Suchergebnisse

Der Verfasser zeigt zunächst, was die EU unter Wirtschaftspolitik versteht und wie die wirtschaftspolitische Kompetenzverteilung in der EU aussieht. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird das komplexe Zusammenspiel wirtschaftspolitischer Institutionen in der WWU im europäischen Verfassungsvertrag dargestellt. Die WWU als höchste Stufe der wirtschaftlichen Integration der EU erfordert, so wird deutlich, zwar ein hohes Maß an kohärenter und damit gemeinsam gestalteter Wirtschaftspolitik. Eine "europäische" Wirtschaftspolitik im engeren Sinne wäre nur in einem Bundesstaat möglich. Die WWU operiert im Rahmen einer asymmetrischen wirtschaftspolitischen Architektur als zweitbeste Lösung im Staatenverbund EU. Die administrativen Kosten der wirtschaftspolitischen Koordination sind dabei erheblich. Hier könnte die Offene Methode der Koordinierung helfen. (ICE2)

Since its inception in 1995, more than 312 disputes have been raised under the WTO Dispute Settlement System. Despite the obvious success of this system, several shortcomings call for a revision under the auspices of the Doha Development Round. With a computable general equilibrium model we analyze the four most prominent trade disputes between the EU and the USA, which we call "mini trade wars": the Hormones, the Bananas, the Foreign Sales Corporations and the Steel cases. The economic analysis revealed several flaws and peculiarities: As a rule, retaliatory tariffs are detrimental to welfare of the retaliating country and amount to "shooting oneself in the foot". Trade wars can only be won by large countries. The WTO arbitrator's estimation of the trade loss in case of non-compliance never translates into equivalent damage to economic welfare. A mechanism to control the collection of retaliatory tariff revenues is missing as is a system to compensate the firms suffering the damage. The major conclusion therefore is that tariffs are very bad instruments for countermeasures. The sanctions mechanism of the Dispute Settlement System should be improved, maybe based on a mechanism of direct transfers.

Overall, the ECB managed monetary policy quite satisfactory in the first phase of EMU. Nevertheless, this paper asks whether monetary policy could not have been improved. In the last three years, Euroland was confronted with the first external shock. Oil prices increased considerably, leading to an increase of headline inflation of over one percentage point in 2000/2001. With a specific Taylor rule one can very well understand, how the ECB sets interest rates, but it turns out that monetary policy based on the estimated Taylor reaction function was rather backward than forward-looking. While it reacted with a lag to the actions of US's Fed, it was overly cautious by targeting total HICP inflation. Here it is strongly argued and also demonstrated with model simulations that a monetary policy oriented towards "core" inflation would have resulted in a much better economic performance. The business cycle downturn could have been mitigated with no additional inflation risks.

A new macroeconomic evaluation of EU enlargement is undertaken with a world macroeconomic model taking into account all possible integration effects: trade effects, Single Market effects, factor movements (FDI, migration) and the costs of enlargement. Due to the differences in size of the regions involved, on average the CEEC - measured in terms of real GDP - will gain around ten times more from enlargement than the EU. On average, enlargement is a win-win game. Hungary and Poland can increase their real GDP by around 8 to 9 percent over a ten year period, the Czech Republic gains a little bit less (5 to 6 percent). The EU on average would gain around ½ percent of real GDP over a six year period. However, the impact is quite different in the separate EU member states, with Austria, Germany and Italy gaining the most and losses for Spain, Portugal and Denmark. Hence, EU enlargement acts like an exogenous shock leading to asymmetric disturbances in the EU. This could pause the process of business cycle synchronisation and might impair monetary policy in Euroland at the beginning of the enlargement process.