Discourse and Order in the EU. A Deliberative Approach to European Governance

governance; integration theory; joint decision making; multilevel governance; participation; political representation; supranationalism

The “New World Order”: From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, no. 04.1, 2004

On January 26, 2004, the topic of the CES-Berlin Dialogues was “The ‘New World Order’: From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism.” It was the second in a series of four meetings organized in Berlin under the heading “Redefining Justice.” The session was intended to examine successful and failed arenas of cooperation between the US and Europe; political misunderstandings and conscious manipulation; and models for future transatlantic relations. The presenters were Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History, University of Maryland, and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Neyer, Professor of International Political Economy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, and Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin. Jeffrey Herf was asked to speak on the basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy in the administration of President George W. Bush, and Jürgen Neyer focused on the European view of international relations and conduct in the period since the invasion of Iraq

Family policies and fertility in Europe: fertility policies at the intersection of gender policies, employment policies and care policies

This article explores the relationship between family policies, fertility, employment and care. It suggests that similar family policies are likely to exert different effects in different contexts. It argues that a proper assessment of effects of family policies needs to take the combined spectrum of gender relations, welfare-state structures, and labor-market development into account.Europe, family policies, fertility

Banks' Behaviour in the European Money Market and the Operational Framework of the Eurosystem

The Eurosystem has stated its intention to reformulate important aspects of its operational framework. This paper presents a model to analyze banks' behaviour in the European money market. Its main result is that the suggested alterations are sensible, but that further improvements should be undertaken. Under the current framework under- and overbidding behaviour in the main refinancing operations and wildly differing provisions of required reserves can occur. This can be avoided if first, the maturities of the main refinancing operations do not overlap, and second, if the required reserves are not remunerated at an average rate.

Why do we have an interbank money market?

The interbank money market plays a key role in the execution of monetary policy. Hence, it is important to know the functioning of this market and the determinants of the interbank money market rate. In this paper, we develop an interbank money market model with a heterogeneous banking sector. We show that besides for balancing daily liquidity fluctuations banks participate in the interbank market because they have different marginal costs of obtaining funds from the central bank. In the euro area, which we refer to, these cost differences occur because banks have different marginal cost of collateral which they need to hold to obtain funds from the central bank. Banks with relatively low marginal costs act as intermediaries between the central bank and banks with relatively high marginal costs. The necessary positive spread between the interbank market rate and the central bank rate is determined by transaction costs and credit risk in the interbank market, total liquidity needs of the banking sector, costs of obtaining funds from the central bank, and the distribution of the latter across banks.interbank money market, European Central Bank, monetary policy instruments

Interest on reserves and the flexibility of monetary policy in the euro area

This paper shows that remunerating required reserves can increase the flexibility of monetary policy. The remuneration at the current repo rate implies constant net marginal interest costs of holding required reserves. This allows the central bank also to change the rate also within a reserve maintenance period without inducing a problematic reserve shifting on behalf of the banks. In the euro area, required reserves are remunerated at an average rate. Therefore, the way in which reserves are remunerated has to be changed in order to make use of the advantage of a higher flexibility of monetary policy

Education and permanent childlessness: Austria vs. Sweden; a research note

In this research note we extend our previous study of the association between educational attainment and permanent childlessness in Sweden (Hoem et al., 2006) to cover Austria, and we make comparisons between the two countries. In both investigations we have defined educational attainment in terms of both educational level and educational field. We find largely the same pattern of childlessness by educational field in both countries; in particular at each educational level women educated for teaching jobs or for health occupations typically have lower childlessness than other lines of education. However, for most groups childlessness is higher in Austria, and for academic educations it is much higher. We attribute these differences to institutional differences in the two countries which may bring about a different culture of reproductive behavior.Austria, education, fertility

Europa als Res Publica: Wider die Dominanz der Exekutiven in der Europäischen Union

Das Votum der Iren gegen den Vertrag von Lissabon wirft viele Fragen auf. Was sind die Motive der „Nein-Sager“? Haben die Iren stellvertretend für eine schweigende Mehrheit in der EU gehandelt? Sind es die Inhalte des Vertrages, die Unbehagen erzeugen oder ist es die fehlende Beteiligung der Bürger in den Mitgliedstaaten? Hat die Europäische Union ein gravierendes Demokratieproblem? Welche Handlungsoptionen gibt es für die Regierenden und welche sollten gewählt werden

Gender and generations dimensions in welfare-state policies

This note outlines welfare-state research that could possibly provide a framework for the collection of demographically relevant gender- and generation-sensitive welfare-state data for the GGS contextual database. It has been prepared for the Gender-and-Generations Program and is the basis of further work of the Contextual Working Group of the Gender-and-Generations Program. First, this note summarizes results of demographic research that deals with the effects of public policies on demographic behavior. This is followed by a brief outline of what kind of data we need for (comparative) research of policy effects on demographic issues. Secondly, it gives a brief account of those conceptualizations of the welfare state that seem relevant for the purpose of our project. Thirdly, it presents a provisional and by no means complete list of some welfare-state-related measures that can be collected for a contextual database. This list serves as an example of what we need and how we should collect data in order to be able to incorporate features of welfare states and public policies in demographic analyses.