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91. The Spanish Experiment: A Social Democratic Party-Union Relationship in a Competitive Union Context

Author:
Javier Astudillo Ruiz
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
A close relationship with a Social Democratic party has traditionally been regarded as one of the best strategies unions have to defend workers' interests. This conclusion still seems valid today, since the changes in the economic and social structure in the advanced capitalist societies alter the traditional content of their relationship, not the reason for cooperation. However, this belief assumes among a unitary labor movement. The experience of Southern Europe shows, on the contrary, that, when the union movement is divided according to different partisan preferences, union leaders are forced to choose between their relationship with their parties, or cooperating among themselves and being effective in the labor market. In addition, the divorce between the Spanish Socialist party and the Socialist Union reveals that, no matter how strong these organizations are, and despite their history of close ties, inter-union competition and a growing economy make their relationship even more damaging for the union's interests.
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

92. Kyoto Flexible Mechanisms: Opportunities and Barriers for Industry and Financial Institutions

Author:
Josef Janssen
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The Kyoto Protocol established global markets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions and permits. Such emerging markets will offer challenging opportunities to a wide variety of different players in industry and commerce. By means of the market-based Flexible Mechanisms Joint Implementation, Clean Development Mechanism and International Emissions Trading it will be possible to trade emissions permits globally. This chapter explores opportunities of the Flexible Mechanisms for industry, including the financial sector. Moreover, it identifies possible barriers to their realisation. This analysis is preceded by a discussion of the possible seize of global markets for emissions permits. In addition, this chapter examines key features of the Flexible Mechanisms that are relevant from an industry perspective.
Topic:
Environment and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

93. Security of European Natural Gas Supplies

Author:
Jonathan Stern
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Security of natural gas supplies has resurfaced on the European energy agenda because of concerns about an anticipated rapid increase in dependence on imports from non-European suppliers – from one-third to two-thirds of demand – over the next 20 years. On a national basis, European import dependence is already an established fact: nine out of 33 European countries are more than 95% dependent on imports; only five are self-sufficient or net exporters.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Industrial Policy, and Markets
Political Geography:
Europe

94. Substitutability Cross-Stream Between Oriented Markets: Conventions in the Wine Sector of France

Author:
Harrison C. White
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
I explicitly model the social mechanism that constructs markets. Producers array along a market profile along which buyers trade off quality for volume. Outcome features can be predicted from two ratios of parameters, yielding a MAP. Five distinct families of market cultures correspond to its regions. As previous work showed, Supply equaling Demand is transmuted into matchings across local variabilities of valuation with volume and with quality. Such matching is vulnerable to unraveling, but it can be achieved with market oriented either upstream or downstream.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and France

95. Precocious British Industrialization: A General Equilibrium Perspective

Author:
N.F.R. Crafts and C. Knick Harley
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The British industrial revolution created an industrial economy. While casual discourse conflates industrialization and economic growth, Britain was remarkable primarily for the pronounced structural change that occurred rather than for rapid economic growth. Uniquely the British labour force became highly industrialized even prior to the move to free trade in the 1840s. On the eve of the abolition of the Corn Laws the share of agriculture in employment had already declined to levels that were not reached in France and Germany until the 1950s.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, France, and Germany

96. International — Auto Consolidation

Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
Fiat announced a sharp fall in May car sales in Italy on June 5 and its debt is under review for a possible ratings downgrade. The world's sixth-largest car maker is one of many manufacturers facing difficult profitability conditions. Global sales volumes in the industry have remained high, but profits have not followed suit. Mergers, the most rational panacea, are confounded by bitter experience.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

97. Decentralized Cooperation and the Future of Regulatory Reform

Author:
Pepper D. Culpepper
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Faced with the fact of sweeping regulatory reform, how do companies decide how to respond to a new set of policies? This paper argues that this problem requires a new conception of policymaking: a conception that recognizes the analytical primacy of achieving coordination under uncertainty. I call this challenge the problem of securing decentralized cooperation. Negotiated reforms are a common leitmotif of the current wave of reforms taking place in various European countries, whereas American attempts to reinvent government opt to replace the state with the market. There are general lessons in this approach for both strategies. Unlike the earlier attempts to establish neo-corporatist bargains at the national level in European countries, the success of bargained pacts in Europe will depend increasingly on allowing private actors to design the best solutions to centrally identified problems. The challenges of bringing private information to bear on public policy will increase in the future, and not only in supply-side economic policy reforms. One such area is environmental regulation, which is typically viewed as an area of pure state regulation. This is also an area where market-based solutions are frequently proposed as the most efficient solution to problems of pollution. As I demonstrate through the initiative of the Chesapeake Bay Program in the United States, the challenges identified above for areas of economic policymaking are now relevant to environmental initiatives, even in liberal market economies such as the US and the UK. The extent of government success in such initiatives will be determined by the ability of governments to understand the importance of private information and their capacity to develop private sector institutions that can help procure it. Attempts to replace a malfunctioning state with a market solution, currently very much in vogue in certain quarters in the United States, will fail, as long as they do not recognize the distinctive problems inherent in securing decentralized cooperation.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

98. Sustaining Media Pluralism in Democratizing Societies

Author:
Craig L. LaMay
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
In 1974 a global "third wave" of democratization began when a military coup in Portugal ended the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar, who himself had come to power in a military coup in 1926. Over the course of the succeeding 15 years, about 30 countries changed from various forms of nondemocratic regimes to nominally democratic ones, most dramatically in South America and Central and Eastern Europe. During this period, notable transitions from nondemocratic rule also occurred in Africa and Asia.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, South America, and Portugal

99. Constitutional Causes for Technological Leadership: Why Europe?

Author:
Jurgen G. Backhaus
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Independent Institute
Abstract:
In a paper circulated towards the end of 1997 under the title Why Europe?, Gordon Tullock poses a simple question and provides a tentative, yet provocative answer. The question is why the technological take off took place in Europe and in the 19th century when well into the 18th century other areas of the world, and notably China, looked much better poised for technological and scholarly leadership than Europe. His tentative answer turns on the constitutional composition of the landscape of political entities in Europe. This essay tries to provide some further underpinnings to aspects of Gordon Tullock's preliminary answer.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
China and Europe

100. Alternative Models of Dynamics in Binary Time-Series-Cross-Section Models: The Example of State Failure

Author:
Nathaniel Beck, David Epstein, Simon Jackman, and Sharyn O'Halloran
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
This paper investigates a variety of dynamic probit models for time-series–cross-section data in the context of explaining state failure. It shows that ordinary probit, which ignores dynamics, is misleading. Alternatives that seem to produce sensible results are the transition model and a model which includes a lagged latent dependent variable. It is argued that the use of a lagged latent variable is often superior to the use of a lagged realized dependent variable. It is also shown that the latter is a special case of the transition model. The relationship between the transition model and event history methods is also considered: the transition model estimates an event history model for both values of the dependent variable, yielding estimates that are identical to those produced by the two event history models. Furthermore, one can incorporate the insights gleaned from the event history models into the transition analysis, so that researchers do not have to assume duration independence. The conclusion notes that investigations of the various models have been limited to data sets which contain long sequences of zeros; models may perform differently in data sets with shorter bursts of zeros and ones.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and France