The free movement of workers in an enlarged European Union : institutional underpinnings of economic adjustment
2016
Abstract
This chapter evaluates the effects of institutional factors on the mobility of workers and hence the capacity to absorb asymmetric economic shocks within an enlarged EU. We start reviewing the institutional underpinnings of the free movement of workers.
We then develop a stylized model in which we illustrate the key mechanisms through which mobility may help to absorb economic shocks. Thereafter, we study which patterns of mobility between new and old EU member states emerged after the EU's eastern enlargements and during the Great Recession and we empirically measure the effects of transitional arrangements on post-enlargement EU mobility.