Suchergebnisse

AbstractOver the last two decades, the formation of grand coalitions has grown in the European Union (EU), even in countries with no previous political experience with them. Alongside a significant rise in both new and radical parties, grand coalitions signal the increasing fragmentation of contemporary European politics. We, therefore, investigate the electoral performance of both mainstream and new parties entering and leaving grand coalitions. We find that mainstream parties do not appear to enter grand coalitions after negative election results. They are, however, punished in the following elections, albeit not as heavily as previous findings have shown. This post-grand coalition electoral penalty is true for both major and minor grand coalition members. These findings contribute to the literature on party competition and provide insights into the choices mainstream parties' have been making in response to recent and rapid changes in the electoral landscape of the EU.

A fixed exchange rate regime eliminates one degree of freedom in absorbing macroeconomic shocks. Therefore, there is a call for higher labor market flexibility in countries which are members of the monetary union or those which intend to join the monetary union. Focusing on the cross-country analysis of labor markets in the enlarged European Union over 1995- 2004, this paper aims to assess empirically the role of aggregate wages as a correction mechanism for dealing with economic disturbances. We apply classical time series/panel, Bayesian, and cointegration techniques to determine the extent to which aggregate wages can accommodate shocks in the economy.

Few decisions of the European Court of Justice have received as much attention as the 1999 judgement in Centros.1 This decision provided private international lawyers with an opportunity to examine choice of law in relation to companies against the background of European law. It also caused company lawyers to re-examine their national legislation in the light of foreign rules.

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