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Fiscal Consolidation Following a Sovereign Default. The Burden of Monetary Union Membership and the Role of the International Monetary Fund
No full textThe global financial crisis has reignited the debate about the costs of sovereign default and the drawbacks of monetary union membership. Historically, several members of monetary unions defaulted on their debt and thereafter had to consolidate their finances. However, following a default, do members of a monetary union actually have to rely on fiscal consolidation to a greater extent than do other countries?
This dissertation provides the first comprehensive comparison of sovereign defaults in a monetary union. In the period from 1990 to 2010, four monetary union members defaulted on their debt: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Gabon, and Grenada. Their fiscal policy responses following these defaults are compared with those of four similar small middle income countries: Jamaica, Seychelles, Belize, and Suriname. This dissertation analyses the size, type, and timing of fiscal consolidation based on several hundred primary sources, from appropriation acts to budget plans and government speeches.
The comparison shows that all countries had to consolidate following a default – irrespective of their membership of a monetary union. The four countries with an independent monetary policy tried to ease the burden of adjustment by devaluing their currencies, lowering refinancing rates, putting pressure on domestic banks, or resorting to direct central bank financing. However, in turn, foreign currency debt increased due to the resulting depreciation of the exchange rate. That is, countries outside of a monetary union have also had to consolidate. However, monetary union members still faced a greater burden of adjustment as they had to cut nominal expenditure to achieve the necessary internal devaluation inside the monetary union and could not let inflation do the work.
This dissertation also highlights the central role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in explaining the type and timing of fiscal consolidation following a sovereign default. Six of the eight countries turned to the IMF at some point. Once they had signed up to an IMF programme, they consolidated more, especially on the expenditure side.
Despite these differences in the type and timing of fiscal consolidation due to monetary union membership and the involvement of the IMF, none of the eight countries could avoid consolidating its finances following the sovereign default
Redeploying EU asylum policy: A way out of the governance quagmire
No full textSeeking a ‘fresh start’, the European Commission is working on a new Pact on Migration and Asylum. Among other issues, the future of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is at stake. For a genuine ‘fresh start’ in asylum policy, Marie Walter-Franke offers a redeployment strategy. This approach would source complementary solutions in related policy areas and, where appropriate, redistribute responsibilities horizontally and vertically. This Policy Paper applies redeployment to two areas critical to crisis management: a humanitarian approach to large arrivals and a sustainable reception policy
Authority conflicts in internet governance: Liberals vs. sovereigntists?
No full textWe analyse conflicts over norms and institutions in internet governance. In this emerging field, dispute settlement is less institutionalised and conflicts take place at a foundational level. Internet governance features two competing spheres of authority characterised by fundamentally diverging social purposes: A more consolidated liberal sphere emphasises a limited role of the state, private and multistakeholder governance and freedom of speech. A sovereigntist challenger sphere emphasises state control, intergovernmentalism and push against the preponderance of Western institutions and private actors. We trace the activation and evolution of conflict between these spheres with regard to norms and institutions in four instances: the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), the fifth session of the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UNGGE) and the Budapest Convention of the Council of Europe. We observe intense norm collisions, and strategic attempts at competitive regime creation and regime shifting towards intergovernmental structures by the sovereigntist sphere. Despite these aggressive attempts at creating new institutions and norms, the existing internet governance order is still in place. Hence, authority conflicts in global internet governance do not necessarily lead to fragmentation
Exploring the formal and informal roles of regulatory intermediaries in transnational multi-stakeholder regulation
No full textResearch on regulation and regulatory processes has traditionally focused on two prominent roles: rulemaking and rule‐taking. Recently, the mediating role of third party actors, regulatory intermediaries, has started to be explored – notably in a dedicated special issue of the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The present special issue extends this line of research by elaborating the distinction between formal and informal modes of regulatory intermediation, in the specific context of transnational multistakeholder regulation. In this introduction, we identify two key dimensions of intermediation (in)formalism: officialization and formalization. This allows us to develop a typology of intermediation in multistakeholder regulatory processes: formal, interpretive, alternative, and emergent. Leveraging examples from the papers in this special issue, we discuss how these four types of intermediation coexist and evolve over time. Finally, we elaborate on the implications of our typology for regulatory processes and outcomes
Building EU green bonds that deserve their name
No full textThe EU should seize the day: It should issue parts of the Recovery Instrument debt as green bonds and thereby boost that burgeoning market. But it is important to manage expectations: Issuing green bonds alone will not ‚green‘ recovery spending. This will depend on the criteria for climate-friendly spending in the legal texts governing the Recovery Instrument – and these so far lack teeth. So, there is a substantial risk that EU green bonds will set the wrong precedent now if backed by weak criteria. This would pre-empt future legislative work on the final EU green bond standard. If the criteria for climatefriendly spending are not strengthened, the Commission should scale back its ambition and should only issue green bonds for measures that fully match the
criteria set out in the EU Taxonomy Regulation
Q&A in legislative oversight: A framework for analysis
No full textAbstract
Parliamentary questions are an essential tool of legislative oversight. However, the extent to which they are effective in controlling the executive remains underspecified both theoretically and methodologically. This article advances a systematic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of parliamentary questions drawing on principal–agent theory, the public administration literature on accountability and communication research. The framework is called the ‘Q&A approach to legislative oversight’ based on the premise that the study of parliamentary questions (Q) needs to be linked to their respective answers (A) and examined together (Q&A) at the micro‐level as an exchange of claims between legislative and executive actors. Methodologically, the Q&A approach to legislative oversight offers a step‐by‐step guide for qualitative content analysis of Q&A that can be applied to different legislative oversight contexts at different levels of governance. It is argued that the effectiveness of Q&A depends on the strength of the questions asked and the responsiveness of answers provided, which are correspondingly operationalised. To illustrate the merits of the approach, the article includes a systematic case study on the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in banking supervision (2013–2018), showing the connection between specific institutional settings and the effectiveness of parliamentary questions
Eine Fiskalunion für Europa: Baustein, kein Allheilmittel
No full textDie Währungsunion steckt in einer historischen Krise. Die dramatischen Verhandlungen mit Griechenland in den letzten Monaten haben die Schwächen des Euroraums deutlich in Erinnerung gerufen. Die meisten Kommentatoren sind sich einig: Damit die Währungsunion langfristig krisenfest und stabil wird, muss sie in entscheidenden Punkten reformiert werden. Wenig Einigkeit herrscht jedoch über das »Was« und »Wie«. Vor allem um weitere Integrationsschritte in der Fiskalpolitik wird derzeit heftig gestritten. Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass eine Fiskalunion nur dann stabilisieren kann, wenn sie sowohl glaubwürdige Haushaltsregeln als auch Elemente der Teilung von Risiko umfasst. Sie ist ein wichtiges Mittel zur wirksamen Stärkung der Eurozone, darf aber nicht das einzige bleiben. Ein strukturierter Verhandlungsprozess ist nun nötig, um ein tragbares Reformpakt zu schnüren und zwischenstaatliches Misstrauen zu überwinden
New Interest Associations in a Neo-Corporatist System: Adapting the Swiss Training System to the Service Economy
No full textCollective skill formation systems need to adapt to economic change, most notably the expansion of the service economy. However, deeply anchored in the craft and industrial sectors, these systems rely on neo‐corporatist institutions to undergird firms’ training provision, which are often missing in the service sector. We show that Switzerland's voluntaristic approach to interest intermediation provided the flexibility needed to extend vocational training to economic sectors without neo‐corporatist institutions. Yet, these adaptations resulted in the emergence of interest associations characterised by low levels of generalisability and governability. These new associations co‐exist with neo‐corporatist ones, rendering the overall training system surprisingly heterogeneous
Relational activities and channel contracts: Insights from channel intermediaries in Nigeria
No full textThis article explains how relational activities affect the design of seemingly paradoxical contractual arrangements among groups of channel intermediaries in Nigeria. The study used a grounded theory approach to investigate and analyze the contractual processes of three groups of channel intermediaries representing three diverse industries. Findings reveal that social relational activities trigger a higher prevalence of word-of-mouth agreements among channel intermediaries, whereas a blend of commercial and social relational activities trigger a higher prevalence of written agreements. Furthermore, we find that negotiation domains moderate the relationship between relational activities and the design of contractual arrangements. Insights from our work offer contributions to the literature on paradoxes, relational embeddedness, and international business
Stiftungen in Deutschland 3: Portraits und Themen
No full textDeutschland zeichnet sich durch ein stark gewachsenes und vielfältiges Stiftungswesen aus. Je nach Stiftungstyp üben Stiftungen unterschiedliche Rollen aus und leisten spezifische Beiträge, die jeweils andere Handlungsempfehlungen nahe legen. Der dritte Band der Studie zu „Stiftungen in Deutschland“ stellt diese Vielfalt der deutschen Stiftungslandschaft vor, behandelt typische Stärken und Schwächen verschiedener Stiftungstypen und geht auf ausgewählte Themen wie strategische Philanthropie, Advocacy, Vergleich Stiftungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland sowie Internationales ein. Im bisher größten Forschungsprojekt zum deutschen Stiftungswesen hat ein Forscherteam der Hertie School of Governance und des Centre for Social Investment der Universität Heidelberg um Helmut K. Anheier das deutsche Stiftungswesen systematisch und auf einer breiten empirischen Basis untersucht