Search

Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Political Geography Europe

481. Changing Terms of Trade: Managing the New Transatlantic Economy

Author:
David L. Aaron and Donald L. Guertin
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The economic relationship between the United States and the European Union (EU) is in the midst of a significant transition. In the past, the dominant element of that relationship was trade. This was only natural, given their large share of the global trading system: the United States generates 19 percent of world trade, and the European Union 20 percent. Moreover, the United States is the EU's largest trading partner, while the EU is the single largest importer into the United States and the second largest market for U.S. exports. But in recent years, several new elements have become more prominent in the transatlantic economic relationship, bringing with them both challenges and opportunities.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

482. The Role of the State in the Labour Market: Its Impact on Employment and Wages In Portugal as Compared with Spain

Author:
José Da Silva Lopes
Publication Date:
11-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The role of the State in the economy and in the social arena was deeply transformed in the second half of the 1970s, on account of the change of the political regime. The integration into the European Union since 1985 has brought new radical changes in that role. The paper describes the most important of those changes, putting a special emphasis on social policies and on the labour market, and on the challenges that have to be faced because of European Monetary Union.
Topic:
Government and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

483. Fifteen Years On: Spanish Membership in the European Union Revisited

Author:
Charles Powell
Publication Date:
11-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper attempts to describe and account for the major changes undergone by Spain as an EU player since her accession in 1986. Many analysts appear to have espoused the view that most if not all of these can be attributed to the fact that, following the 1996 general election, a decidedly pro-integrationist Felipe González was replaced as prime minister by a vaguely eurosceptical José María Aznar. Undoubtedly, ideological considerations (and, more importantly perhaps, differences in political culture) must be taken into account when examining the evolution of Spain's European policy over the past fifteen years. However, this paper will argue that changing policy styles and contents should be understood in terms of both the learning process undergone by all new member states as they mature, and the need to adapt and respond to developments within the EU, most notably the evolution of the European integration process itself.
Topic:
Development and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

484. Potential Sources of Financing for U.S. Ventures in Russia

Author:
Askar Askarov, Katharine Reed, and Linn E. Schulte-Sasse
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Following the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies recognized that it was in their vital security interests to promote stable transitions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. For the most part, such transitions would depend on the efforts of the states in transition themselves, including many that had been newly formed. However, one way in which the Western nations could help was by economic assistance -- both financial and technical.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

485. Breaking with Tradition: Service Trade Liberalization in the EU and Germany

Author:
Jette Steen Knudsen
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This chapter asks why and how services that were not previously thought of as tradable have increasingly been opened up to international competition in EU member states including even in Germany. The chapter contrasts an explanation that focuses on the impact of economic interests with an explanation that focuses on the impact of EU membership. The chapter argues that lobbying by producers or users of services cannot fully explain reform nor does EU membership simply constrain reluctant member state governments to adopt new legislation. Instead the chapter argues that in important service sectors the German government has promoted trade reform even sometimes in the face of strong opposition from providers, consumers, and unions. The chapter maintains that a crucial key to liberalisation is the emergence of a break in government opposition. In particular, the ability of the government to re-interpret services as regular tradable products combined with new regulation to "shelter" exposed groups such as consumers and workers against potential harm. Implications of this claim for future service sector liberalisation are subsequently discussed.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

486. In Tempestuous Waters: Denmark and the WTO Regime

Author:
Erik Beukel
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
International trade negotiations and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have come into the public limelight. Until a few years ago, the governance of the world trading system, encapsulated in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was considered a mundane and dull subject to which only a few people with a special economic interest payed attention. Today, however, the problems dealt with in the WTO affect much broader economic interests and attract attention from different political persuasions and social movements, as illustrated by the battle in Seattle, in December 1999, when the Third Ministerial conference of the WTO was met by massive demonstrations organised by multifarious NGOs. Generally, multilateral economic institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the WTO, have become tempestuous waters, because among other things these institutions are contested by a medley of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and grass roots movements (O'Brien et al. 2000). The conflict centres on “globalisation”, a controversial and ambiguous notion (Hirst and Thompson 2000), and the WTO is a focal point of the globalisation storm (Hart 1997).
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

487. Do Affluent Countries Face an Incomes-Jobs Tradeoff?

Author:
Lane Kenworthy
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
A commonly-held view suggests that affluent nations face a tradeoff between incomes and jobs. According to this view, in the United States pay for workers at the bottom of the earnings distribution (relative to those in the middle) is very low and government unemployment-related benefits (the “replacement rate”) are stingy, but this facilitates the creation of lots of new jobs and encourages such individuals to take those jobs. The result is a high rate of employment and low unemployment. In much of Western Europe relative pay levels are higher for those at the bottom and benefits are more generous, but this is said to discourage job creation and to reduce the willingness of the unemployed to accept low-wage jobs. The consequence is low employment and high unemployment. I undertake a comparative assessment of this tradeoff view, based on pooled cross-section time-series analyses of 14 OECD countries in the 1980s and 1990s. The findings suggest that greater pay equality and a higher replacement rate do reduce employment growth in low-productivity private-sector service industries and in the economy as a whole. However, these effects are relatively weak. The results point to a variety of viable options for countries wishing to maintain or move toward a desirable combination of jobs and equality.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

488. The Effects of Convergence: Internationalisation and the Changing Distribution of Net Value Added in Large German Firms

Author:
Anke Hassel and Jürgen Beyer
Publication Date:
11-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The paper examines whether and how the increasing internationalisation of firms impacts on the operation of a co-ordinated market economy. Following the tenets of agency theory it assumes that an emerging market for corporate control changes the monitoring mechanisms that oversee management. Since Anglo- American forms of monitoring are usually associated with a higher return for investors compared with Continental European firms, a change in the distribution of the net value added of firms is expected. Using financial data on 59 large German companies, the paper shows that the emerging convergence of German corporate governance practices to Anglo-American standards has had a weak, but significant, impact on the distribution of net value added. This is in contrast to the impact of the internationalisation of firms on product markets, which does not have an effect. Since the market for corporate control is, however, still underdeveloped in Germany, the main effects remain to be seen.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Germany

489. What Have We Learned?[1] Problem-Solving Capacity of the Multilevel European Polity.

Author:
Fritz W. Scharpf
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
This Working Paper is an attempt, occasioned by the evaluation of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, to provide a conceptual framework within which institute research on multi-level European problem solving could be discussed in the context of a more comprehensive overview of the literature. The framework combines an institutional dimension (distinguishing between supranational, joint-decision and intergovernmental modes of EU policy making) and a policy dimension (distinguishing between market-creating, market-enabling, market-correcting and redistributive policies). As institutional modes differ in their capacity for conflict resolution, and as policy types differ in the likelihood of severe policy conflict, greater or lesser problem-solving capacity can be explained by the location of a particular policy area on both of these dimensions.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

490. Institutions Structural Unemployment: Do Capital-Market Imperfections Matter?

Author:
Ansgar Belke and Rainer Fehn
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This paper analyses whether differences in institutional structures on capital markets contribute to explaining why some OECD-countries, in particular the Anglo-Saxon countries, have been much more successful over the last two decades in producing employment growth and in reducing unemployment than most continental-European OECD-countries. It is argued that the often-blamed labour market rigidities alone, while important, do not provide a satisfactory explanation for these differences across countries and over time. Financial constraints are potentially important obstacles against creating new firms and jobs and thus against coping well with structural change and against moving successfully toward the “new economy”. Highly developed venture capital markets should help to alleviate such financial constraints. This view that labour-market institutions should be supplemented by capital market imperfections for explaining differences in employment performances is supported by our panel data analysis, in which venture capital turns out to be a significant institutional variable.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe