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This chapter presents a few more details on the Swedish labor market, and then conducts formal descriptive analyses to document these changes throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The matched employee–employer data is used. The analysis of wage levels and wage changes, as well as the trends in worker mobility are elaborated. The chapter shows that the decrease in wage variation during the 1970s and the increase in the 1980s were due to increased variation of wages within firms and increased variation across firms. In addition, people in the low part of the wage distribution have the least to lose by changing jobs, and this relationship gets stronger all the way to the bottom of the wage distribution within firms. The job turnover and wage compression trends are strong for both blue- and white-collar workers in Sweden.

This chapter, which describes some key features of the labor market in Denmark, also addresses the important aspect of its functioning and flexibility: the high level of worker mobility. Then, it explores the wage structure between and within firms, and changes therein since 1980. The Danish labor market, which is characterized by both high job mobility and high wage mobility, has an institutional setup that strongly facilitates mobility. The observed increase in overall wage dispersion is predominantly due to increasing wage differentials between firms. Moreover, Denmark has experienced a shift in wage bargaining from a highly centralized system to a considerably more decentralized wage setting. There has been a clear increase in between-firm wage inequality. Although labor turnover rates are high, a considerable portion of workers are in long-term employment relationships.

This chapter discusses the first major fundamental risk indicator for emerging markets: market capacity constraints. The basic principle is that fewer restrictions on market participation and activity mean more vibrant capital markets and greater investment and economic development. This particular chapter focuses on what factors limit the capacity of the capital markets in an emerging market defined relative to its economic size. This is, in a way, the first among equals in the set of risk indicators. The focus is on the market capitalization of the equity and debt markets, the size of bank assets, the number of listed securities, their turnover, and capital formation. Market capacity constraints are motivated in a recent case study of the Folli Follie Group, a Greek luxury jewelry designer and retail group, in terms of how it attracted a strategic equity investment by China’s Fosun International.