Suchergebnisse

During the seminar Dr Åsa Hansson (Department of Economics, Lund University, Sweden) discussed recent attempts made by international organizations such as OECD, G20 and EU and individual countries to make capital taxation possible. For instance, the number of countries that have agreed to exchange information about capital investments has increased drastically and means to shifts profits to low-tax countries have become harder. The attempts are welcome and improve the possibilities to tax capital but come at costs. Research shows that international coordination works best if all countries agree and gain from the coordination. This is unlikely to happen and small countries located far from the centre are likely to lose the most from coordination. ; N/A

A poster presentation regarding a simplified approach for the registration of medicines in small European countries. Introduction: A medicine requires a Marketing Authorisation (MA) before it could be made available on the EU market (Directive 2001/83/EC) to ensure its safety, quality and efficacy. The requirements to obtain a MA are complex and may adversely influence accessibility to medicines. The problem of accessibility to medicines is of particular interest to small countries such as Malta. The research question of this study was: Can registration of medicines in small EU countries such as Malta be simplified? Aims: • To review the processes by which medicines are registered in the EU, with particular interest to small countries such as Malta. • To analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these registration processes and identify problems in the registration process in Malta. • To compile a guide intended to simplify the process for the registration of medicines in Malta and in small EU countries. ; N/A

Introduction: There are limited data on the potential effects of e-cigarette experimentation on support for tobacco control policies. To bridge this gap, we assessed associations between e-cigarette experimentation and support for tobacco control policies in the European Union 2012-2014. We also investigated variations across tobacco-use status, e-cigarette experimentation and sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: Datasets were used from the Special Eurobarometer for Tobacco surveys performed in 2012 (n=26 751) and 2014 (n=27 801). Tobacco control policies assessed were: banning advertising, policies to keep tobacco out of sight, banning online sales, banning flavors, standardized packaging, tax increases, and policies to reduce illicit trade in tobacco. We use multilevel logistic regression models to assess variations in socio-demographics and tobacco/e-cigarette use with support for these policies in 2014, and examined changes in support for these policies, between 2012 and 2014, separately by tobacco-use status (never, current, and former smokers). Results: Population support for tobacco control policies was high in 2014: policies to reduce illicit trade had the highest level of support at 70.1%, while tax increases were the least likely measure to be supported with 52.3% support. Among never and former smokers, experimentation with e-cigarettes was associated with reduced support for all tobacco control policies assessed. For example, never smokers who had experimented with e-cigarettes were less likely to support either tobacco advertising bans (adjusted odds ratio aOR=0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.46-0.71) or standardized packaging for tobacco (aOR=0.58, 95% CI: 0.47-0.71). Former smokers who had experimented with e-cigarettes were less likely to either support standardized packaging for tobacco (aOR=0.70, 95% CI: 0.60-0.82) or keeping tobacco out of sight (aOR=0.77, 95% CI: 0.65-0.90). Among current smokers, e-cigarette experimentation was not associated with support for the tobacco control policies assessed. Conclusions: E-cigarette experimentation was consistently associated with reduced support for tobacco control policies among never and former smokers but not among current smokers. The implications of these findings for tobacco control are unknown, but the data support concerns that e-cigarette experimentation may affect public support for established tobacco control policies within specific subgroups. Further research is needed to assess potential long-term impacts on tobacco control policies.

Defence date: 7 June 2008 ; Examining Board: Tanja Boerzel (Free Univ. Berlin), Maurizio Ferrera (Univ. Milano), Adrienne Héritier (EUI/RSCAS), Martin Rhodes (Denver Univ./former EUI) ; This thesis aims to understand how the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) has developed at the European level and to explore how, and with what effect, it has influenced the EU Member States. My cases are policy areas, which have been selected on the basis of their salience in Member States. The case of high salience is employment policy and the case of low salience is anti-poverty policy. Regarding the European level, the thesis seeks to identify the main causal factors that determine the development of the OMC. I use an adapted version of the Principal-Agent framework, where the Member States represent the Principal(s) and the European Commission represents the Agent. While most existing literature analyses the OMC at one moment in time, I analyse how the OMC develops through time, where I distinguish between emergence, when it has not been fully established, and evolution, when it has been fully established as a policy coordination instrument. I develop two hypotheses to test Commission-Member State interaction during OMC development during emergence and evolution and two to test if their interaction differs in cases of high and low saliency. My findings show that the Commission has a greater influence during the emergence of the OMC and that the Member States have more influence during the evolution of the OMC. The saliency of a policy issue only minimally influences Member State and Commission interaction in the two cases. For the national level, the thesis seeks to shed some light on how and the extent to which the OMC has been integrated into the domestic contexts of (14) EU Member States. The endeavour is first to draw some general conclusions about how governmental and non-governmental actors in Member States use the OMC. My findings show that it has mainly been used as a policy reporting instrument, but has in some cases also been used for policy development. The aim is secondly to assess the extent to which the general objectives of the OMC have been achieved. My findings show that it does not define core reform programmes in Member States, which is hardly surprising, since the OMC is a soft policy instrument.

This paper examines the impact of European Integration in the context of globalization on correlations between stock market returns. Furthermore, it looks at the impact of globalization in periods of crisis on stock market correlations of developed nations of Europe, US and Japan. The methodology used is a simple calculation framework based on the correlation coefficient. The results show that stock market integration in Europe has increased substantially in recent years though it is not yet complete. Moreover, stock markets correlation between Europe,Japan and the US is stronger than ever and is likely to continue to grow. This is more noticeable for the NIKKEI index which recently is very clearly affected by the movement in other major markets. Equity portfolios on developed countries cannot be constructed on the basis of a country allocation strategy anymore. ; peer-reviewed