Rediscovering Migration as a Strategy for Human Resources: Employers and the Rhetorical Claims of Competitiveness during the Lisbon Era

In 2000, the European Union set out to shape itself into the world's "most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy" within a decade. But how great is the capacity of the EU to orchestrate 'competitiveness'? Can common policy instruments produce consistent effects across diverse varieties of capitalism? Has substantial policy learning taken place in response to the successes and failures of the Lisbon agenda? Europe and National Economic Transformation identifies the nature and limits of the transformative capacities of the EU's push for economic gains. The book does so by examining the consequences of the decade-long Lisbon process and its successor, Europe 2020. It explores a broad range of economic outcomes and consequences for an array of policy areas, including innovation financing, employment services, labor migration policy and pension reform.