Suchergebnisse

This book provides a post-crisis perspective on European politics by studying interactions within and among related domestic and EU political spheres. The contributors focus on political dynamics associated with the policy decisions and outcomes of crisis response in all three domains: EU institutions, public policy, and democratic politics.

Defence date: 21 June 2017 ; Examining Board: Professor Alexander H. Trechsel, University of Lucerne (Supervisor); Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute; Professor Russell J. Dalton, University of California, Irvine; Professor David Farrell, University College Dublin ; How is electoral competition structured in Europe? This fundamental problem lies at the core of democracy, as popular sovereignty depends on the existence of a real policy choice, and requires the most preferred alternative being selected and implemented (Dahl 1956). However, there is no consensus yet regarding the actual occurrence of this mechanism of responsive electoral competition (Schumpeter 1942). I develop a new empirical design to test whether a structure of electoral competition in Europe actually exists, based on the idea that greater party system polarization should be associated with a smaller propensity for voters to switch between electoral blocks. To do so, I identify two potential loci of electoral competition in Europe: the left-right dimension (Downs 1957; Bartolini and Mair 1990), and the more recently introduced integration-demarcation cleavage (Kriesi 1998; Kriesi et al. 2006). Data from the European Election Survey (2009, 2014) allow the implementation of the novel design in order to study electoral competition in 27 EU member states. For this thesis to empirically address the question of electoral competition in Europe a preliminary, methodological development has to be made. Indices of political polarization are generally produced using survey respondents' average perceptions of party positions. I show that this approach leads to systematic measurement error: the problem, known as Differential Item Functioning (DIF), depends on the fact that voter perceptions are subjective and cannot be directly compared, neither within nor between countries. To separate the actual polarization from perceptual bias, I develop a two-stage Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey (2S-BAM) scaling procedure and apply Dalton's index on DIF-corrected measures of party positions (ideal points) on both dimensions. Results show that when standard DIF-inflated polarization indices are used, left-right ideology seems to be still structuring European electoral competition. However, once the indices are optimized, using party ideal points, the integration-demarcation cleavage gains the upper hand over the left-right dimension in structuring electoral competition in contemporary Europe. Thus, this thesis makes both a methodological and theoretical, as well as an empirical contribution to the literature in this field.

This article addresses the issues which stem from the State aid investigations opened by the European Commission ("EC") against Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands, concerning aid granted in the form of tax base reduction to certain undertakings, namely Apple Inc., Amazon, Starbucks and Fiat Finance and Trade ("FFT"). Furthermore, this article analysis the EC's main line of argument in the aforementioned State aid investigations that is, acceptance by the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg, of the proposed calculation of the taxable base of these MNEs which do not reflect normal market conditions, may result in State aid, in that it will offer a more favourable treatment to the MNE compared to the treatment other undertakings would normally receive under the Member States' 'normal' tax system. In arriving at what would constitute normal market conditions, the EC uses two benchmarks namely, the internationally accepted standard, the Arm's Length Principle ("ALP") and the Prudent Independent Market Operator ("PIMO"), which makes its first appearance in these investigations. This article demonstrates the relationship between the two and whether both can be used as a benchmark for the purposes of the State aid rules as laid down under Art. 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ("TFEU"). ; peer-reviewed

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and measure the proportion of changes in wholesale prices transferred to private consumption prices in European Union economy. The data used in the investigation are monthly, covering the period from 1996:9 to 2001:7 and refer to consumer price indexes and wholesale price indexes of all products. Cointegration method is used in order to investigate the cost transfer from wholesale prices to consumer prices, or in other words to test the existence or not of a long-term equilibrium relationship between the two prices. ; peer-reviewed

This paper presents an estimation of the cost of reducing CO2 emissions as agreed in Kyoto by Annex I countries. Unlike most of the existing literature, this paper focuses on European Union countries' abatement costs and, using a simple model, estimates the role of each EU country within a EU market as well as an Annex 1 market. As a major result, marginal (and total) abatement costs for each EU country (as well as the EU total cost) are presented. Some conclusions on the redistribution of income among market participants related to the trading system are also shown.

In this paper we assume inflation rates in European Union countries may in fact be fractionally integrated. Given this assumption, we obtain estimations of the order of integration by means a method based on wavelets coefficients. Finally, results obtained allow reject the unit root hypothesis on inflation rates. It means that a random shock on the rate of inflation in these countries has transitory effects that gradually diminish with the passage of time, that this, said shock hasn¿t a permanent effect on future values of inflation rates ; En este artículo asumimos que las tasas de inflación en países de Unión europeos de hecho levemente pueden ser integradas. Considerando esta suposición, obtenemos las valoraciones de la orden de integración por el medio un método basado en coeficientes de olas pequeñas. Finalmente, los resultados obtenidos permiten al desecho la hipótesis de raíz de unidad sobre tasas de inflación. Esto quiere decir que un choque arbitrario sobre la tarifa de inflación en estos países tiene efectos transitorios que gradualmente disminuyen con el paso del tiempo, que esto, dijo que el choque no tiene un permanente efecto sobre los futuros valores de tasas de inflación