Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Europe

5781. French Democracy Without Borders

Author:
Suzanne Berger
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
There are intense debates in France today over globalization and its impact on democratic values and practice. The arguments retrace in many respects a much older inquiry into the compatibility of democracy and capitalism. The history of the past two hundred years suggests that despite the inequities that capitalist economies generate, the majority of the electorate has not been willing to vote out the system. Capitalism was protected, in part, by the fact that these systems were never wholly democratic, but provided constitutional protections for property. And democracy was preserved, in part, by the fact that these systems were never wholly capitalist, but in fact within national borders found a variety of solutions for blunting the impact of market forces. If globalization means a world without national borders, one may question whether this co-existence of capitalism and democracy can continue, and in fact, much of the French debate focuses on this point. This article retraces the history of the borders of France and suggests that borders are political, not geographic, constructions and as such, are far from disappearing even between the US and Canada, even within the European Union. As long as states can still regulate economic exchanges in ways that differentiate their societies from adjacent countries, borders persist. Globalization does create serious new challenges, but the stark dilemma of choosing either a world of economic openness or a world of liberal democracy does not capture the real stake and choices available to France and other democratic societies.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Canada, and France

5782. The New "Ethnology" and "la situation coloniale" in Interwar France

Author:
Alice L. Conklin
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Jean Bazin's 1996 invocation of the enduring effects of Georges Balandier's critical insights of the 1950s is a testimonial to not just how revolutionary, but also how persuasive these insights were and remain. It is common currency now, even among those of us who are not anthropologists, that first European travelers, then European scientists "invented" places like "Africa" that tell us more about themselves/ourselves than the reality they purported to describe. The particular "invention" of the twentieth century was anthropologists' "discovery" of "pure cultures" untouched by history and especially by colonialism. Having found such peoples, anthropologists then devoted themselves to recording and preserving their "authentic" traditions before it was too late. Balandier's precocious contribution to the field, in this context, was to take the colonial situation itself as his object of study as early as 1951 and to render visible the unequal power relations so discreetly evacuated by his more "complicit" professional colleagues.
Political Geography:
Europe and France

5783. Inflation Persistence and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

Author:
Pierpaolo Benigno and J. David Lopez-Salido
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In this paper we first present supporting evidence of the existence of heterogeneity in inflation dynamics across euro area countries. Based on the estimation of New Phillips Curves for five major countries of the euro area, we find that there is significant inertial (backward looking) behavior in inflation in four of them, while inflation in Germany has a dominant forward looking component. In the second part of the paper we present an optimizing agent model for the euro area emphasizing the heterogeneity in inflation persistence across regions. Allowing for such a backward looking component will affect the evaluation of the degree of nominal rigidities relevant for the monetary policy design. We explore the welfare implications of this circumstance by comparing the adjustment of the economies and the area as a whole in response to terms-of-trade shocks under four monetary policy rules: fully optimal, optimal inflation targeting, HICP targeting and output gap stabilization.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

5784. The Road to Adopting the Euro: Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Regimes in EU Candidate Countries

Author:
Fabio M. Natalucci and Federico Ravenna
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper examines the choice of exchange rate regime in EU candidate countries during the process of accession to the European Monetary Union (EMU). In the presence of real exchange rate appreciation due to the Balassa-Samuelson effect, candidate countries face a trade-off between trend appreciation of the nominal exchange rate and high inflation rates. In a general equilibrium model of an emerging market economy, we show that under a fixed or heavily managed exchange rate the Balassa-Samuelson effect might prevent compliance with the Maastricht inflation criterion, unless a contractionary policy is adopted. We then discuss how the real exchange rate appreciation shifts the output gap/inflation variance trade-off, increasing the cost of managing or fixing the exchange rate. As a consequence, the requirement of membership in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM-II) and the Maastricht inflation criterion constrain the policy choice while providing no additional benefit to countries credibly committed to joining the Euro. Finally, we show that relaxing either the exchange rate requirement or the inflation criterion has sharply different business cycle implications for the accession countries.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

5785. Monetary Union, Price Level Convergence, and Inflation: How Close is Europe to the United States?

Author:
John H. Rogers
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In light of 50 years of economic policies designed to integrate Europe -- culminating in the elimination of euro zone national currencies in early 2002 -- and a vast academic literature on international economic integration, it is of interest to assess how far European integration has come in practice. Using a unique data set, I document the pattern of price dispersion across European and U.S. cities from 1990 to 2001. I find a striking decline in dispersion for traded goods prices in Europe, most of which took place between 1991 and 1994. The level of traded goods price dispersion in the euro area is now quite close to that of the United States. A decline in dispersion of non-tradeables prices in Europe has also taken place, but to a smaller extent. For U.S. cities, there is no evidence of a decline in price dispersion, even for tradeables. I examine several possible explanations for the decline in European price dispersion, including harmonization of tax rates, convergence of incomes and labor costs, liberalization of trade and factor markets, and increased coherence of monetary policy. I also investigate how much of the variation in national inflation rates in Europe can be explained by price level convergence. Finally, after showing that prices in likely next-round entrants into the euro zone are well below prices in Western Europe, I discuss the potential inflationary consequences of accession into monetary union for Eastern Europe.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

5786. Equity Prices, Household Wealth, and Consumption Growth in Foreign Industrial Countries: Wealth Effects in the 1990s

Author:
Carol C. Bertaut
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Although most recent empirical research regarding the size and significance of the impact of changes in wealth on consumption has looked for such effects in the United States, equity prices in the 1990s rose considerably in most other industrial countries as well. This paper investigates the strength of the wealth effect across countries. Using a variety of methods, I find evidence of significant wealth effects in the United Kingdom and Canada of a size comparable to that in the United States, reflecting the importance of equities in aggregate household wealth in these countries. A significant wealth effect is also evident in Japan, but because household wealth has changed little on balance in Japan in recent years, this channel has been less important in explaining Japanese consumption growth in the second half of the 1990s. Despite a rapid appreciation in equity prices and an increase in equity ownership in the major continental European countries since 1995, equities remain a less important form of household wealth in most of these countries, and the consumption response to changes in wealth remains limited. However, in some smaller European countries where equity issuance is more common, the emerging evidence suggests that wealth effects may be more important.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Canada

5787. International Coordination of Macroeconomic Policies: Still Alive in the New Millennium?

Author:
Joseph E. Gagnon, Dale W. Henderson, Brian M. Doyle, and Laurence H. Meyer
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In this paper we provide two building blocks for an analysis of international policy coordination: (1) a survey of models of policy coordination, and (2) an account of experience with policy coordination among the G-7 countries and within Europe since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System. Using these building blocks, we investigate the correspondence between the models and experience and attempt to draw lessons for both the modelers and the practitioners. We find that the correspondence is close enough that the models help in analyzing several instances of actual policy coordination, but that the correspondence could be even closer. As for lessons for modelers, we suggest that they devote more attention to the analysis of information exchange, a key feature of practical policy coordination; to the coordination of different types of policies; to the ramifications of political divisions within countries; and to the implications of market irrationality and speculative bubbles. As for lessons for policy makers, we suggest that they give more consideration to the choice of their ultimate objectives, in particular to whether the current account should always be close to balance; to achieving better internal policies; and to the greater use of fiscal policy as a stabilization tool.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

5788. Afghanistan and Regional Geopolitical Dynamics after 11 September

Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In April 2002, the National Intelligence Council sponsored a conference that examined the impact of events in Afghanistan since 11 September on a variety of regional actors, including Russia, Iran, Turkey, India, Europe, Pakistan, and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The conference brought together government and outside experts and consisted of four workshops with presentations from ten academic and regional experts, followed by lengthy discussion sessions. The purpose of the conference was not to arrive at a consensus but to deepen understanding of the complex geopolitical dynamics at work in the region.
Topic:
International Relations, Regional Cooperation, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, Europe, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

5789. Regional Influences on U.S. Monetary Policy: Some Implications for Europe

Author:
Ellen E. Meade and D. Nathan Sheets
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper looks at the monetary policy decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve and asks whether those decisions have been influenced solely by national concerns, or whether regional factors have played a role. All of the Federal Reserve's policymakers have some regional identity, i.e., either their positions explicitly carry some regional affiliation or their region of origin is a factor that must be considered in the selection process. This research is relevant for the Fed, and it may also be relevant for Europe's fledgling central bank in Frankfurt. Critics have asserted that ECB policymakers have an incentive to base policy on national developments and respond to national political pressures. We find that Fed policymakers do take into account developments in regional unemployment when deciding monetary policy, and that these regional developments are more important for central bankers at the hub than in the spokes. These findings are robust to a variety of different specifications of the voting equation.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

5790. Mobility in Bulgaria and the European Union: Brain Drain, Bogus Asylum Seekers, Replacement Migration, and Fertility

Author:
Kristen Ghodsee
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The collapse of communism in 1989 in Bulgaria was initially uneventful. Todor Zhivkov, the longest ruling leader in the Eastern Bloc, simply resigned. Democratic elections were held. Bulgaria had none of the wide-scale violence and chaos that characterized the transitions of the other Balkan states, most notably Romania and Yugoslavia. The effects of the social, political, and economic changes in Bulgaria, however, were just as devastating. The communists renamed themselves “socialists” and won the elections as the Bulgarian economy began a drastic contraction from which it has never recovered. The standard of living for ordinary Bulgarians dropped severely and new criminal elements appeared in society for the first time. The so-called “robber Barons” of Bulgaria pillaged what was left of the state's assets and set themselves up as the country's new elite. Meanwhile, the nearby wars and embargoes in the former Yugoslav republics gave the new Bulgarian Mafia ample opportunities to solidify their positions by smuggling arms and fuel into neighboring Yugoslavia.
Topic:
Government, International Organization, Migration, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria