16
employment rates. These macroeconomic influences cannot be compensated even by
very good structural policies of the regions and the Lander.
2. The example of Merseyside and Liverpool shows that in an environment of
expansive macroeconomic monetary and fiscal policies huge regional funds (EU-
objective-1 funds) are able to stop or even slow down the decline of regions with
severe problems.
Table 6 Merseyside and the Hinterland Region (Forecast Summary)
|
1996 |
2000 |
1998 |
2001 |
2002* |
2004* | |
|
GDP(%p.a.) |
_________1.1 |
3.3 |
3.9 |
2.8 |
2.9 |
3.2 |
|
-Manufact. |
-0.8 |
4.9 |
5.7 |
3.5 |
3.7 |
4.4 |
|
-Services |
2.1 |
2.5 |
2.9 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
|
Employment |
1098,7 |
1175,3 |
1127,8 |
1256,7 |
1273,5 |
1306,8 |
|
-Manufact. |
206,7 |
224,7 |
212,9 |
237,6 |
242,0 |
248,8 |
|
-Services |
892,0 |
950,6 |
914,8 |
1021,1 |
1031,5 |
1058,0 |
|
Unemploym. |
128,2 |
78,1 |
89,3 |
70,1 |
69,9 |
66,1 |
|
Working Pop.________ |
1226,9 |
1253,4 |
1217,2 |
1329,3 |
1343,4 |
1372, 9 |
|
Unempl. Rate (%) |
105 |
62 |
73 |
Tl |
H |
H |
|
Real Wage |
0Γ^ |
27 |
^L9 |
^25 |
Tl |
Source: Minford, Patrick and Stoney, Peter (2001/2002): Liverpool Research Group
in Macroeconomics No.1/July 2001 and No.2/March 2002; * forecast
But, of course, this table does not tell us anything about the partly very poor quality
of these jobs and the working poor problem.
3. An outline of an alternative social-ecological strategy
It is not possible to explain by purely regional factors the enormous rise in
unemployment that took place in the Ruhr area between the end of the 1970s and the
mid-1980s and which continued in the 1990s (a rise of 5,7% by 1980, 14,2% by 1985
and 11,3% by April 2002). The social and economic history of a region cannot be
analysed without references to international and national history and policies. At the
beginning of the 1980s a severe cyclical crisis occurred in all the industrial countries
of the Western world. Furthermore, a rapid change in macro-economic policies, from
Keynesian demand-side policy to neo-liberal supply-side and monetarist policies,
took place.
An alternative macro-economic strategy agrees with the parallel thesis of regional
economists described in chapter 1, but argues also explicitly that at the European and
EU-member-state level an alternative expansionist macro-economic employment
policy and a general reduction of working-time are the main preconditions for
combating regional crises (European Economists for an Alternative Economic Policy
in Europe, 1997, 2001). An analysis of disparities in income and unemployment
shows that in periods of general growth the level and the deviation in unemployment
rates between the regions and the member states of the EU declines, whereas in
periods of economic crisis and stagnation these disparities increase (European
Commission, 2001). Because of the necessities of sustainable development, the