Search results for "European integration"

Efficiency analysis in banking firms: An international comparison

1997

The intensive process of financial European integration, together with the profound transformation and deregulation that has taken place in the Spanish Banking System, justifies the evaluation of its efficiency in comparison with that of other banking systems. In this context, the aim of this study is to analyze the productivity, efficiency and differences in technology of several banking systems. Using a non-parametric approach together with the Malmquist index, we compare the efficiency, productivity and differences in technology of different European and US banking systems for the year 1992. Finally, for a subsample of banks belonging to the same group of countries, using real as opposed…

The International Business Cycle in a Changing World: Volatility and the Propagation of Shocks

2003

This paper examines the changing relationships between the G-7 countries through VAR models for the quarterly growth rates, estimated both over sub-periods and using a rolling data window. Six trivariate models are estimated, all of which include the US and a European (E15) aggregate. In relative terms, the conditional volatility of E15 growth has declined more since 1980 than the well-documented decline for the US. The propagation of shocks has also changed, with the volatility and propagation effects separated by applying shocks of pre-1980 magnitude to VARs estimated over various periods. Rolling estimation reveals that E15 has a steadily increasing impact on the US economy over time, wh…

Debates on European Integration. A Reader

2007

Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union

2007

The EU’s Role in International Climate Change Policy-Making: A Global Leader in Decline?

2013

This chapter assesses the European Union’s (EU) role in international climate change policy-making by comparing the EU’s degree of goal attainment at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010. By making use of three analytical factors (coherence, the opportunity structure and politicisation) we assess the outcomes of both negotiations for the EU. The Durban negotiations of 2011 are touched upon in the conclusions.

The assignment of powers in an open-ended European Union

2003

Presented at CESIFO Conference “A Constitution for the EU”, February 2003; International audience; A major characteristic of the European Union is its transitional or evolving nature, in particular with regard to the assignment of powers between the two main levels of government. More precisely, under current constitutional arrangements, this evolving nature takes the form of an integration process which tends to be monotonous, that is, which can only with great difficulty be reversed. The paper is mainly devoted to the explanation of how this comes about and what effects this has on other features of the process. As a concluding remark, however, it suggests that an additional criterion for…

European integration and the administrative state. A longitudinal study on self-reinforcing administrative bias

2018

The study demonstrates how the EU contributes to a self-reinforcing administrative bias due to domestic-level organizational factors. Strong European integration without membership reinforces a politico-administrative gap and this gap expands over time. The paper applies an extreme case of high integration without formal EU membership represented by Norway. The findings suggest that the EU contributes to reinforce the administrative state through strong unintended assimilation effects. Thefindings are probed by a novel and comprehensive longitudinal data-set consisting of a large-N single case (N= 3562) questionnaire study among government officials at three points in the Norwegian central …

Backing out of private pension provision - Lessons from Germany

2012

Financing pensions in the EU is a challenge. Many EU countries introduced private pension schemes to compensate declining public pension levels due to reforms made necessary by demographic change. In 2001, Germany introduced the Riester pension. Ten years after introduction the prevalence rate of this voluntary private pension scheme approximates 37 %. However, numerous criticisms raise doubts that the market for Riester products is transparent. Using the 2010 German SAVE survey, this article investigates terminated and dormant Riester contracts on a household level for the first time. Respectively 14.5 and 12.5 % of households who own or have owned a Riester contract terminated or set dorm…

Reassessing British Conservative Euroscepticism as A Case of Party (Mis)Management

2015

Much has already been written about internal party divisions and European integration (Hix and Lord 1997; Conti 2007; Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008; Conti 2014), with the example of the British Conservative Party of the 1990s often used as a textbook case of a mainstream government party expressing some forms of opposition to European integration. In a wider comparative framework, the party can also be located within a Eurosceptic drift across the centre-right in the EU (Best 2012, p. 140). The case of the British Conservative Party is all the more relevant as the history of European integration shows how party families on the centre-right initially played an active part in the setting up of …

Fiscal flows in Europe: The redistributive effects of the EU budget

2000

Fiscal Flows in Europe: The Redistributive Effects of the EU Budget. — In this paper we analyze the redistributive effects of the EU budget among European countries, exploring the relationship between income and fiscal flows, both in per capita terms. Using a new data set on EU budgets from 1986 to 1998, we find that the EU budget has a redistributive effect, though only on its expenditure side. The most redistributive expenditure category is the Regional Fund, followed by the Social Fund and by the guarantee section of the EAGGF. All of them have become increasingly redistributive in time. Total budgetary revenues show only proportionality with income. As regards the net financial balance,…