Recovery Fund Research Articles

Budgeting and Advocacy to Improve Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Health Care Facilities: A Case Study in Nepal.

Barriers to achieving and sustaining access to water, sanitation, hygiene, cleaning, and waste management (WASH) in health care facilities include a lack of supportive policy environment and adequate funding. While guidelines exist for assessing needs and making initial infrastructure improvements, there is little guidance on how to develop budgets and policies to sustain WASH services. We conducted costing and advocacy activities in Thakurbaba municipality, Nepal, to develop a budget and operations and maintenance policy for WASH in health care facilities in partnership with the municipal government. Our objectives for this study were to (1) describe the process and methods used for costing and advocacy, (2) report the costs to achieve and maintain basic WASH services in the 8 health care facilities of Thakurbaba municipality, and (3) report the outcomes of advocacy activities and policy development. We applied bottom-up costing to enumerate the resources necessary to achieve and maintain basic WASH services and their costs. The annual costs to achieve, operate, and maintain basic access to WASH services ranged from US$4881-US$9695 per facility. Cost findings were used to prepare annual budgets recommended to achieve, operate, and maintain basic services, which were presented to the municipal government and incorporated into an operations and maintenance policy. To date, the municipality has adopted the policy and established a recovery fund of US$3831 for repair and maintenance of infrastructure and an additional US$153 per facility for discretionary WASH spending, which were to be replenished as they were spent. Advocacy at the national level for WASH in health care facilities is currently being championed by the municipality, and findings from this project have informed the development of a nationally costed plan for universal access. This study is intended to provide a roadmap for how cost data can be collected and applied to inform policy.

EU Debt Instruments and Fiscal Transparency: The Case of the EU Recovery Fund

Abstract We study the transparency of debts incurred for the EU Recovery Fund. In our opinion, the Recovery Fund lacks transparency at various levels. We find that the Fund implements a hidden transfer scheme that splits member states into net contributors and net recipients. As a result, the national budgets of the EU member states will have to face uncertain future obligations. Finally, we hold that the Fund weakens the European fiscal rules because the debts of the Recovery Fund do not add to the national debt levels. The national debt levels therefore do not show the whole burden.

A digital and interoperable support for the risk assessment of existing bridges

The topic of environmental, economic, and social sustainability is increasingly recurring in the development strategies of governments and international organizations. The Recovery Fund, part of the Next Generation EU, follows this direction, establishing itself as a new European tool for recovery. With specific reference to the sustainability of infrastructure, Italy has recently presented the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which identifies the structural thematic areas of intervention through 6 missions. In particular, Mission 3, "Infrastructures for sustainable mobility," allocated approximately 32 billion euros, aims to introduce remote digital monitoring systems for the safety of road arteries and urgent works for the safety improvement of deteriorated roads, bridges, and viaducts. This mission is consistent with the Guidelines for the assignment of attention class and risk management, safety assessment, and monitoring of existing bridges, approved by the Superior Council of Public Works on May 6, 2020, and incorporated into Ministerial Decree no. 578 of December 17, 2020. The adoption of these guidelines by managers is also important in case of incidents to avoid potential legal issues. To ensure the development of this strategic approach and achieve the desired results within the established timeframe, it is necessary to equip oneself with suitable digital methods and tools, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and BIM-oriented software. Harpaceas, through a scientific research project with the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering at the University of Pisa, has aimed to utilize standard software, included in the new solution "PontiSicuri" (Safe Bridges), in order to enable the digital management of the assignment of risk attention class and safety assessment of existing bridges in Italy in accordance with the new Guidelines. The Authors will describe this innovative approach in the present paper.

The Coexistence of Fiscal Sovereignties: The Post‐Pandemic European Union in Comparative Perspective

Thanks to the recovery fund Next Generation EU, the EU considerably increased the size of its fiscal capacity by increasing its borrowing power. Yet, the post-pandemic EU has left the key issue of how to distribute fiscal sovereignty across the EU and the member states unsolved. Departing from influential concepts in the political science literature, this article argues that we still lack a thorough analytical framework to operationalise the coexistence of two fiscal sovereignties—the fiscal sovereignty of the centre (here, the EU) and the fiscal sovereignty of the units (here, the member states). By resorting to comparative federalism, the article first operationalises fiscal sovereignty as the power to collect, administer, and spend resources. A level of government (the centre or the units) is fiscally sovereign if it can decide on its revenues, the administration of its resources, and its expenditures alone or together with the other level of government (what I call “fiscal self- or co-determination”). The coexistence of fiscal sovereignties becomes impossible if one level systematically and unilaterally encroaches upon the other (“fiscal out-determination”), as is still the case with the post-pandemic EU. On the contrary, in a union of states by aggregation like the EU—namely, Switzerland—the centre (Confederation) has its own fiscal powers, while the units (cantons) retain most of their fiscal sovereignty: The coexistence of fiscal sovereignties is thus possible. The article concludes by outlining which “fiscal features” of the Swiss system could not work in the EU and which could instead potentially work.

Mediations of cultural policymaking during COVID-19: British newspaper reporting of the Culture Recovery Fund

ABSTRACT At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, cultural policymaking frequently came to the fore in media debates about the impact of the crisis and measures to alleviate it. In this article, we present evidence of how newspaper coverage of the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) identified and framed competing perceptions of the relative utility of policymaking in this context, while also problematising familiar assumptions about the CCIs among policymakers, journalists and (arguably) the public. Specifically, we analysed British news and editorial items (n.4,162) published from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. It offers a novel investigation into the ways in which media and policy rhetoric overlap, interact and influence each other. In doing so, this article contributes a unique perspective to the study and practice of cultural policy, bringing to light the typically underexplored role of the news media in shaping the narratives driving cultural policy deliberation and action.

Beware what lies beneath: Pragmatic policies for reconciling debt and growth

The EU has a plethora of investment needs. However, the scale of the required investments will not be reached if the EU’s financial stability is called into question. This article calls for a set of pragmatic policies which can generate significant economic growth and raise living standards. This growth will be a key ingredient in increasing employment, improving competitiveness and strengthening budgetary sustainability. The associated fiscal space will also contribute significantly to narrowing the investment gap in the next decade and beyond. The article sets out three pillars—stability and governance, growth and fairness, and budgetary accountability—as the key drivers in building a pragmatic economic programme which bridges the gap between fiscal conservatism and future expenditure. It further identifies the need to refocus on the single market as a key economic driver. It also calls for any discussion on further joint EU borrowing programmes to be postponed until funding sources for the existing Recovery Fund are agreed and its overall economic effectiveness can be analysed.

Evaluación del plan de armonización fiscal en la Unión Europea

Study of Political Economy, Public Finance and European Economic Integration on the tax harmonizationplan of the European Union. It is based on the theoretical and methodological frameworks of the EconomicAnalysis of Law, in order to analyze the European tax harmonization process. In addition to analyzing ques-tions of incentives, efficiency and institutional quality, special attention is paid to the problems of attributionof powers in the European system and the different existing levels of tax pressure and effort in the MemberStates. This study will also analyze the European Commission’s latest proposal on taxation, which aims toachieve tax uniformity, combat tax abuse and put an end to unfair competition practices within the Europeaneconomic-legislative framework. These initiatives are particularly important in the current socio-economiccontext, when new ways of financing the post-Covid recovery fund, curbing the inflation that has beenlatent in recent months and dealing with the negative externalities that the conflict between Russia andUkraine may produce are being studied. All this is completed with a proposal for the feasibility of fiscalfederalism.

Influence of Forensic Accounting Services on Fraud Reduction in Nigerian Public Sector Organization

This study on forensic accounting services and fraud prevention in the Nigerian public sector was empirically investigated. The study is vital as it portrays the extent to which the application of forensic accounting services reduces the incidence of fraud in the government sector of Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated to guide the investigation and the statistical test of parameter estimates was conducted using Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance. The study anchored on the White Collar Crime Theory adopted a Survey Design Approach. Hence, data were collected using questionnaire survey administered to the relevant accounting sections of federal government ministries, departments, agencies and parastatals in Awka metropolis. The empirical analysis of the study indicates that the application of forensic accounting service has reduced the incidence of frauds and has also led to fraud prevention at 1% significant level. Thus, the study concludes that the application of forensic accounting services prevents fraud in the in Nigerian public sector organizations. In lieu of this, the study recommended that government should establish a Public Recovery Fund (PRF), where funds collected through forensic accounting should be held and properly used to improve the performance of Nigerian public sector. Also, forensic accounting services are recommended in the Nigerian public sector as it brings fraud and other fraudulent practices to its lowest level.

The Berlin puzzle: Why European solidarity prevailed in the adoption of the Corona recovery fund

AbstractIn light of the German government's long‐held preference against EU‐wide fiscal burden‐sharing, a hallmark of the Euro crisis, its support for an EU‐wide debt‐instrument during the COVID‐19 pandemic constitutes a dramatic policy U‐turn. To make sense of the ‘Berlin puzzle’, we develop a theoretical mechanism that explores why an initially reluctant German government heeded to the call for transnational fiscal solidarity: First, to avoid a ‘common bad’ of a large‐scale economic contraction, proposals for an EU‐wide fiscal response became a political imperative. Second, the successful framing of the crisis as ‘nobody's fault’ rendered the call for European solidarity as the dominant standard of legitimacy to which all governments subscribed. Third, governments whose preferences were not aligned with this standard faced mounting normative pressure and isolation. As a result, governments changed their positions, but not their preferences. We probe this mechanism by carrying out a process‐tracing analysis of the German government's fiscal policy U‐turn in the crucial months preceding the adoption of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery plan in July 2020. The paper contributes to the growing literature on fiscal burden‐sharing in the EU by demonstrating when and how member states can change their stance on transnational fiscal burden‐sharing.

The EU’s 2020 summit on the COVID recovery fund: leading the divided house to a consensus

Research methodology The writing of this case study was triggered by the numerous media reports in 2020 that talked about the EU nations losing its solidarity. EU being a very appropriate example of economic, monetary and customs union while teaching theories of economic integration and international relations, the post-pandemic approach of EU leadership to rebuild the crisis-ridden member nations seemed an excellent material for developing a teaching case study. The case study was written based on secondary data and published information available. Enough desk research was undertaken to build the characterisation of the protagonists and due diligence done to chronologically report all facts of the case as the story developed. It was decided to build the epilogue into the case study so that the case analysis had enough depth. Case overview/synopsis The case is set in 2020 when the global economy was reeling under the massive impact of a lockdown and the aftermath. The case study examines the model of economic union in international business and the various challenges that governance of an association of nations such as the 27 member EU can throw up. It examines the conflict of interest that can arise among member nations during critical circumstances such as the pandemic and its massive tolls. EU had established itself as a critical international trade player and had already proven their might as a united entity to the world trade partners, given the fact that they were not only a customs union but also a monetary union. In this scenario when the pandemic threw them into the whirlwind of lockdown-induced crisis, the united front of the mighty EU all but crumbled. As the worst-hit economies of Italy and Spain struggled to pull themselves back to normalcy, EU experienced one of its worst solidarity crises. EU’s president Angela Merkel and ally French President Emmanuel Macron with support from the EU Council’s President Charles Michel stepped forward to resurrect the badly hit economies. They viewed this as the best opportunity to bring about a united front by coming together at Brussels for a summit when lockdown eased up in July 2020. It was to be a show of unity to jointly bail out the severely affected member nations by grants rather than loans. The summit, however, snowballed into bitter arguments and open bickering between the wealthy and not-so-wealthy members, and they could not agree upon the issue of debt vs aid. The fact that the EU was an agglomeration of 27 nations, which were far from homogenous in socioeconomic status, not to speak of divided political ideologies, only added dimensions to the dispute. Negotiations repeatedly hit roadblocks. Can the EU leaders lead their bitterly divided house to a consensus? Complexity academic level The case is suitable for graduate and post-graduate levels. Management courses where international business studies, international trade blocs and global leadership are part of curriculum can use the case to teach concepts of “Regional economic integration”, “Economic and Political union” and theories of “International relations” and “Negotiation”. It can also be ideally used in an executive management programme on “Global Leadership” to highlight the complexities of “governance of international associations” and “consensus building amidst diversity”.

Deal! Market reactions to the agreement on the EU Covid-19 recovery fund

In response to the Covid-19 crisis, EU leaders agreed on the creation of a €750bn recovery fund (the Next Generation EU, NGEU). We investigate the short-term impact of this landmark deal on bank stocks, sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) and bank CDS. First, we find that stock market investors firmly welcomed the agreement as we find sizeable positive abnormal returns in bank stocks as a response to the NGEU proposal by the European Commission. Spreads on sovereign and bank CDS significantly declined, with more pronounced movements for heavily indebted countries and those that strongly advocated the creation of the recovery fund and for the banks located in these economies. Second, we show that banks’ sovereign exposures towards other European countries, especially those with weaker financial conditions and limited fiscal capacity, play a key role in driving the strength of the stock market reaction. Overall, financial markets responded positively to the credibility of the NGEU policy as an extraordinary common effort to support the post-Covid-19 recovery and enhance economic growth in the region.

Market reactions to Recovery Fund press releases during COVID-19: An event-study analysis

The Covid-19 pandemic imposes extraordinary policy interventions, like Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). This study find that: (i) investors perceive the RRF plan as a credible tool; (ii) several drivers related to trust, and sentiment explain the stock returns heterogeneity.

In this together? Support for European fiscal integration in the COVID-19 crisis

ABSTRACT European fiscal integration is highly controversial and is assumed to lead to a Eurosceptic backlash among the public. Yet, in a historical decision in July 2020, European governments agreed on the ambitious recovery package ‘Next Generation EU’, establishing an unprecedented fiscal stabilisation capacity to address the economic and healthcare challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We study the mass politics of European fiscal integration in a survey experiment on public support for a European Pandemic Recovery Fund (PRF) in five European countries in 2020. We find remarkably high support for a joint European fiscal instrument, which, however, is sensitive to policy design. While cross-country differences reflect collective self-interest, citizens’ left-right orientations, their EU positions, and perceived economic risk from COVID-19 structure differences within countries.

Blepharoclonus as a Potential Novel Clinical Marker in Parkinson’s Disease (P3-11.009)

Blepharoclonus as a Potential Novel Clinical Marker in Parkinson’s Disease (P3-11.009)

Amandemen Konstruksi Hukum Dana Pemulihan Ekonomi Nasional ( PEN ) Untuk Mencegah Adanya Indikasi Korupsi

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has been going on for several years, has created pressure and effects in all sectors, both globally and domestically. The impact of the Covid 19 Pandemic has paralyzed the joints of the nation's economy. The death of the livelihoods of some people caused many people to lose their livelihoods. In order to support state financial policies and to save the national economy, the Government runs the PEN Program. The PEN program aims to protect, maintain and improve the economic capacity of business actors from the real sector and the financial sector in running their business. Article 11 paragraph (7) Perpu Number 1 of 2020 mandates that the implementation of the PEN Program be further regulated by Government Regulation. The type of research used is sociological research or sociological legal research or field research, because it is done by looking at the real conditions and facts that occur around the community. How the Legal Construction of the National Economic Recovery Fund Can Be Useful in Encouraging the Growth of Industrial Enterprises and Infrastructure Development. there needs to be serious action from the central government in dealing with this problem of PEN funds, because if it is allowed to continue to drag on, it will cause the funds which incidentally are for economic recovery to be increasingly misused, both at the central and at the regional level. Furthermore, there needs to be an amendment to the legal construction to cover up the gaps in indications of corruption that will become increasingly widespread. Problems that arise and become obstacles to the National Economic Recovery Fund Can Be Useful in Encouraging the Growth of Industrial Businesses and Infrastructure Development in the implementation of the PEN fund has several problems that the central government should respond quickly to considering the large budget disbursed for this PEN Fund program. According to the results of the examination by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), there were 6 findings of problems in the application of PEN funds, which hindered the use of PEN funds to encourage the growth of industrial businesses and infrastructure development after the Covid 19 pandemic.

Change to Stay the Same? German European Preference Formation During the COVID-19 Crisis

ABSTRACT In 2020, the German government supported the COVID-19 recovery fund ‘Next Generation EU’, which according to many observers is breaking with the taboo of joint EU debt liability. In this article, we analyse whether this decision marks a programmatic shift towards fiscal integration, taken in isolation by the Chancellor, or whether it can be reconciled with higher-level principles that guided the Chancellor’s previous European policies? Our analysis builds on a synthetic framework combining a multi-level principal-agent account with ideational components. The empirical analysis of Bundestag debates and original public opinion data reveal that the support for ‘Next Generation EU’ neither breaks with the Chancellor’s established ‘conservational-pragmatic’ approach to EU policy-making, nor separates the Chancellor from the preferences of the Bundestag and the public. Content analyses show how the government and its supporting camp in the Bundestag justified the apparent policy shift, underlining a strong agreement towards strengthening the EU in times of an unseen crisis, while at the same time revealing some noteworthy partisan differences.

The European Union’s post-pandemic strategies for public health, economic recovery, and social resilience

The European Union has implemented various strategies and policies to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus-19 pandemic and promote recovery. This article reviews the European Union’s response and management decisions, examines the public health measures implemented to contain the virus, and explores the Union’s economic recovery and support initiatives. These include the “NextGenerationEU” recovery fund, the “European Support” instrument to mitigate “Unemployment Risks in an Emergency” (SURE) program, and the Multiannual Financial Framework recognizing the EU’s efforts to promote social welfare and inclusion during the pandemic. The challenges and lessons learned from the EU’s experience are analyzed, highlighting the importance of solidarity, cooperation, and resilience in crisis management. Drawing from the pandemic, this study explores the prospects and conclusions drawn from the pandemic, the need for building more resilient healthcare systems, fostering environmentally sustainable initiatives, strengthening social protection and inclusion, enhancing crisis preparedness and response, and promoting global health and equity.

The impact of the recovery fund on EU regions: a spatial general equilibrium analysis

ABSTRACT We use a spatial general equilibrium model to assess the macroeconomic and distributional impact of the European Commission’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). We employ two alternative regional distributions of investments: one based on the regional share of population only, and the other based on Cohesion Policy criteria. Our results suggest that the disbursement of RRF grants would lead to an increase in the European Union’s gross domestic product (GDP) of approximately 0.85% in 2026, corresponding to a present value GDP multiplier of 1.22. The latter rises to 3.25 in the long run. Under the population criterion, GDP impacts are higher relative to the Cohesion criterion, at the detriment of territorial cohesion.

Italy’s national recovery and resilience plan: context, content and challenges

ABSTRACT The key policy instrument established by the European Union (E.U.) to address the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is the “Next Generation E.U.” (N.G.E.U.) Recovery Fund –– a ground-breaking initiative which has been compared to the post-WWII Marshall Plan. N.G.E.U. provides grants and loans to E.U. member states to rebuild their economies and enhance their resilience beyond the health crisis. With €191.5 billion of grants and loans, Italy is the prime beneficiary of N.G.E.U. money, absorbing by itself almost one third of the entire Recovery Fund’s financial envelope. In order to program how to use this sizable amount of resources the Italian Government led by Mario Draghi has adopted in spring 2021, as required by E.U. legislation, a National Recovery & Resilience Plan (N.R.R.P.). The purpose of this article is to outline the context, content and challenges of Italy’s N.R.R.P. To this end, the article surveys the formation of the Draghi Government in February 2021, explores the main features of the N.R.R.P., and discusses challenges that Italy faces in implementing the N.R.R.P. In particular, the article reviews the resignation of the Draghi Government in July 2022, and reflects on what this will entail for the future of the N.R.R.P., given incoming parliamentary elections. By providing the first English-language academic analysis of Italy’s N.R.R.P., the article fills a gap in the literature. At the same time, by undertaking a case study of the most relevant N.R.R.P. among all E.U.27 member states, the article provides insight to assess the success of N.G.E.U.

Next Generation Eu: Legal Structure and Constitutional Consequences

AbstractThe article examines the legal structure and constitutional consequences of ‘Next Generation EU’ (NGEU)—the innovative recovery fund that the European Union (EU) established to address the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article sheds light on the complex normative constellation that was used to erect NGEU, and explains how this was satisfactorily done within the existing Treaty framework, by resorting to current legal bases. At the same time, however, the article underlines the profound constitutional consequences that NGEU has on the EU's architecture of economic governance. To this end, the article contrasts the strategy chosen to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic to that embraced to tackle the euro-crisis a decade ago, and concludes emphasising how NGEU significantly contributes to the federalisation of the EU, endowing its fiscal union with a fiscal capacity analogous to that of other federal regimes.