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192. A Eurozone Subcommittee in the European Parliament: high hopes, low results?
- Author:
- Stijn Verhelst
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The task of ensuring the democratic legitimacy of the euro has been placed high on the agenda. A eurozone subcommittee in the European Parliament is one of the rare concrete proposals to secure this, creating high hopes. Due to legal and political hurdles the idea might nonetheless have minimal results, which might result in suboptimal parliamentary scrutiny of the eurozone. This Policy Brief argues that if a eurozone subcommittee is to be both meaningful and politically feasible, it should combine substantial competences with innovative decision-making.
- Topic:
- Economics, Regional Cooperation, and Monetary Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
193. The EU regime on biofuels in transport: Still in search of sustainability
- Author:
- Tania Zgajewski
- Publication Date:
- 08-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- Like other regions of the world, the EU is developing biofuels in the transport sector to reduce oil consumption and mitigate climate change. To promote them, it has adopted favourable legislation since the 2000s. In 2009 it even decided to oblige each Member State to ensure that by 2020 the share of energy coming from renewable sources reached at least 10% of their final consumption of energy in the transport sector. Biofuels are considered the main instrument to reach that percentage since the development of other alternatives (such as hydrogen and electricity) will take much longer than expected.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, and Biofuels
- Political Geography:
- Europe
194. Industrial policy in the EU: A guide to an elusive concept
- Author:
- Xavier Vanden Bosch
- Publication Date:
- 09-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- Despite renewed interest in an EU industrial policy, the concept remains particularly elusive because it has no universal definition. This paper relies on a broad and inclusive definition of industrial policy proposed by Warwick (in an OECD working paper) to provide a clearer picture of what the concept encompasses when applied to the EU. It therefore includes an original visual taxonomy of the EU policies that constitute industrial policy. It can serve as a guiding framework for reflecting on industrial policy in the EU.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, Political Economy, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
195. Western Pessimism, Asian Optimism: Three Perspectives on Global Governance
- Author:
- Sir Richard Jolly
- Publication Date:
- 09-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- As of 2007 the world economy has been caught in the worst crisis since the 1930s. Yet after two years of only partly successful efforts to mobilize and coordinate global action of financial control and stimulus, ending with the G-20 meeting of March 2009, responsibility for corrective economic initiatives has essentially been left to individual countries, supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU). Moreover, such support has been usually conditional on countries following financial policies of tough austerity. The United States took some actions to stimulate its economy, but by many accounts these were insufficient. Most of Europe has not even attempted stimulus measures and has been in a period of economic stagnation, with falling real incomes among the poorest parts of the population. Although some signs of “recovery” have been heralded in 2013 and 2014, growth has mostly been measured from a lower base. There is little evidence of broad-based economic recovery, let alone improvements in the situation of the poor or even of the middle-income groups.
- Topic:
- Economics and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Asia
196. A Political Economy of Slum Spaces: Mathare Valley
- Author:
- Tiberius Barasa and Andvig Jens Chr
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The starting point of the paper is the spatial characteristics of slums when it seeks to explain why rulers tend to neglect the welfare of their dwellers: they don't have to. Their economies are fairly closed. While located close to the centers of power, their high population density implies that they cover small space and are easy to cordon off in case of danger. The ease of control from the outside allows rulers to spend less attention to the control of their complex inside. Particularly when a slum is based on shack architecture, the high degree of mutual monitoring among dwellers may cause sharp shifts in the control regime of crime. The emphasis on spatial configurations motivates the focus on one specific slum: Mathare Valley. Paths back to colonial rule are outlined. The paper is stylistically unkempt.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Eastern Europe
197. Bringing the European Union Back on the Agenda of Turkish Foreign Policy
- Author:
- Özge Zi̇hni̇oğlu
- Publication Date:
- 10-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The EU has been successfully exercising its conditionality as a key aspect of its enlargement strategy since the 1990s. However, with no accession prospect in sight and the perceived lack of credibility and consistency of the EU's conditionality, Turkey's already unequal partnership with Europe has been thrown further off balance. This article argues that this is not the case, as the EU retains its leverage over Turkey, even in the absence of factors that are known as central to the successful implementation of the EU's conditionality. This article suggests two main reasons. First, despite the rhetoric on the interdependence of Turkish and the EU economy, this interdependence is not on equal footing and the Turkish economy is heavily dependent on the EU. Second, there is rising concern in Turkey over free trade talks between the EU and the United States, with its potential impact on the Turkish economy.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Turkey
198. Versailles Redux? Eurozone Competitiveness in a Dynamic Balassa-Samuelson-Penn Framework
- Author:
- Arvind Subramanian and Kevin Stahler
- Publication Date:
- 11-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- Prima facie, competitiveness adjustments in the eurozone, based on unit labor cost developments, appear sensible and in line with what the economic analyst might have predicted and the economic doctor might have ordered. But a broader and arguably better—Balassa-Samuelson-Penn (BSP)—framework for analyzing these adjustments paints a very different picture. Taking advantage of the newly released PPP-based estimates of the International Comparison Program (2011), we identify a causal BSP relationship. We apply this framework to computing more appropriate measures of real competitiveness changes in Europe and other advanced economies in the aftermath of the recent global crises. There has been a deterioration, not improvement, in competitiveness in the periphery countries between 2007 and 2013. Second, the pattern of adjustment within the eurozone has been dramatically perverse, with Germany having improved competitiveness by 9 percent and with Greece's having deteriorated by 9 percent. Third, real competitiveness changes are strongly correlated with nominal exchange rate changes, which suggests the importance of having a flexible (and preferably independent) currency for effecting external adjustments. Fourth, internal devaluation—defined as real competitiveness improvements in excess of nominal exchange rate changes—is possible but seems limited in scope and magnitude. Our results are robust to adjusting the BSP framework to take account of the special circumstances of countries experiencing unemployment. Even if we ignore the BSP effect, the broad pattern of limited and lopsided adjustment in the eurozone remains.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Europe
199. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership:European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability
- Author:
- Jeronim Capaldo
- Publication Date:
- 10-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- According to its proponents, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will stimulate growth in Europe and in the US. Projections endorsed by the European Commission point to positive, although negligible, gains in terms of GDP and personal incomes. In a paradox, these projections also show that any gains in Trans-Atlantic trade would happen at the expense of intra-EU trade reversing the process of European economic integration. Furthermore, recent literature has pointed out several problems in the most influential assessment of the TTIP's effects. Projections by different institutions have been shown to rely on the same Computable General Equilibrium model that has proven inadequate as a tool for trade policy analysis. In this paper we assess the effects of TTIP using the United Nations Global Policy Model, which incorporates more sensible assumptions on macroeconomic adjustment, employment dynamics, and global trade. We project that TTIP will lead to a contraction of GDP, personal incomes and employment. We also project an increase in financial instability and a continuing downward trend in the labor share of GDP. Evaluated with the United Nations model, TTIP appears to favor economic dis-integration, rather than integration, in Europe. At a minimum, this shows that official studies do not offer a solid basis for an informed decision on TTIP.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Labor Issues
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and United Nations
200. Was the ECB's Comprehensive Assessment up to standard?
- Author:
- Willem Pieter De Groen
- Publication Date:
- 11-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- The Comprehensive Assessment conducted by the European Central Bank (ECB) representsa considerable step forward in enhancing transparency ineuro-area banks' balance sheets. The most notable progress since the previous European stress test has been the hamonisation of the definition of non-performing loans and other concepts as well as uncovering hidden losses, which resulted in a €34 billion aggregate capital-chargenet of tax. Despite this tightening,most banks were able to meet the 5.5% common equity tier 1 (CET1) threshold applied in the test, whichsuggests that the large majority of the euro-area banks have improvedtheir financial position sufficiently to no longer constrainthem in financing the economy.Our own estimation based on the detailed results, however,provide a more nuanced picture, with a large numberof the banks still highly leveraged and in many cases unable to meet the regulatory capital requirementsthat will be introduced in the coming years underthe adverse stress test scenario.
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Global Recession
- Political Geography:
- Europe