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AbstractThis article examines the effects of implementing the proposals of the European Commission to institute a Capital Market Union (CMU) on the diverse landscape of residential capitalism in Europe. The CMU will bypass existing national institutional blockades that left core countries of the Eurozone, namely Germany, France and Italy, largely untouched by the housing-centred financialization that developed in countries like Spain, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. It is widely acknowledged that the rise in securitized mortgage debt contributed to the global financial crisis. As part of the CMU, the new European Commission is promoting mortgage securitization throughout the EU and thereby rescaling the political economy of housing finance that was hitherto rooted in national, institutional models. We argue that countries which 'missed' the previous housing boom will not be able to prevent future housing-centred financialization. CMU thus signifies a spatial expansion of the debt-led accumulation model.

Despite being one of the world's major internationally traded services, tourism remains neglected within debates on European integration and growth models. We highlight the rise of tourism-led growth in southern Europe and argue that the process of European integration has been a double-edged sword, simultaneously incentivizing and forcing southern European economies to reap their comparative advantage in tourism. While European integration has created the preconditions for the expansion of intra-European tourism, monetary integration pre-empts macroeconomic management. Since the eurozone crisis, internal devaluation and fiscal austerity have suppressed the domestic growth drivers, inducing these governments towards an export-led growth strategy. We document the emergence of unprecedented tourism-related current account surpluses in southern Europe, driven strongly by tourism imports from the EMU core countries and the UK. Thus, while different export-led growth strategies now coexist in the EMU, southern Europe's excessive reliance on international tourism for growth comes with severe pitfalls.

AbstractDespite being one of the world's major internationally traded services, tourism remains neglected within debates on European integration and growth models. We highlight the rise of tourism‐led growth in southern Europe and argue that the process of European integration has been a double‐edged sword, simultaneously incentivizing and forcing southern European economies to reap their comparative advantage in tourism. While European integration has created the preconditions for the expansion of intra‐European tourism, monetary integration pre‐empts macroeconomic management. Since the eurozone crisis, internal devaluation and fiscal austerity have suppressed the domestic growth drivers, inducing these governments towards an export‐led growth strategy. We document the emergence of unprecedented tourism‐related current account surpluses in southern Europe, driven strongly by tourism imports from the EMU core countries and the UK. Thus, while different export‐led growth strategies now coexist in the EMU, southern Europe's excessive reliance on international tourism for growth comes with severe pitfalls.

Despite being one of the world's major internationally traded services, tourism remains neglected within debates on European integration and growth models. We highlight the rise of tourism-led growth in Southern Europe. We argue that the process of European integration has been a double-edged sword, simultaneously incentivizing and forcing Southern European economies to reap their comparative advantage in tourism. While European integration has created the preconditions for the expansion of intra-European tourism, monetary integration preempts macroeconomic management. Since the Eurozone crisis, internal devaluation and fiscal austerity have suppressed domestic growth drivers, inducing these governments towards an export-led growth strategy. We document the emergence of unprecedented tourism-related current account surpluses in Southern Europe, driven strongly by tourism imports from the EMU-core countries and the UK. Thus, while different types of export-led growth strategies now coexist in the EMU, Southern Europe's excessive reliance on international tourism for growth comes with severe pitfalls.

This article examines the effects of implementing the proposals of the European Commission to institute a Capital Market Union (CMU) on the diverse landscape of residential capitalism in Europe. The CMU will bypass existing national institutional blockades that left core countries of the Eurozone, namely Germany, France and Italy, largely untouched by the housing-centred model of financialization that developed in countries like Spain, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. It is widely acknowledged that the rise in securitized mortgage debt contributed to the global financial crisis. As part of the CMU, the new European Commission is promoting mortgage securitization throughout the EU and thereby rescaling the political economy of housing finance that was hitherto rooted in national, institutional models. We argue that countries which 'missed' the previous housing boom will not be able to prevent future housing-centred financialization. CMU thus signifies a spatial expansion of the debt-led accumulation model.

In this article, I engage with the chartalist literature to explore the political foundations of international currencies. Drawing on this literature as well as on recent scholarship on the shortage of safe assets in the world economy, I challenge a prevailing premise of the International Political Economy literature that international currency status needs to be based on conservative macroeconomic policy institutions and practices, which is deemed necessary to maintain foreign confidence in the stability of the real value of the international currency. I contend that international currency status in the post-crisis world economy hinges on the willingness and capacity of the currency provider to adopt accommodating monetary and fiscal policies. First, the central bank needs to offer a backstop to the market for sovereign debt securities by acting as a lender of last resort to the government, whereas fiscal policy expansion is necessary to sufficiently expand the stock of the only securities that can assume the function of genuinely safe assets: sovereign debt. Second, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies enable the international currency issuer to supply safe assets to the rest of the world by running deficits on its trade balance. This article analyses how the European Central Bank's monetary policy decisions in the wake of the crisis ran against these two prerequisites, constraining the Eurozone to become a large net provider of safe assets in the world economy. By linking these decisions to the creditor and export interests of the Northern Eurozone countries, it disputes the European Central Bank's 'neutral stance' regarding the internationalization of the euro.

What happens to welfare states when conditional financial aid is provided by an external financial actor? The conventional wisdom is that conditionality brings about welfare state retrenchment. The two cases analysed in this article – Korea during the financial crisis of 1997–1998 and Italy during the Eurozone crisis since 2011 – do not seem to confirm this received wisdom. This article tackles the puzzle of expansionary welfare reforms in the presence of economic conditionality, as transpired in Italy and Korea. We argue that conditionality and its contents interacted with, activated and had an impact on domestic political dynamics that led to progressive choices in welfare policy. Utilizing the Most Different Systems Design, we stress the importance of government ideology or partisanship and political contestation and competition – focusing on political actors that could threaten the government's legitimacy when acquiescing to conditionality if not balancing neoliberal elements with expansion of social rights – and political agency underpinning government strategies in effectively introducing and implementing policy reforms.

В статье рассматривается немецкая экономическая экспансия в рамках ЕС. Берлин использует европейский долговой кризис и политическую нестабильность в Украине, чтобы укрепить свои позиции в мире. Интересы слабых стран еврозоны не принимаются во внимание. Канцлер А. Меркель добивается постепенного пересмотра европейского законодательства в пользу Германии. Сегодня Берлин поддерживает украинских националистов, надеясь с их помощью помешать росту российского влияния в Восточной Европе. Ужесточение глобальной конкуренции не позволяет Германии проводить иную европейскую политику. ; The German economic expansion in the EU is examined in the article. Berlin is using the European debt crisis and the political instability in Ukraine to strengthen its positions in the world. Interests of weak countries of the Eurozone are being ignored. Chancellor A. Merkel is striving for a gradual revision of European legislation in Germany's favor. Today's Berlin is supporting Ukrainian nationalists, hoping to hinder the growth of Russian influence in Eastern Europe with their help. The aggravation of international competition does not allow Germany to pursue a different European policy.

Nei paesi del Sud Europa, tradizionalmente, la distribuzione della spesa sociale tendeva ad essere significativamente sbilanciata a favore degli anziani. L' articolo introduce la nozione di ricalibratura intergenerazionale allo scopo di individuare, e di analizzare, le riforme volte a ri-bilanciare il profilo generazionale del welfare state italiano attraverso l'espansione degli schemi di assistenza sociale – sia in termini di servizi che di trasferimenti monetari – e di riforme sottrattive nel settore pensionistico. In seguito, compara le traiettorie di policy in questi due settori-chiave rispettivamente per i «genitori» e per i «figli» nel periodo che va dalla metà degli anni novanta al 2016. L'analisi porta in primo luogo a sottolineare come l'investimento a favore dei 'figli' non abbia sufficientemente bilanciato i tagli e le sottrazioni nel settore pensionistico e, in secondo, a mettere in discussione sia l'idea che gli incentivi di politica interna volti a espandere le misure a favore dei figli siano necessariamente deboli sia il ruolo «facilitante» delle pressioni esterne rispetto alla ricalibratura intergenerazionale. ; Traditionally, Italy displayed remarkably elderly biased social policy arrangements. This article introduces the notion of intergenerational recalibration to capture reforms aimed at rebalancing the generational profile of the Italian welfare states via the expansion of family policy and social assistance schemes— both monetary benefits and care services—and retrenchment in the field of pensions. Then, it elaborates theoretically on the political dimension of this policy strategy to advance the hypotheses that domestic politics would prevent the realization of such an agenda, whereas the latter would be favored by a major role of supranational actors, especially the European Union. To test these hypotheses, we systematically analyze policy trajectories in the field of pensions and social assistance in Italy between the mid‐1990s and 2016. This allows, first, to argue that investment in "pro‐children" measures has not adequately balanced the reduction of pro‐parents expenditure and, second, to question the idea that domestic political incentives to expand "pro‐children" policies are necessarily too weak as well as the "enabling" role of external pressures in pursuing intergenerational recalibration.

This working paper contains some reflections on the potential consequences of the Eurozone's policy response to the Covid-19. Let's summarise them in the following bullet points: • No fiscal contraction nor money supply reduction might be expected over a period of 3-4 years. Both government deficit/debt and M3 aggregate might continue to rise to even more unprecedented amounts, at least in peacetime. The ECB's balance-sheet operations would accompany public budget expansions to prevent the Eurozone's government´s policies from financial market punishment. • As a result, austerity policies, based on fiscal contractions (public spending reduction and tax cuts) are not in the Eurozone's medium-long run horizon. Taxes simply take resources away from productive activities and cause distortions to market operators. Aggregate demand multipliers are formidable theoretical artefacts that take for granted the absence of pro-cyclical effects. A great deal of research has recently been done to refute the Keynesian tradition on the robust historical dataset. • Getting back to monetary stability would be much tougher for the Eurozone than it should be in rational terms. Sadly, I recognise that the EU's constitutional counterfeits facilitate rather than refrain from monetary disequilibria. In the absence of an EU centralised (federal), lithe governmental decision-making (comitology is omnipresent), the ECB rises like the saviour for all seasons in the shape of a universal liquidity provider. • Effectively, double-digit inflation would be the inevitable consequence of the failure of a rule-based monetary strategy for the Eurozone. Along with it, weak productivity recovery and private sector zombification pave the path to Japan-like stagflation. ; Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.

Using intra-day data, we assess the impact of the press release on euro area monetary data on the different segments of the euro area yield curve. For this purpose, we estimate a relation between the "news" or "surprise" in the released data for annual M3 growth and the move in the interest rates for a time-window surrounding the press release. We find that the publication of monetary data has a statistically significant impact on interest rates with maturities ranging from 1 to 10 years, with the largest effect on the 1-2 year segment. Turning to the short end of the yield curve, since mid-2001 rates with maturities up to 6 months do not react much to the monetary developments press release. Our results suggest that market participants may look through short-term movements of annual M3 growth and focus instead on the trend rate of monetary expansion over the medium term when gauging the policy relevant signals.

Der Beitag liefert eine Einschätzung der Wirtschaftsentwicklung weltweit (v.a. USA, Japan, China, Großbritannien, Spanien, Euroraum und EU) sowie der Entwicklung in Deutschland in den Jahren 2006 und 2007. Global wird ein anhaltender Wachstumskurs festgestellt und das internationale Umfeld wird als günstig eingeschätzt. Für Deutschland wird für das Jahr 2006 vor allem infolge einer stärkeren Binnennachfrage ein überdurchschnittliches Wachstum von 1,8 Prozent erwartet, das sich im Jahr 2007 jedoch wieder abschwächen wird. Eine Rolle spielen hier auch Vorzieheffekte für die Anschaffung langfristiger Konsumgüter durch die ab 1.1.2007 wirksame Erhöhung der Mehrwertsteuer sowie kurzfristig günstigere Abschreibungsbedingungen bei Ausrüstungsinvestitionen. Die Expansion wird durch Anlageinvestitionen von mehr als 3 Prozent sowie durch beständige Wachstumsbeiträge aus dem Außenhandel gestützt. Dennoch bleibt eine konjunkturelle Belebung bei der Beschäftigung aus. Die Zahl der Erwerbstätigen stagniert, gestiegen ist lediglich die Zahl der geringfügig entlohnten Beschäftigten. Der Rückgang der Zahl der Arbeitslosen wird auf die Ausweitung der 1-Euro-Jobs zurückgeführt. Aufgrund unvollständiger Arbeitsmarktdaten ist die Einschätzung der Beschäftigungsentwicklung schwierig. "Ob sich die Lage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt gebessert hat, lässt sich wegen der unsicheren Datenbasis anhand der Arbeitslosenstatistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit nicht einschätzen." Die Konsolidierungsstrategie der Bundesregierung wird grundsätzlich als erfolgreich bewertet. Die Staatsdefizite sind stark rückläufig, und im Jahr 2007 wird der Konsolidierungskurs durch die drastische Erhöhung der Mehrwertsteuer noch verschärft. Das DIW Berlin plädiert dafür, "die gesamtwirtschaftlich schädlichen Konsequenzen der Mehrwertsteuererhöhung zumindest zu mildern", beispielsweise indem die Einnahmen für Zwecke ausgegeben werden, die das Wirtschaftswachstum begünstigen und für die Nahholbedarf besteht, vor allem für Verkehr, Bildung und Wissenschaft. (IAB2)

2018 was a challenging year for policymakers in the East Asia region. Nonetheless, countries in the region were generally able to navigate through the challenges. As sources of downside risks remain, policymakers in the region need to remain vigilant and continue to push for reform. Global economic expansion in 2018, including the East Asia region, was lower than in 2017. This was in contrast with the projection and optimism at the start of 2018 and mostly due to various economic shocks followed by financial market volatilities. On economic performance in the second half of 2018, amongst advanced economies, the divergence in growth between the United States (US) and the eurozone continued in the third and fourth quarter, where the US continued to grow at a faster rate. Meanwhile, in the East Asia region, third quarter economic growth slowed compared to the second quarter in most countries. This was mostly driven by the contribution of negative net exports to growth, either due to a contraction in exports growth or a large pickup in imports growth. For the fourth quarter, the manufacturing purchasing manager index (PMI) shows expansion was unbalanced across the countries in the region. Around half of the countries recorded an expansion in manufacturing activity, while the other half recorded a contraction. On the financial front, market volatility increased from October, erasing the year-to-date returns of the global stock market. Similarly, most stock markets in the region recorded negative returns, and government bond yields in several countries increased. Consequently, almost all currencies in the region depreciated against the US dollar. Nonetheless, despite the volatility, policymakers in the region were largely able to maintain macroeconomic stability. Entering 2019, the global economic projection has been revised down due to various uncertainties. The main risks include unresolved trade tensions between the US and China, pressure on some emerging markets' macroeconomic stability, idiosyncratic country shocks, and the long-term challenges of increasing productivity and innovative capability, which rest upon investment in human capital.

1. Financial Integration, Bank Competition and Intra-Eurozone Foreign Direct Investment -- 2. Export Margins, Employment Skills and Financial Conditions: Stylized Facts from Greek Exporters -- 3. Why a revival of Greek manufacturing is a prerequisite to ensure a prosperous future for the country and how to achieve it -- 4. Greek Shipping Receipts Revisited: A Freight market and Country Risk Perspective -- 5. Fiscal policy and growth in the Euro area periphery: Does the business cycle matter? -- 6. Monetary Policy and Systemic Risk: USA evidence -- 7. What Drives the Default Risk of Restructured Loans -- 8. Regime Switches in the Yield Curve-Credit Spread Relationship and the Prediction of Recessions -- 9. A Comparison Study of Least Squares and Ridge Estimators in the Presence of Heteroscedasticity and Multicollinearity under Normal and Nonnormal Disturbances -- 10. The Effects of Temporal Aggregation and Systematic Sampling, on the Power of the Augmented Dickey Fuller Stationarity Test: A Monte Carlo Study -- 11. Revisiting the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Dynamic Panel VAR Analysis -- 12. International expansion strategies: Developing some research prepositions on the scope and speed of the path of internationalization.

"The increasing importance of civil society and civil society actors in recent decades has ensured that they now feature prominently in the European Union's enlargement strategy with the EU now possessing a series of policies on civil society in line with its perceived importance in the expansion of the Eurozone. Drawing on interviews with civil society organizations and in conjunction with an examination of EU Civil Society Policy and the legal and institutional environment in Turkey, this book questions the impact that these policies have had on Turkish civil society suggesting that it is, at best, limited. Instead this book argues that the EU could not accomplish its expected objectives within the framework of its civil society policy in Turkey due to a universalist understanding that ignores the current domestic structure of Turkish civil society as well as disregarding its political nature and the autonomous character of Turkey's civil society actors. The result is one of the most wide-ranging and in-depth studies on Turkish civil society and European Union, as such it is an important text for students and scholars of EU enlargement and civil society"--