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Torben M. Andersen
Labor markets and institutions

Aarhus University, Denmark, and IZA, Germany

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Professor of Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark

Research interest

Labor economics, public economics, the economics of the welfare state

Website

http://bit.ly/Andersen_AUpage

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

Extensive involvement in policy advising in Denmark and various other countries and the EU Commission. Past activities include: Former chairman of the Danish Council of Economic Advisors and the Danish Welfare Commission. Former member of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council, and commissions appointed by the governments of Norway and Greenland

Qualifications

PhD, Université Catholique, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1986

Selected publications

  • "Longevity, growth and intergenerational equity: The deterministic case." Macroeconomic Dynamics 20:4 (2016): 985–1021 (with M. Gestsson).

  • "Automatic stabilizers: The intersection of labour market and fiscal policies." IZA Journal of European Labor Studies 5:11 (2016).

  • "Does the public sector implode from Baumol's cost disease?" Economic Inquiry 54:2 (2016): 810–818.

  • "The Nordic welfare model and welfare services: Can we maintain acceptable standards?" Mauno Koivisto Lecture 2014, Research on Finnish Society 8 (2015): 85–96.

  • "The Danish flexicurity labour market during the great recession." De Economist 163:4 (2015): 473–490.

article(s)

  • The Danish labor market, 2000–2018 Updated

    Employment has increased since the recession due to a cyclical upturn and structural reforms

    Torben M. Andersen, December 2019
    Denmark is often highlighted as a “flexicurity” country characterized by lax employment protection legislation, generous unemployment insurance, and active labor market policies. Despite a sharp and prolonged decline in employment in the wake of the Great Recession, high job turnover and wage adjustments worked to prevent increased long-term and structural unemployment. Most unemployment spells were short, muting the effects on long-term and youth unemployment. Recent reforms boosted labor supply and employment, targeting the young, elderly, and immigrants. Employment recovered to its structural level around 2015 and has since increased due to a favorable business cycle situation and structural reforms (particularly increases in retirement age).
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  • A flexicurity labor market during recession

    Long-term unemployment did not rise under the flexicurity model during the great recession, despite the large drop in GDP

    Torben M. Andersen, July 2015
    Before the great recession of 2008–2009, the “flexicurity” model (with flexibility for firms to adjust their labor force along with income security for workers through the social safety net) attracted attention for its ability to deliver low unemployment. But how did it fare during the recession, especially in Denmark, which has been highlighted as having a well-functioning flexicurity model? Flexible hiring and firing rules are expected to lead to large adjustments in employment in a recession. Did the high rate of job turnover continue or did long-term unemployment rise? And did the social safety net become overburdened?
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  • Tuning unemployment insurance to the business cycle

    Unemployment insurance generosity should be greater when unemployment is high—and vice versa

    Torben M. Andersen, May 2014
    High unemployment and its social and economic consequences have lent urgency to the question of how to improve unemployment insurance in bad times without jeopardizing incentives to work or public finances in the medium term. A possible solution is a rule-based system that improves the generosity of unemployment insurance (replacement rate, benefit duration, eligibility conditions) when unemployment is high and reduces the generosity when it is low.
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