Suchergebnisse

The article argues that economic measures of happiness are invalid and unreliable. The invalidity is implied by the subjective theory of value: happiness cannot be measured in the cardinal scales of measurement and it cannot be intersubjectively aggregated. The unreliability also follows from the subjective nature of happiness. The article concludes that the application of happiness economics to inform policy decisions should be seen as immoral. Adapted from the source document.

The article addresses the question of why the Baltic countries chose internal devaluation over external devaluation in response to the economic crisis of 2008-2010. After describing the situation in the Baltics and the two main choices, the paper argues that economic explanations are insufficient in accounting for the choice. Several political explanations for the choice are laid out based on external pressure arguments, society-oriented perspective and institutional perspective. The paper finds that the external pressure hypothesis is unable to account for the Baltic decision, which rather reflected a very strong domestic consensus on the importance of safeguarding fixed exchange rates. This consensus in turn was based on both widespread support by the general society and concentrated producer groups. Nevertheless, society-oriented perspective cannot fully explain the Baltic choice either -- economic policies pursued during the crisis can only be fully understood when analyzing specific historical conditions under which the fixed exchange rate institutional system and its supporting elements were created. Over time, self-enforcing effects of the system became apparent both in the ideational sphere (principled beliefs about nationhood as well as particular causal beliefs) and in the material one, largely through the credit channel (indebtedness in euros). The current crisis also witnessed tendencies largely reinforcing the institutional equilibrium that supports the fixed exchange rate system. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of this article is to explore the bargaining process of the EU Financial Perspective 2007-2013 & to provide the conceptual explanation of the particular result of this bargaining. Although quite a number of drafts have been discussed among member states, three of them characterize the most important turns of the bargaining: Commission's Proposal, the Luxemburg's Compromise & the Decision of the European Council. Andrew Moravcsik's Liberal Intergovernmental Approach has been applied as the methodological tool for the analysis of the EU Financial Perspective 2007-2013. Moravcsik assumes that European bargaining is a two level game. A two level game is a metaphoric concept describing how the interaction between the domestic pressure groups & decision makers formulates national preferences & how political leaders on the European level represent those national preferences. On both levels pragmatic economic interests are the driving factors of different actors. It should be emphasized that states are the main players in EU arena, whereas supranational institutions play a supporting part. Five different groups or informal coalitions could be found in the recent bargaining for the Financial Perspective. The key interest of rich member states (UK, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, & France) was to decrease EU spending -- to cut the contributions to the EU budget. Phasing out states (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) as former major beneficiaries of EU structural policy strived to diminish financial losses in the new Financial Perspective. Poorer Central European countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic & Hungary) fought for the structural funds. Finally, the UK was alone against the rest of member states which called for the radical review of the British rebate. The comparative statistical & qualitative analysis of those proposals revealed two important trends in the bargaining. First, the EU spending was cut in every turn. Second, the funds for the rich member states were redistributed at the expense of the poorer member states. Certainly, such redistribution did not change the fact that the older member states remained the net contributors & the poor Central European countries gained more benefits compared to the previous Financial Perspective 2000-2006. Besides these two main tendencies the phasing out states succeed to increase the funds for their undeveloped regions & the final Decision of the European Council offered for the UK the most favorable mechanism counting the British rebate. The article reveals the weaknesses of the popular geopolitical interpretations which were proposed in order to explain the strong clashes between member states. The geopolitical & ideological discourse was aimed at neutralizing the domestic pressure. The economic logic to pay less & get more was the dominant thinking in the bargaining for the European financial pie. The asymmetrical interdependence which was the main source of bargaining power during the previous intergovernmental negotiations on Common Market is obsolete in explaining the modalities of redistributional policies. The effect of relative power was limited to the bargaining strategy, however it did not make a remarkable impact to the final agreement. On the contrary, the typical net recipient is a small & poor member state. The author has to come to the conclusion that the poor Central European countries states were forced to support the cuts of the budget & suffered a relative defeat in the bargaining, since they were the main beneficiaries of the common EU budget. It means that the poor Central European countries were the most interested to reach an agreement as soon as possible in order to avoid the risk of facing the EU financial turbulences. For this reason their bargaining power was very weak. Adapted from the source document.

Although the correlation of welfare & democracy is not direct, it is possible to sustain that the problems related with democracy satisfaction could be solved by public policy measures. Lithuanian's who reflect themselves as the losers of the transition reforms are unsatisfied with their socio-economic status & their anticipation of the prompt life improvement is rather high. If such tendencies start to dominate in the society of Lithuania, the question of political stability arises. Therefore social security, welfare network & infrastructure development as well as the increase of the redistribution amounts look like inevitable reforms in nowadays Lithuania. All appropriate compensatory measures could be related to the development of the welfare state in Lithuania. The liberal model of the welfare state should be the most suitable option for Lithuania at first sight. The Lisbon Strategy is implicitly based on this kind of welfare state model. Lithuania was trying to apply active labor market policy nevertheless the efforts were restrained by the small resources. The structural policy of the EU, mainly the measures financed by the European Social Fund, should increase the amount of funds allocated to the active labor market policy. Considering public policy in Lithuania an exclusive attention should be paid to the reduction of regional inequalities, establishment of the workplaces & social security infrastructure. Due to the Lithuanian budget restrictions it's necessary to develop a tax base & to improve tax administration. The second important component is partial decentralization of programming & implementation of the EU funds by means of the EU Cohesion policy reform. The third component is the implementation of horizontal regional policy in Lithuania. Legal & organizational premises for the aforementioned steps are already established. Adapted from the source document.

The hypothesis raised in the article is that the strategy of Lithuania in the EU budget review in 2008-2009 & negotiations on the forthcoming financial framework should be based on the support to policies & programs with high European-wide benefits rather than the aim to maximize financial support & the country's net balance. The following analysis consists of two major stages. First, normative EU budget objectives & instruments are specified on the basis of the Treaties (assuming that the Treaty of Lisbon would be successfully ratified), EU citizens' opinions, fiscal federalism principles & evaluations of EU budget policies. Second, the impact of such budget on Lithuania & specific Lithuanian interests in the context of such a reform are estimated. Adapted from the source document.