Assessment Commission Research Articles

Can a European wealth tax close the green investment gap?

This paper analyses the European Commission's assessment of investment needs as implied by the EU's Paris commitment. We find that official estimates of the green investment gap until 2050 are likely to seriously understate actual investment required. Against this backdrop, we assess the potential of a European wealth tax to close this investment gap. In doing so, we first provide a detailed estimate of the wealth distribution across 22 EU member countries and then develop a microsimulation model for recurring wealth taxes in these countries. The model is based on household survey data from the HFCS, but compensates for missing observations at the top of the wealth distribution by means of a Pareto model. Taking different tax designs into account, we generally find a substantial revenue potential that could contribute significantly to closing currently existing green investment gaps. We also find that compensating for the ‘missing rich’ is essential for sensibly evaluating progressive tax designs.

Using the Higher Learning Commission's Assessment Culture Matrix to Support Continuous Quality Improvement of a Simulated Patient Program.

The purpose of this commentary is to advocate for the use of the Higher Learning Commission's Assessment Culture Matrix to support continuous quality improvement (CQI) of simulated patient (SP) programs. We will share examples from our program demonstrating our maturation as it relates to leadership, shared mission and vision, faculty, and resources. While we are at the beginning stages of engaging students, we continue to make progress accessing and systematically using assessment data. We anticipate that sharing our process for utilizing this matrix may help other institutions as they conduct CQI with their SP programs and in other areas of their assessment portfolio.

Taking the temperature of patient safety in the NHS.

John Tingle reflects on the Care Quality Commission's assessment of the state of services in England, and the issues around regulating compliance with the duty of candour.

Stabilization Mechanisms for Nuclear Investments vs.Electricity Market Liberalization:The Case of Contract forDifference. Lessons from theUnited Kingdom and Romania

The article addresses Contracts for Difference (CfD) as state aid and price stabilization mechanisms needed to mitigate the risks stemming from the incompat- ibility of liberalized electricity markets and nuclear energy investments. It starts by defining CfD mechan- ism as state aid required to support nuclear invest- ments. It continues by analyzing the issue of state aid in relation to the nuclear sector, with focus on the ``market failure'' argument as it transpires from both the European Commission's assessment of the state aid scheme and the decision of the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Attention is dedicated to the uses of the same support scheme in two similar nuclear projects in Hinkley Point (United Kingdom) and CernavodaÆ (Romania). The article concludes that given the systemic differences between the two national energy markets, CfD might not be a suitable solution for both national energy markets.

Legislation governing genetically modified and genome-edited crops in Europe: the need for change.

The European Commission's assessment and approval process for genetically modified (GM) crops has resulted in only two GM crop varieties being licensed for cultivation in the European Union, one of which has been withdrawn. Unable to define GM crops satisfactorily, the European Commission has fallen back on a definition based on process. The shortcomings of this approach are all too clear as the Commission grapples with the advent of genome editing. This has led to a long and damaging delay in the Commission issuing an opinion on how genome‐edited crops should be regulated. At the same time, national bans imposed by member states on GM crops without any evidence of safety concerns have been legalized. The Commission also faces the prospect of assessing an increasing number of GM and genome‐edited crops with deliberately altered composition. In this article, the operation of regulations covering GM crops in the European Union and the effect they have had on the development of plant biotechnology are reviewed, while the issues raised by new technologies are discussed. It is argued that there is an urgent need for the European Union to shift its position on plant biotechnology if agriculture is to meet the challenges of coming decades. © 2018 The Author. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

As relações Rússia – América Latina arregimentando processos cooperativos ao âmbito da CEPAL

O presente trabalho objetiva analisar a possibilidade de arregimentar parcerias de cooperação internacional da Rússia com países latino americanos ao âmbito da CEPAL, e até que ponto eles atendem as premissas valorativas da Comissão. Para tanto, busca-se responder se há possiblidade de associar os projetos oriundos do novo impulso de cooperação entre Rússia e os países latino-americano ao escopo cepalino. A hipótese preliminar guia desta pesquisa indica que a Rússia está apta a se apresentar enquanto importante parceira aos países latino-americanos e caribenhos seja em termos econômicos, mas também político-estratégico, e que tal relacionamento possa servir enquanto oportunidade para alavancar projetos de caráter de cooperação técnica internacional que deem suporte ao desenvolvimento, seja econômico, social e/ou ambiental aos países envolvidos. Para desenvolver a pesquisa ponderou-se a análise de três passos analíticos, sucessivos e complementares: i) análise da CEPAL e a estrutura do pensamento cepalino acerca do desenvolvimento econômicos dos países; ii) a visão da CEPAL sobre a cooperação técnica e internacional enquanto alavanca do desenvolvimento; iii) a Rússia enquanto parceira dos países latino-americanos e caribenhos, em perspectiva histórica e na atual conjuntura. Os estudos que vinculam os temas aqui tratados são poucos e instigam a produção de novos conhecimentos. Ver-se-á ao final da pesquisa que os interesses geopolíticos estratégicos russos à região devem ser melhor aproveitados enquanto novas oportunidades para o desenvolvimento da América Latina.

How Close Is Too Close? A Critical Review of the European Commission's Assessment of Closeness of Competition

While market-share analysis has not become obsolete, closeness of competition has developed into a key criterion for the assessment of horizontal mergers. Closeness of competition arguments are unlikely to succeed in the absence of reliable data. There is a lack of guidance from the European Commission on the qualitative and quantitative tools that should be used to assess closeness of competition as well as on the degree of closeness that is problematic.

Revisiting the Single and Continuous Infringement of Article 101: The Significance of Anic in a New Era of Cartel Detection and Analysis

The ability of the Commission to assess various elements of anti-competitive behaviour as manifestations of the same single and continuous infringement of Article 101, by reference to a common overriding objective, remains one of the most fundamental principles underpinning the Commission's assessment and analysis of the evidence in cartel investigations. However, whilst jurisprudence may have successfully navigated a course through the legal challenges to the single and continuous infringement, the consistency and accuracy with which the concept is discharged by the Commission and the circumstances in which its application is appropriate remain the subject of debate. Amid this uncertainty, there have nevertheless developed a number of clear and discernable reasons for practitioners to give adequate consideration to whether a party's involvement in a cartel may amount to one or several infringements of Article 101. In particular, with the Commission's assessment of the evidence in cartel investigations driven increasingly by direct engagement with the alleged participants, practitioners should be aware of the implications of the combination or disaggregation of infringements prior to making submissions under the Commission's leniency regime or engaging with the Commission through settlement discussions.

The Case Against Reform of the Takeover Bids Directive

Does the Takeover Bids Directive need revision? The answer to this question will most likely affect the Commission's assessment of the Directive in 2011 and could initiate its revision. Proponents of such a revision urge the Commission to redress the shortcomings of the Directive's implementation in two ways: 1) revising the mandatory provisions of the Directive making them less easily avoidable; and 2) creating new provisions that would weaken incumbent managers' lock on control that would make corporate control more contestable. In this short essay, however, we show that the Commission's opt-out strategy has proved, in practice, to be remarkably popular with Member States and does not need any further discussion.

Native Americans and Brief Spiritual Assessment: Examining and Operationalizing the Joint Commission's Assessment Framework

At the turn of the century, the Joint Commission--the nation's largest health care accrediting organization--began requiring spiritual assessments in hospitals and many other mental health settings frequented by Native Americans. Despite high levels of service use, culturally unique forms of spirituality, and a history of oppression in mainstream settings, no research has explored how to best implement this new requirement with Native Americans. Accordingly, this mixed-method study asked recognized experts in Native American culture (N = 50) to identify the degree of cultural consistency, strengths, and limitations of the new assessment framework and a culturally valid question protocol to operationalize the requirements. The results indicate that the framework is moderately consistent with Native American culture, and a number of practice-oriented suggestions and tools are offered to implement the requirements in a culturally valid manner.

Disintegration: Environmental Protection and Article 81 EC

AbstractThis article addresses the question of whether the modernisation and decentralisation of EC competition law will affect the integration of environmental protection requirements into the framework of Article 81 EC. First, the interface between competition policy and environmental protection at both the constitutional level and operational level is investigated. Following this, the Commission's assessment of environmental benefits under Article 81(3) EC prior to decentralisation and modernisation is explored. It is submitted that the Commission's expansion of its interpretation of the first two positive criteria of Article 81(3) EC allowed environmental objectives and competition goals to be balanced within the framework of Article 81 EC. Finally, this article examines the extent to which the decentralisation and modernisation of Community competition law may impede the integration of environmental protection into the definition and implementation of Article 81 EC.

Public Funding and Broadband: Distortion of Competition or Recognition of Policy Failure?

Several local or regional authorities around Europe are currently deploying alternative telecom infrastructure or are seriously thinking of doing so. This is an interesting phenomenon. Only a few years ago, the European Union was adopting legislation liberalizing the telecommunications sector on the premise that private sector investment will deliver much better services and innovation to European consumers than state owned monopolies. Is this assumption still valid or do these projects demonstrate that there may still be some parts of the value chain where public sector intervention is necessary? The article describes a number of cases of publicly funded broadband projects that have been notified to the European Commission and the Commission's assessment of these cases. The article divides these cases in two main categories that of publicly funded infrastructure projects and that of publicly funded end to end broadband services and discusses the Commission's approach with regard to each category of projects. Finally the article highlights the evolution in the Commission's thinking and provides some comments on these decisions as well as some suggestions for a different approach.

Payroll Taxes: Thresholds, Firm Sizes, Dead‐weight Losses and Commonwealth Grants Commission Funding*

Payroll‐tax thresholds make firms smaller than they would otherwise be and concentrate firms at just below threshold employment. We estimate the resulting dead‐weight losses under perfect and monopolistic competition. Under monopolistic competition, the threshold‐induced dead‐weight loss in Victoria is approximately 10 per cent of payroll‐tax collections over a wide range of threshold levels. Because payroll‐tax design affects the size distribution of firms, it also affects the Commonwealth Grants Commission's assessment of a State's capacity to generate payroll taxes. This violates a principle of the Commonwealth Grants Commission that its grant to a State be independent of the State's policies.

Fog and Acid Rain Drifting from Luxembourg over Art. 95(4) EC: Case C-3/0 Kingdom of Denmark v. the Commission of the European Communities Danish Food Case

Summary: Art. 95 EC illustrates the Janus-face of the EC Treaty: While being perhaps the most important vehicle for an ever closer market integration, it also recognizes Member States’ right to derogate from Community harmonization in order to protect fundamental needs such as protection of public health and environment. On 20 March this year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) set out to clarify this dichotomy in a case concerning Denmark's right to maintain national provisions derogating from a Community Directive on the use of additives in foodstuffs. Apart from presenting an exhaustive interpretation of the conditions in Art. 95(4) EC, the ECJ also touched upon a variety of fundamental issues such as the right to be heard and the extent of judicial review. At first sight, the judgment seems to afford Member States considerable autonomy to maintain a higher level of protection of major needs, e.g. public health. However, upon closer scrutiny it appears that the ECJ may in fact have limited the scope of Art. 95(4) EC. As the Court also rejected Member States’ right to be heard in derogation procedures and informed in an obiter dictum that it will not review the Commission's assessment of proportionality under Art. 95(6) EC, the judgment mirrors the Janus-face of the provision it attempted to clarify. In sum, it seems that Member States will have serious difficulties in fulfilling the conditions for maintaining a higher level of protection than Community standards. Furthermore, the ECJ has left the Commission with considerable discretion in deciding whether to approve or reject national legislation.

The Economics of 1992: The E.C. Commission's Assessment of the Economic Effects of Completing the Internal Market.

Journal Article The Economics of 1992: The E.C. Commission's Assessment of the Economic Effects of Completing the Internal Market Get access The Economics of 1992: The E.C. Commission's Assessment of the Economic Effects of Completing the Internal Market. By MICHAEL EMERSON et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. xv + 304. £27.50 hardback, £12.95 paperback. ISBN 0 19 8286813, 0 19 877294 7.) David G. Mayes David G. Mayes National Institute of Economic and Social Research Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 99, Issue 398, 1 December 1989, Pages 1208–1210, https://doi.org/10.2307/2234110 Published: 01 December 1989

The Economics of 1992: the E.C. Commission's assessment of the economic effects of completing the internal market

The Economics of 1992: the E.C. Commission's assessment of the economic effects of completing the internal market

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Larger Idea: Lord Lothian And The Problem of National Sovereignly, edited by John Turner European Unity in Context: The Interwar Period, edited by Peter M. R. Stirk The Economics of 1992: The EC Commission's Assessment of the Economic Effects of Completing the Internal Market, by Michael Emerson et al. Making European Policies Work: The Implementation of Community Legislation in the Member States, edited by Heinrich Sicdentopf and Jacques Ziller: Volume I: Comparative Perspectives The Political Economy of Integration in the European Community, by Jeffrey Harrop EEC Competition Law by D. G. Goyder Legal Aspects of Agriculture in the European Community, by J. A. Usher European Political Cooperation in the 1980s: A Common Foreign Policy for Western Europe? edited by Alfred Pijpers, Elfrefde“Regelsberger, Wolfgang Wessels, Geoffrey Edwards Shipping Policies for an Open World Economy, edited by George N. Yannopoulos America in the World Economy: A Strategy for the 1990s, by C. Fred Bergsten Europe without America? by John Palmer Communist Parties in Western Europe: Decline or Adaptation? edited by Michael Waller and Meindert Fennema Star Wars and European Defence — Implications for Europe: Perceptions and Assessments edited by Hans Günter Brauch European Dossiers, published by the European Documentation Centre, Polytechnic of North London.Europenn Access, published by Chadwick‐Healey The Europe 1992 Directory: A Research & Information Guide, edited by Antony Inglis and Catherine Hoskyns. Countdown 1992, published by the EC Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce, 50 Avenue des Arts, 1040 Brussels, Belgium.

Experimental Subjects

ON JULY 29, 1975, Caspar N. Weinberger endorsed the substance of the recommendations on fetal research of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects. In effect, this removed the ban on fetal experiments that had existed since July 1974. Except in one instance (that of aborted dying fetuses), the key restrictive constraint in the Commission's recommendations on nontherapeutic fetal research is minimal or no risk to the fetus. It is clear that the Commission's assessment of fetal dignity is at some point in sharp contrast to that of the Supreme Court's Wade and Bolton decisions. The main objection of those who opposed any nontherapeutic research on the fetus was that such research was being imposed on one incapable of consent and, therefore, that the fetus was being used only as a means and not also as an end in himself. Much the same argument has been used against

Experimental subjects. Who should they be?

ON JULY 29, 1975, Caspar N. Weinberger endorsed the substance of the recommendations on fetal research of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects. In effect, this removed the ban on fetal experiments that had existed since July 1974. Except in one instance (that of aborted dying fetuses), the key restrictive constraint in the Commission's recommendations on nontherapeutic fetal research is "minimal or no risk to the fetus." It is clear that the Commission's assessment of fetal dignity is at some point in sharp contrast to that of the Supreme Court's Wade and Bolton decisions. The main objection of those who opposed any nontherapeutic research on the fetus was that such research was being imposed on one incapable of consent and, therefore, that the fetus was being used only as a means and not also as an end in himself. Much the same argument has been used against