Documents economic policy 1 408 results

"This book investigates the role that foreign direct investment (FDI) in central-eastern and southern Europe has played in the post-crisis period, comparing patterns across countries and sectors.
An overarching objective of this publication is to assess the extent to which FDI can still be seen as a key driver of economic development, modernisation and convergence for Europe's low- and middle-income economies, taking into account also the risks and limiting factors associated with FDI."

Following the French and Dutch rejection of the draft constitutional Treaty, many questions have arisen about the European Union's political model, its social model, its geographical borders and limits, its founding principles and its identity. Is Europe in deep crisis, or is crisis its usual way of operating? Does enlargement consign the project of the founding fathers to history, or does it force today's political leaders to go back to basics? There is no lack of questions and controversies. In a sense, this proves that the EU has now gone beyond technical issues and is becoming a fundamentally political entity. Too soon or too late, some will say, but the debate is now underway.

The contributors to this edition of Social Developments in the European Union examine the European social model, from both the inside and the outside, the governance of the euro zone, the political priorities outlined in the financial perspectives for 2007-2013, and recent and forthcoming enlargements. They also highlight the important role of political, economic and social stakeholders in debate around the "better legislation" initiative, the Lisbon strategy, European social dialogue and the issue of pensions. The forum for debate plainly acquired a strong European dimension in 2005. Perhaps the way out of the present crisis might therefore be to devise a coherent new project and promote the emergence of political players who are prepared to implement it.

"Economic Policy provides a unique combination of facts-based analysis, state-of-the art economic theory, and insights from first-hand policy experience at the national and international levels to shed light on current domestic and international policy challenges. It is ideally suited for students, practitioners, and scholars seeking understanding both of the pragmatic constraints of real-world policy making and the analytical tools that enhance inquiry and inform debates. The authors draw on their experiences as academics and as policy makers in European and international institutions to offer a deep dive into the rationale, design, and implementation of economic policy across a range of policy domains: fiscal policy, monetary policy, international finance, financial stability, taxes, long-term growth and inequality. Highlighting the ways experience, theories, and institutions interact, each chapter starts with historical examples of dilemmas and shows how theoretical approaches can help policy makers understand what is at stake and identify solutions. The authors highlight the differences between the positive approach to economic policy (how do policies impact the economy), the normative approach (what should be policymakers' objectives and against which criteria should their action be judged), and the political-economy constraints (what are the limits and obstacles to public intervention). They rely on the most recent academic research, providing technical boxes while explaining the mechanisms in plain English in the text, with appropriate illustrations. This new edition is informed by such important recent developments as the Great Recession, the strains on the European Union and the Euro, the challenges of public and private debt, the successes and setbacks to emerging markets, changes to labor markets along with the increased attention to inequality, the debates on secular stagnation and its implications for conventional and unconventional monetary policy, the re-regulation of the financial sector, the debt overhang in both the public and the private sector."

"To protect the future of life on earth, we need to do more than just reimagine the economy—we have to change everything. One of the seminal thinkers of the program that helped ignite the US Green New Deal campaign, Ann Pettifor explains how we can afford what we can do, and what we need to do, before it is too late.
The Case for the Green New Deal argues that economic change is wholly possible, based on the understanding that finance, the economy and the ecosystem are all tightly bound together. The GND demands total decarbonization and a commitment to an economy based on fairness and social justice. It proposes a radical new understanding of the international monetary system. Pettifor offers a roadmap for financial reform both nationally and globally, taking the economy back from the 1%. This is a radical, urgent manifesto that we must act on now."

"This paper uses an individual-level survey conducted by the Edelman Trust Barometer in mid-April for 11 advanced and emerging market economies to examine perceptions of government performance in managing the health and economic crisis, beliefs about the future, and attitudes about redistribution. We find that women, non-college educated, the unemployed, and those in non-teleworkable jobs systematically have less favorable perceptions of government responses. Personally experiencing illness or job loss caused by the pandemic can shape people's beliefs about the future, heightening uncertainties about prolonged job losses, and the imminent threat from automation. Economic anxieties are amplified in countries that experienced an early surge in infections followed by successful containment, suggesting that negative beliefs can persist. Support for pro-equality redistributive policies varies, depending on personal experiences and views about the poor. However, we find strong willingness to provide social safety nets for vulnerable individuals and firms by those who have a more favorable perception of government responses, suggesting that effective government actions can promote support for redistributive policies."

"Global economy on firmer ground, but with divergent recoveries amid high uncertainty

Global prospects remain highly uncertain one year into the pandemic. New virus mutations and the accumulating human toll raise concerns, even as growing vaccine coverage lifts sentiment. Economic recoveries are diverging across countries and sectors, reflecting variation in pandemic-induced disruptions and the extent of policy support. The outlook depends not just on the outcome of the battle between the virus and vaccines—it also hinges on how effectively economic policies deployed under high uncertainty can limit lasting damage from this unprecedented crisis.

Global growth is projected at 6 percent in 2021, moderating to 4.4 percent in 2022. The projections for 2021 and 2022 are stronger than in the October 2020 WEO. The upward revision reflects additional fiscal support in a few large economies, the anticipated vaccine-powered recovery in the second half of 2021, and continued adaptation of economic activity to subdued mobility. High uncertainty surrounds this outlook, related to the path of the pandemic, the effectiveness of policy support to provide a bridge to vaccine-powered normalization, and the evolution of financial conditions."

"What were you doing on Tuesday 7 April 2020? Remember that date now — according to author Éloi Laurent, it marked the real start of the 21st century, when "half of humanity was stilled and the entire global economy paralysed in an effort to restrict the deadly spread of Covid-19, a pandemic triggered by the destruction of ecosystems and the commodification of biodiversity". Laurent, a Professor at Sciences Po (France) and Stanford University (United States), argues that there is no true tradeoff to be made between health and economics because "consumption is infinitely more difficult when you're dead and no one who's seriously ill is productive". Rather, "the choice presented by the pandemic (…) is between a health catastrophe and economic depression on the one hand, and safety and resilience on the other". In an easy-to-read style, he takes us back, first to the source of the pandemic, which in all likelihood began in autumn 2019 in the Chinese megacity of Wuhan, the "city that literally fed on the destruction of the ecosystems and biodiversity that surrounded it and developed parasitically rather than symbiotically until it sparked a crisis in the human/animal species barrier by obliterating habitats and then commoditising bats and pangolins", in a process that symbolises the way in which our "modern" economy functions today.

An economist by training, Laurent does not spare his own discipline from attack. Throughout the book, he criticises economists for defying the laws of physics in encouraging us to ignore climate change and thus destroy biodiversity, and for borrowing jargon that belongs to other disciplines such as medicine or finance to defend an approach based chiefly on achieving growth in GDP at any cost.

Addressing this "devastating web of falsehoods", Laurent proposes that we should start over again, using two, more relevant, indicators to reconstruct the post-Covid-19 world: life expectancy and full health (to be interpreted as a kind of solidarity in matters of health between human beings who are aware of the vital importance of their environment). In order to update our social market economy, which since 1944 has aimed to promote full employment in a bipolar world (market economics versus communism's planned economics), "full health" provides a yardstick for combatting the unipolar global ecological uncertainty that makes our societies vulnerable to all kinds of viruses. Worthy of note is the author's concept of a "socio-ecological feedback loop" linking inequalities to ecological crises, and demonstrating that risk exposure does not affect all people the same way, depending on their status as small or powerful players.

In other words, he suggests "building a socio-ecological state that prioritises full health, not growth". The new state would rely chiefly on three functions (similar to those proposed by the economist Richard Musgrave) - allocation, distribution and stabilisation — in a four-scenario world: South Korean or Chinese bio-techno power with continuous digital surveillance; American or Brazilian ecological neoliberalism with its weak environmental regulations; European-style superficial economic naturalism with its fiscal and social competition; and finally African and Asian natural regulations where exposure to environmental risk is high. Unfortunately, all four scenarios are likely to appear negative to a reader searching desperately for a positive way out of the crisis. And it is at this point that the author sets out his solution, which is based on positive indicators.

In expectation of an ecological update to our national and supranational welfare state system, the author draws up a balance sheet on the gradual progress made in the socio-ecological transitions under way in our cities. Why give priority to urban areas? Because they "are where most people now live (75-80 per cent of the population in North America and Europe) and, although they occupy only 5 per cent of the planet's surface, they account for 66 per cent of energy consumption and 75 per cent of CO2 emissions". He sets out four specific major pillars that underpin urban socio-ecological transition and, as an example to follow, draws up a fairly positive ecological balance sheet of the measures taken by the city of Paris.

By contrast, on the need for reconstruction in Europe, he is fairly critical of EU governance, despite the announcement of the "Green Deal", which is not only silent on indicators for measuring "sustainable and inclusive growth" but also says nothing on whether it is compatible in any respect with the current Growth and Stability Pact, the European Semester or the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The European Union is "very clearly inadequate with regard to intention and method", and is given a fail grade by the professor, who calls on it to take note of the reports produced by the European Environment Agency as well as the European Trade Union Confederation, which "has now made the challenge posed by such a transition the focus of its debates and actions".

"I think (…) that, by isolating us from one another against our will, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that isolation is inherently alien to us. (…) The relentless seclusion would perhaps surprisingly appear to have taught us that freedom is other people. Community is important for our wellbeing," wrote Éloi Laurent, probably while in lockdown. What were you doing on Tuesday 7 April 2020? - Mehmet Koksal"

"A uniquely hybrid approach to welfare state policy, ecological sustainability and social transformation, this book explores transformative models of welfare change. Using Ireland as a case study, it addresses the institutional adaptations needed to move towards a sustainable welfare state, and the policy of making such transformation happen. It takes a theoretical and practical approach to implementing an alternative paradigm for welfare in the context of globalisation, climate change, social cohesion, automation, economic and power inequalities, intersectionality and environmental sustainability, as well as perpetual crisis, including the pandemic."

"This report was commissioned by the Belgian Federal Ministry of the Economy (FPS Economy) from the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in 2022, following a competitive tendering procedure. Its main purpose is to support the Belgian authorities in their preparations for the upcoming Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) in the first half of 2024 by providing a comprehensive study on the importance and strategic opportunities of the European single market in the changing geopolitical, technological, socio-economic and environmental context.

To this end, the report seeks to provide a strategic analysis of the European single market, taking stock of its past achievements, assessing its current challenges as well as threats, and considering its potentials and opportunities in the context of current and future societal and economic challenges, the twin transitions and open strategic autonomy.

At the heart of this report lies the belief that the major challenges associated with the European Green Deal and, in the interim, the ambitious targets included in the ‘Fit for 55' package will require a rebalancing of the functioning of the single market in a way that can both facilitate reaching these goals and, at the same time, ensure the political stability and viability of the European integration project.

In simpler terms, the report explores ways in which it would be possible to recalibrate some aspects of the single market's functioning in order to make it fit for the next – challenging – decade whilst facilitating the strategic objective of meeting the pressing demands of the green transition, the technological and digital transition, the EU's aspirations to greater strategic autonomy, and its social sustainability dimension."