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1. The Italian Stabilization of 1947: Domestic and International Factors

Author:
Juan Carlos Martinez Oliva
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The paper examines the 1947 monetary stabilization in Italy, tracing the domestic and international political dynamics that allowed ideas and theoretical concepts developed within the Bank of Italy to be applied in a successful action to subdue spiraling inflation. The combination of events and circumstances necessary for the good outcome in a critical juncture of Italian economic history was the fruit of the efforts made by Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi in both the domestic and international political arenas and of the collaboration he received from Luigi Einaudi and Donato Menichella. The Government's economic action in this crucial episode constitutes perhaps the first outstanding example of cooperation between politicians and experts in the annals of the Italian Republic.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

2. How Many Third Ways? Comparing the British, French and German Left in Government

Author:
Eckhard Schröter
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
In the late 1990s, the European Left seemed to be once more in the ascendancy with Social Democratic-led governments in power in the majority of EU countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. At the same time, the debate about the socalled 'Third Way' — as an icon of the apparent electoral revitalization of European Social Democracy — rose to become the most important reform discourse in the European party landscape.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, France, and Germany

3. Governing the Capital -- Comparing Institutional Reform in Berlin, London, and Paris

Author:
Eckhard Schröter and Manfred Röber
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The paper examines institutional changes in the political and administrative structures governing the cities of Berlin, London and Paris. In doing so, it analyzes the extent to which convergent trends – driven by forces related to increased international competition and European integration – have shaped recent reforms of the governance systems of these European capital cities.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Politics, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe, Paris, London, and Berlin

4. European Integration and National Social Citizenship: Changing Boundaries, New Structuring?

Author:
Maurizio Ferrera
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
With the creation of EMU, European Welfare States have entered a new phase of development. The margins for manoeuvring public budgets have substantially decreased, while the unfolding of the four freedoms of movement within the EU have seriously weakened the traditional coercive monopoly of the state on actors and resources that are crucial for the stability of redistributive institutions. The article explores these issues adopting a Rokkanian perspective, i.e. building on Rokkan's pioneering insights on the nexus between oundary building and internal structuring.
Topic:
Government and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Tax Reforms and "Modell Deutschland": Lessons from Four Years of Red-Green Tax-Policy

Author:
Achim Truger and Wade Jacoby
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
When the red-green (SPD-Bündnis90/DieGrünen) coalition took over the federal government from the Christian-Democrat/Free-Democrat (CDU/CSU/FDP) coalition in 1998, tax reforms had a very high political priority. And, in fact, the government pushed through an astonishing number of far-reaching tax reforms/tax changes within a period of little more than two years. This paper follows two aims. First, it gives a short description of the measures taken and evaluates them with respect to tax theory and the German tax reform debate of the 1990s. Second, it explicitly addresses the question whether the tax changes were influenced by the wish to reform the Modell Deutschland, i.e. whether something substantial was done to change Germany ́s status as a perceived high tax country and if so, whether the attempt was successful. It will be shown that even though the problem of high taxes might have been many observers ́ and, indeed, also the government ́s dominant concern, there was much more to the German debate. The chapter will also ask whether generously cutting taxes was the right thing to do. It demonstrates that under Germany ́s peculiar economic and institutional circumstances at the end of the 1990s, the attempt to cut taxes led to serious problems for fiscal policy, growth, and employment.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

6. The Uneasy Triangle

Author:
Lloyd Ulman and Knut Gerlach
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
". . . It is impossible for any community to have very full employment and completely free collective bargaining and stable prices. Either one of the three will be completely sacrificed, or else all three will have to be modified. ". . . In the last resort the answer will be given not by economists or by administrators but by the public opinion. At each corner of the triangle, the limiting factor is what public opinion will stand, and the degree of comprehension that public opinion will show for an economic policy that tries to preserve balance between competing objectives.
Topic:
Government and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

7. Germany: Managing Migration in the 21st Century

Author:
Philip L. Martin
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This monograph reviews Germany's evolution from a country of emigration to a reluctant land of immigration between the 1960s and 1980s, as guest workers settled and asylum seekers arrived. During the 1990s, Germany became a magnet for diverse foreigners, including the families of settled guest workers, newly mobile Eastern Europeans and ethnic Germans, and asylum seekers from throughout the world. Germany, with a relatively structured and rigid labor market and economy, finds it easier to integrate especially unskilled newcomers into generous social welfare programs than into the labor market. Since immigration means change as immigrants and Germans adjust to each other, an aging German populace may resist the changes in the economy and labor market that could facilitate immigrant integration as well as the changes in culture and society that invariably accompany immigrants.
Topic:
Government and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

8. Immigration in the United States

Author:
Philip L. Martin
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This chapter summarizes migration patterns, puts the immigration and integration challenges facing the US in a global context, reviews the evolution of US immigration and immigration policy, and then focuses on some of the immigration and integration issues being debated early in the 21st century. Immigration is likely to continue at current levels of 900,000 legal and 300,000 unauthorized a year, so that Americans will, in the words of former Census director Kenneth Prewitt, "redefine ourselves as the first country in world history which is literally made up of every part of the world."
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States

9. Restructuring "Germany Inc." The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union

Author:
John W. Cioffi
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The reform of German company law by the Control and Transparency Law ("KonTraG") of 1998 reveals politics of corporate governance liberalization. The reforms strengthened the supervisory board, shareholder rights, and shareholder equality, but left intra-corporate power relations largely intact. Major German financial institutions supported the reform's contribution to the modernization of German finance, but blocked mandatory divestment of equity stakes and cross-shareholding. Conversely, organized labor prevented any erosion of supervisory board codetermination. Paradoxically, by eliminating traditional takeover defenses, the KonTraG's liberalization of company law mobilized German political opposition to the EU's draft Takeover Directive and limited further legal liberalization.
Topic:
Government and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

10. Mixed Signals

Author:
Peter A. Hall and Robert J. Franzese Jr.
Publication Date:
09-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Plans for European Monetary Union are based on the conventional postulate that increasing the independence of the central bank can reduce inflation without any real economic effects. However, the theoretical and empirical bases for this claim rest on models of the economy that make unrealistic information assumptions and omit institutional variables other than the central bank. When the signaling problems between the central bank or other actors in the political economy are considered, we find that the character of wage bargaining conditions the impact of central bank independence by rendering the signals between the bank and the bargainers more or less effective. Greater independence can reduce inflation without major employment effects where bargaining is coordinated, but it brings higher levels of unemployment where bargaining is uncoordinated. Thus, currency unions like the EMU may require higher levels of unemployment to control inflation than their proponents envisage; they will have costs as well as benefits, costs which will be distributed unevenly among and within the member nations based on the changes induced in the status of the bank and of wage coordination.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe