1,721,237 research outputs found
Kiama bound Budd cars at Bombo, New South Wales, 1981 [picture].
No full textPart of collection: Buckland collection of railway transport photographs.; Title from inscription on reverse.; Also available in an electronic version via the internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4542168
Failing forward in Economic and Monetary Union: explaining weak Eurozone financial support mechanisms
Full text linkpeer reviewedIn this article, we apply the ‘failing forward’ approach to analyse the negotiations on and design of reforms to Eurozone economic governance to tackle the Covid-19-related crisis of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This crisis highlights both spill-overs from major asymmetries in EMU and weaknesses in the incomplete economic governance of the Eurozone. We focus on the financial support mechanisms agreed upon after intergovernmental negotiations in major crisis situations. These reforms represent compromise solutions that reflect well-entrenched disagreements among member states. We explain why more far-reaching reforms to Eurozone economic governance – notably, the adoption of mutualized Euro-denominated debt and the generalized use of grants over loans – have not been adopted, despite the severity of the Covid-19-related crisis. These reforms – notably the Next Generation European Union (NGEU) financial package adopted in July 2020 – fail to address and, rather, contribute to existing asymmetries, thus sowing the seeds of future crises
The Comparative Political Economy of Basel III in Europe
Full text linkThe Basel III Accord was the centrepiece of the international regulatory response to the global financial crisis, setting new capital requirements for internationally active banks. This paper explains the divergent preferences on Basel III of national regulators in three countries that approximate what are frequently presented as distinct varieties of capitalism in Europe — Germany, the United Kingdom and France. It is argued that national regulators setting post crisis capital requirements had to reconcile three inter-related and potentially conflicting objectives: banking sector stability, the competitiveness of national banks and short to medium term economic growth. The different national preferences on Basel III reflected how different national regulators defined and pursued these objectives, which in turn reflected the structure of national banking systems — specifically, systemic patterns of bank capital and bank-industry ties
The ‘ebb and flow’ of transatlantic regulatory cooperation in banking
Full text linkpeer reviewedDo financial crises promote or hamper transatlantic regulatory cooperation in banking? This
article argues that financial crises have an impact upon the alignment of regulatory preferences of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), causing an ‘ebb and flow’ in transatlantic cooperation. When EU-US preferences are broadly aligned in periods of financial stability, transatlantic regulatory cooperation is intense. It is relatively easy for the EU and US to agree on market-friendly regulation promoted by banks. When preferences are different, especially in the context and aftermath of the exogenous shock of financial crises,
transatlantic cooperation is more problematic because crises re-assert the importance of nationally embedded patterns of market organisation
The Steep Road to European Banking Union: Constructing the Single Resolution Mechanism
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The Political Economy of European Banking Union
No full textThe establishment of Banking Union represents a major development in European economic governance and European integration history more generally. Banking Union is also significant because not all European Union (EU) member states have joined, which has increased the trend towards differentiated integration in the EU, posing a major challenge to the EU as a whole and to the opt-out countries. This book is informed by two main empirical questions. Why was Banking Union - presented by proponents as a crucial move to 'complete' Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) - proposed only in 2012, over twenty years after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty? Why has a certain design for Banking Union been agreed and some elements of this design prioritized over others?
A two-step explanation is articulated in this study. First, it explains why euro area member state governments moved to consider Banking Union by building on the concept of the 'financial trilemma', and examining the implications of the single currency for euro area member state banking systems. Second, it explains the design of Banking Union by examining the preferences of member state governments on the core components of Banking Union and developing a comparative political economy analysis focused on the configuration of national banking systems and varying national concern for the moral hazard facing banks and sovereigns created by euro level support mechanisms
The political economy of the euro area's sovereign debt crisis: introduction to the special issue of the Review of International Political Economy
No full textABSTRACT: This special issue has two main aims: to examine the contribution of political economy analyses of the sovereign debt crisis and to relate these findings to longstanding debates in the sub-disciplines of comparative political economy, international political economy and European economic governance. This introduction begins by reviewing the comparative political economy literature on national financial systems in order to account for the playing out of the crisis. It then examines the international political economy literature on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and financial (sovereign debt) markets that played such a key role in the unfolding of the sovereign debt crisis. Finally, it outlines longstanding academic debates on the main 'asymmetries’; in European economic governance, and provides a critical overview of the three main policy and institutional reforms adopted by European Union governments in response to the crisis
Internationalised banking, alternative banks and the Single Supervisory Mechanism
Full text linkThis paper sets out to explain the preferences of the seven northern euro area member states on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) concerning the threshold set for direct European Central Bank (ECB) control over bank supervision. Building on the concept of the ‘financial trilemma’, it argues that different bank internationalisation patterns in the seven northern member states explain different preferences on the transfer of supervisory powers over less significant banks to the ECB. In particular, the reach of internationalisation into a national banking system – notably the extent to which even smaller banks were exposed to foreign banking operations – is shown to be the core factor explaining different national preferences on threshold. In the five countries with a large number of small and parochial alternative (cooperative and savings) banks, it is necessary to examine the system-specific structures of these banks to explain better the reach of internationalisation and national preferences on the threshold. Determined German opposition to ECB supervision of smaller alternative banks is juxtaposed with either less hostile or more positive support of at least four other countries despite the important presence of small alternative banks
The Political Economy of European Capital Markets Union
Full text linkpeer reviewedIn September 2015 the European Commission put forward an Action Plan for Capital
Markets Union (CMU) and two legislative proposals concerning securitization. Further
legislative activity was to follow. This contribution undertakes a preliminary investigation of the ‘making’ of the CMU project, explaining what CMU is, its economic and political objectives, as well as its main drivers and obstacles. It is argued that the likely winners and losers of the project – both financial groups and specific Member State governments – largely formed the constituencies for and against CMU. The organization of national financial (and specifically banking) systems largely directed Member State government preferences on CMU. The potential winners were also influential in promoting a specific form of CMU, or at least specific priorities in the construction of CMU. The centrality of banks in EU national financial systems explains the priority attached to securitization in the first stage of the CMU project
The difficult construction of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme: a step too far in Banking Union?
Full text linkpeer reviewedThe German Government refused to accept the development of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) for Banking Union member states. Publicly, the German Government was preoccupied with the creation of a moral hazard that common funds would create for banks in those participating countries that had weak banking systems. This paper argues that to understand German moral hazard concerns it is necessary to look beyond the ideational – notably concerns stemming from German Ordo-liberalism – and focus on the existing national institutional arrangements that the German Government sought to protect. German moral hazard concerns stemmed from the fear that well-funded German deposit guarantee schemes (DGS) – especially those of small savings and cooperative banks – could be tapped to compensate for underfunded (and largely ex post funded) DGS in other member states. We thus demonstrate that the difficulties facing the construction of an EDIS owe to the weakness of the previously agreed harmonization of national DGS. This failure to harmonize schemes beyond a low minimal standard can be explained through an analysis focused on national systems. Different existing national DGS stem from the different configuration of national banking systems, the longstanding relationships among national banks and well-entrenched regulatory frameworks
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