Social Europe articles on the economy

A ‘rebuttable presumption of employment’ is emerging as a response to platforms denying their workers employee status.

Keynes warned that ‘practical men’ were often in thrall to some dead economist. In fact many leading economists have agreed on the idea of guaranteed work.

The pandemic has brought occupational safety and health from the margins to the centre. Investment should follow.

The pandemic made us all familiar with ‘social distancing’. Employers are starting to glimpse a future where ‘contractual distancing’ is normalised.

Last October, the European Commission proposed a framework directive on minimum wages. Whether one likes it or not, the EU is competent to do so.

A ‘helicopter money’ stimulus of direct payments to individuals, as in the US, would be neither well targeted nor transformatory in Europe.

The arcane notion of ‘monetary dominance’ lay behind the last eurozone crisis. Unless challenged, it could underlie another one.

Monetary policy is never neutral. The recovery must not follow financial markets but rather reflect a shared vision of a green future.

Branko Milanovic warns that the post-pandemic world could see further polarisation in a now global labour market.

Legal amendments will not only recognise ‘riders’ as employees but require algorithm transparency from platforms generally.

After Ireland closed its notorious corporate-tax loophole, it might have been thought tax avoidance would have gone with it. Not so.

Jayati Ghosh begins a new Social Europe column by pricking Europe’s conscience on its pandemic-related responsibilities towards the developing world.

The UK’s highest court has delivered another benchmark judgment on gig workers. But the battle is not over.