European Union Reforms Research Articles

Problems and Perspectives in Pension System: Case of Baltic States

In all states of European Union reforms in pension system are being made, likewise in Latvia. Demographic and economic problems that are occurred forces pension reforms to be made. New developed pension reform includes different processes, like – formation of financial equilibrium between incomes and costs, limit performance in going early in pension, increasing of age of going in pension, rebalancing between men and women. Simultaneous formation of state and private pension systems could prevent some of the major drawback in system of pension that undermines the pension system of nowadays. Unfortunately the high social security contributions of state sector persons lacks of money, for deposit in private pension funds. Using method of logic synthesis, as the target authors nominated to examine problems of pension systems in the Baltic States, as well as similarities and divergences in problems and perspectives, with the status of private pension funds in accumulating pension system.

Spatial Models, Legislative Gridlock, and Resource Policy Reform

This review evaluates the use of spatial models for the analysis of policy making. First, we examine spatial theory and its applications in a variety of institutional settings. We discuss how the preferences of the actors involved in political processes, the steps in those processes, and the locations of the reversion policies affect the policies that emerge from the processes. To illustrate this and analyze how the rights of political actors determine the extent of policy reform and the occurrence of gridlock, we use a spatial model of European Union (EU) policy making. We apply the model to major EU reforms in two resource policy areas: the Common Agricultural Policy reforms of the past two decades and the recent reforms of the Emissions Trading System.

Structural Banking Reforms in the Age of the BRICS: Transatlantic Cooperation Within a Multilateral Framework

Abstract The Volcker Rule could potentially apply to the global structure of a foreign bank with US branches or any business of foreign banks with US counterparties. In light of the rise of emerging markets such as China and India as key players in the global economy (and the growth in general of the BRICS countries), concerns of an adverse extraterritorial impact of the Volcker Rule are relevant. This article emphasizes that, even when there is no global standard – as in current structural reforms – mutual recognition based on equivalence (as adopted in the European Union reforms) would be a slow, complex process toward harmonization, but it might work. The purpose of this article is to explore the prospects of harmonization and the development of global standards via extraterritoriality in structural banking measures, providing a view on the role of national regulations as a potential source of international financial law.

Key success factors for implementing purchasing groups in the healthcare sector

ABSTRACTA number of European Union reforms have been established in the healthcare sector with the aim of improving budgetary control. Logistics costs, in particular those relating to purchases, represent a significant share of hospital expenditure. In such situations, purchasing groups can bring health services considerable savings while maintaining service quality. Nevertheless, studies show that communication and cooperation issues can hinder the implementation and performance of purchasing groups, especially in the healthcare sector characterised by a complex supply chain. In addition, little research has been done to explore purchasing groups, despite their current development, both in the private and public sectors. This twofold empirical and theoretical observation is the motivation for this case study, which aims to identify and develop our understanding of the key success factors for implementing a purchasing group in the healthcare sector.

Does Merger Policy Converge after the 2004 European Union Reforms

With almost ten years of experience with the reformed European merger policy, sufficient data has been accumulated to explore the impact of the reform on the difference between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) merger policy. We expect the EU 2004 reform that established a “significant impediment to effective competition” standard close to the US “substantial lessening of competition” standard would lead to some convergence. We start by identifying changes in the EU regime and verifying the consistency in the US regime. We detect a weaker EU policy for clear dominance and monopoly cases and some changes in its collusion policy after the reform. The incidence of collusion cases falls while EU’s policy, conditional on collusion being the theory of harm, appears stronger. Limited data precludes detailed analysis for the non-dominance unilateral concerns, although the EU data implies stability in the challenge probability associated with that type of case. The US results remain stable over time. Decompositions show some convergence in policy for unilateral cases and non-parametric analysis shows further convergence occurs in unilateral effects analysis. Matching analysis is attempted, but fails to generate any results, because even adjusted, the two sample distributions are not sufficiently balanced, so we must rely on the structural form assumptions of our logit models.

PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES IN PENSION SYSTEM: CASE OF BALTIC STATES

In all states of European Union reforms in pension system are being made, likewise in Latvia. Demographic and economic problemsthat are occurred forces pension reforms to be made. New developed pension reform includes different processes, like – formation offinancial equilibrium between incomes and costs, limit performance in going early in pension, increasing of age of going in pension,rebalancing between men and women. Simultaneous formation of state and private pension systems could prevent some of the majordrawback in system of pension that undermines the pension system of nowadays. Unfortunately the high social security contributionsof state sector persons lacks of money, for deposit in private pension funds. Using method of logic synthesis, as the target authorsnominated to examine problems of pension systems in the Baltic States, as well as similarities and divergences in problems andperspectives, with the status of private pension funds in accumulating pension system.KEY WORDS: labour market, pension system, pension funds, the Baltic States.

The Politics of Austerity and Public Policy Reform in the EU

The European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture that will either trigger further integration or reinforce a mode of intergovernmental cooperation. The spread of market pressure to a growing number of states demonstrates that the crisis needs to be dealt with at the European and not just the national level. Up to now the ‘politics of extreme austerity’ has been the mainstream recipe promoted to and adopted by member states. The measures are tougher in those countries where there has been external financial assistance (i.e. Greece, Portugal and Ireland) but the rest of Europe is following suit (e.g. Italy and the UK). This introduction outlines the key directions of EU reforms to put into context the more specific cases discussed elsewhere in this symposium. The strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical frameworks employed in the articles are discussed to demonstrate the lessons that the crisis offers for our well-established public policy models and to highlight avenues for further research. Two main arguments are advanced: first, the crisis calls for an interdisciplinary approach to comprehend its full extent and deal with it efficiently; and second, the current political trajectory of the EU calls for urgent changes to strengthen its cohesion and long-term viability.

DOES EU-INTEGRATION CHANGE AGGLOMERATION PROCESS? THE IMPACT OF EU MEMBERSHIP PROCESS ON THE CITY-SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF TURKEY

This paper aims to reveal the eventual impacts of European Union (EU) membership process and other conventional factors on the city-size distribution of a candidate country (Turkey). I can state main results as follows: Analyzing from different estimation methods the direct effect of the EU reforms on agglomerating forces rather than congesting forces are revealed to be dominant for Turkey. However, the main impact of the EU membership process has positive but modest coefficient that indicate the weak willingness of the country for EU reforms.Keywords: Economic itegration, agglomeration, city-size distribution, EU, Turkey.JEL Classification: F15, F22, R12, R23

The Doha Round and Preference Erosion: A Symposium

The trade and welfare impacts of multilateral liberalization on individual countries and groups within countries depend on many factors—including the depth of liberalization by trading partners, the extent of countries’ own reforms, the responsiveness of investors to changes in relative prices and market opportunities, and actions by governments to reduce real trade costs. One consequence of multilateral liberalization is that it reduces the value of preferential access to markets that one or more countries have granted to other countries. Such preference erosion has become more of a policy concern for the least developed countries following initiatives by many Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members to provide duty-free, quota-free access to their markets on a nonreciprocal basis. But erosion will also affect other developing countries that have received preferences, as well as economies that have signed reciprocal trade agreements. The magnitude of erosion will depend on a variety of factors, including the product and country coverage of preferential schemes, the level of most favored nation restrictions in the markets granting preferential access, the administrative costs associated with using preference programs, the incidence of any preference rents, the depth of liberalization realized in Doha, and the existence of and changes in reciprocal trade agreements. Recent studies of European Union (EU) and U.S. preference arrangements have concluded that the value of preferences—measured by the product of the volume of dutiable exports and the preference margin—is significant for a relatively small number of countries. Thus, U.S. preferences are equal to 5 percent or more of dutiable exports for some 27 countries (Dean and Wainio 2006), while EU preferences exceed 6 percent of dutiable exports for 16 countries (excluding preferential trade area partners; Candau and Jean 2006). These studies conclude that apparel and some agricultural products—especially sugar and bananas in the EU—account for the largest share of the value of preferences. While for some countries, trade coverage is large relative to total dutiable exports to the markets concerned, the aggregate value of the preferences—and thus potential losses—is relatively small and will diminish when the EU reforms in sugar and bananas are implemented.1

State Subsidies, International Diffusion, and Transnational Civil Society: The Case of Frankfurt-Oder and Słubice

This article details the manner in which the German state and the European Union (EU) have affected incentives at the state and local levels in their attempts to encourage transnational civil society in both Frankfurt-Oder and SÂubice. While elites on both sides of the Oder have initiated some civil society organization, incentives stemming from the German state and the EU have served as the more important influence on the density and configuration of associations in these two cities. In this article, the author argues that despite deleterious legacies stemming from the Leninist period, the availability of material resources coupled with the commitment of local elites accounts for the existence of the tenuous yet influential civil society sphere examined in the case study. This article further contends that EU efforts throughout the 1990s to foster the structures of civil society have met with successes that will prove consequential to the long-run institutionalization of EU reforms.

European political integration and the challenge of EU enlargement

Summary The interview reveals the European Commission's policy strategy towards the forthcoming Eastern European enlargement, particularly as regards internal as well as external security aspects. Consequently, Mr. David Williamson (former Secretary General of the European Commission from 1987 until 1997) presents his experiences in conjunction with the European Union reforms in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the co‐operation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs. Whereas Mr. Williamson remains optimistic that the Union will be capable of taking on the challenges ahead, he maintains that more work needs to be done in the field of institutional reform.