The financial crisis of 2007–2010 has presented a number of key policy challenges for those concerned with the long-term stability of the euro area. It has shown that price stability as provided by the European Central Bank is not enough to guarantee financial stability, and exposed fault lines in governance and deficiencies in the architecture of...

The financial crisis of 2007–10 has presented a number of key policy challenges for those concerned with the long-term stability of the euro area. It has shown that price stability as provided by the European Central Bank is not enough to guarantee financial stability, and exposed fault lines in governance and deficiencies in the architecture of th...

The goal of this paper is to provide tools to understand and analyse waves of "agencification" in transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Agencification is a shorthand for the process of delegation and devolution, in which more autonomy, particularly in personnel and financial issues, is granted to public bodies, which either remain leg...

In this paper we use concentration of electoral support for individual candidates and divergence between party and electorate preferences for candidates to test hypotheses about the party-electorate relationship. We test them using data from preferential voting in Slovak general elections between 1998 and 2010. Our results suggest that low concentr...

To help both the United States and Europe grapple with their rising levels of government debt and large budget deficits, this Commentary suggests that EU policy-makers might be well advised to consider an innovative albeit quirky approach devised by Slovakia to deal with the problem, in which the personal prosperity of top national officials is bas...

The chapter evaluates the Slovak experience with impact of innovations in financing public higher education institutions. During the last decade, the government implemented an evolving funding formula for the higher education to steer universities towards outputs and outcomes desired by policy-makers. The Slovak experience shows that such innovatio...

The aims of this report are threefold. The first is to map how much information can be obtained on the labour markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in order to proceed with analyzing the labour market policies and the growth models in the region. Secondly, while some comparative data can be obtained through international databases, these are...