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The global financial crisis has lead to a renewed interest in discretionary fiscal stimulus. Advocates of discretionary measures emphasize that government spending can stimulate additional private spending — the so-called Keynesian multiplier effect. Thus, we investigate whether the discretionary spending announced by Euro area governments for 2009 and 2010 is likely to boost euro area GDP by more than one for one. Because of modeling uncertainty, it is essential that such policy evaluations be robust to alternative modeling assumptions and different parameterizations. Therefore, we use five different empirical macroeconomic models with Keynesian features such as price and wage rigidities to evaluate the impact of fiscal stimulus. Four of them suggest that the planned increase in government spending will reduce private spending for consumption and investment purposes significantly. If announced government expenditures are implemented with delay the initial effect on euro area GDP, when stimulus is most needed, may even be negative. Traditional Keynesian multiplier effects only arise in a model that ignores the forward-looking behavioral response of consumers and firms. Using a multi-country model, we find that spillovers between euro area countries are negligible or even negative, because direct demand effects are offset by the indirect effect of euro appreciation.
The question whether the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will result in measurable economic benefits is of special policy relevance in particular given the European Union’s decision to require the application of IFRS by listed companies from 2005/2007. In this paper, I investigate the common con-jecture that internationally recognized high quality reporting standards (IAS/IFRS or US-GAAP) reduce the cost of capital of adopting firms (e.g. Levitt 1998; IASB 2002). Building on Leuz/Verrecchia (2000), I use a set of German firms which pre-adopted such standards before 2005, but investigate the potential economic benefits by analyzing their expected cost of equity capital utilizing and customizing avail-able implied estimation methods (e.g. Gebhardt/Lee/Swaminathan 2001, Easton/Taylor/Shroff/Sougiannis 2002, Easton 2004). Evidence from a sample of about 13,000 HGB, 4,500 IAS/IFRS and 3,000 US-GAAP firm-month observations in the period 1993-2002 generally fails to document lower expected cost of equity capital and therefore measurable economic benefits for firms applying IAS/IFRS or US-GAAP. Accordingly, I caution to state that reporting under internationally accepted standards, per se, lowers the cost of equity capital of adopting firms.
This paper uses the co-incidence of extreme shocks to banks’ risk to examine within country and across country contagion among large EU banks. Banks’ risk is measured by the first difference of weekly distances to default and abnormal returns. Using Monte Carlo simulations, the paper examines whether the observed frequency of large shocks experienced by two or more banks simultaneously is consistent with the assumption of a multivariate normal or a student t distribution. Further, the paper proposes a simple metric, which is used to identify contagion from one bank to another and identify “systemically important” banks in the EU.
The paper analyses the relationship between deposit insurance, debt-holder monitoring, bank charter values, and risk taking for European banks. Utilising cross-sectional and time series variation in the existence of deposit insurance schemes in the EU, we find that the establishment of explicit deposit insurance significantly reduces the risk taking of banks. This finding stands in contrast to most of the previous empirical literature. It supports the hypothesis that in the absence of deposit insurance, European banking systems have been characterised by strong implicit insurance operating through the expectation of public intervention at times of distress. Hence the introduction of an explicit system may imply a de facto reduction in the scope of the safety net. This finding provides a new perspective on the effects of deposit insurance on risk taking. Unless the absence of any safety net is credible, the introduction of deposit insurance serves to explicitly limit the safety net and, hence, moral hazard. We also test further hypotheses regarding the interaction between deposit insurance and monitoring, charter values and "too-big-to-fail." We find that banks with lower charter values and more subordinated debt reduce risk taking more after the introduction of explicit deposit insurance, in support of the notion that charter values and subordinated debt may mitigate moral hazard. Finally, large banks (as measured in relation to the banking system as a whole) do not change their risk taking in response to the introduction of deposit insurance, which suggests that the introduction of explicit deposit insurance does not mitigate "too-big-to-fail" problems.
All-over in Europe, unemployment became a growing problem from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, the effects on the economical situation of the unemployed and the whole population are quite different in European countries. In this paper we first give a brief overview over the development of unemployment rates in eight member states of the European Union and over the different reactions to provide the social protection of the unemployed. Therefore we look at the social security expenditures, the level of income replacement for the unemployed and recent social policy reforms concerning them. In the second section of the paper, we examine the development of income distribution and poverty taking different poverty lines into consideration. There is no general pattern neither for the relationship of inequality among the unemployed to the whole economically active population nor for the development from the 80s to the 90s. But one can say that in countries with increasing income inequality also poverty is rising (especially in the UK) and that where inequality among the unemployed is less pronounced the proportions of the poor went down from the mid 80s to the mid 90s (France and Ireland). In nearly all countries the risk of being poor is ernormously high for the unemployed, Denmark is the only exception.
EU financial integration : is there a 'Core Europe'? ; evidence from a cluster-based approach
(2005)
Numerous recent studies, e.g. EU Commission (2004a), Baele et al. (2004), Adam et al.(2002), and the research pooled in ECB-CFS (2005), Gaspar, Hartmann, and Sleijpen(2003), have documented progress in EU financial integration from a micro-level view.This paper contributes to this research by identifying groups of financially integratedcountries from a holistic, macro-level view. It calculates cross-sectional dispersions, andinnovates by applying an inter-temporal cluster analysis to eight euro area countries for the period 1995-2002. The indicators employed represent the money, government bond and credit markets. Our results show that euro countries were divided into two stable groups of financially more closely integrated countries in the pre-EMU period. Back then, geographic proximity and country size might have played a role. This situation has changed remarkably with the euro's introduction. EMU has led to a shake-up both in the number and composition of groups. The evidence puts a question mark behin d using Germany as a benchmark in the post-EMU period. The ¯ndings suggest as well that ¯nancial integration takes place in waves. Stable periods and periods of intense transition alternate. Based on the notion of 'maximum similarity', the results suggest that there exist 'maximum similarity barriers'. It takes extraordinary events, such as EMU, to push the degree of ¯nancial integration beyond these barriers. The research encourages policymakers to move forward courageously in the post-FSAP era, and provides comfort that the substantial di®erences between the current and potentially new euro states can be overcome. The analysis could be extended to the new EU member countries, to the global level, and to additional indicators.
Der Beitritt zur Europäischen Union (EU) war seit Beginn der Transformation in Osteuropa eines der wichtigsten politischen Ziele der neu gewählten Regierungen. Im Mittelpunkt der öffentlichen Diskussion stand dabei weniger die Frage nach möglichen nationalen Opfern einer schnellen EU-Integration, sondern der Wunsch, die nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg erfolgte Teilung Europas endgültig zu überwinden. Nach über zehn Jahren Transformation und Privatisierung ist jedoch vielerorts Ernüchterung eingekehrt. Die politische Debatte um die EU-Integration der osteuropäischen Beitrittskandidaten wird zunehmend von den Kandidaten selbst kritisch geführt, und die Frage nach den nationalen Lasten eines EU-Beitritts gewinnt an Bedeutung. Je näher der Beitritt der osteuropäischen Staaten zur EU rückt, desto nachdrücklicher wird dort gefragt, ob die Mitgliedschaft in der Union ein Gewinn sein wird. Die Beitrittskandidaten befürchten u.a., dass die eigene Wirtschaft und ganze Berufsgruppen, wie z.B. die Bauern, dem EU-Wettbewerbsdruck nicht standhalten werden können. Auf der anderen Seite bremsen eigennützige Ansprüche der Altmitglieder die Osterweiterung der EU. Noch ist bei anstehenden Abstimmungen in den mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern (MOEL) über den Beitritt überall eine Mehrheit dafür zu erwarten, doch die Euroskepsis wächst und die Europa-Kritiker gewinnen an politischem Einfluss. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll einen Beitrag zur Versachlichung der EU-Erweiterungsdiskussion leisten und die Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Transformationsprozess der MOEL und deren EU-Integration verdeutlichen. Eine sachliche Diskussion kann nur dann geführt werden, wenn dabei die Besonderheiten, die Gemeinsamkeiten und die Interdependenzen von Transformations- und Integrationsprozess berücksichtigt werden. Wir gehen dazu wie folgt vor. Zunächst beschreiben wir en Transformationsprozess aus ökonomischer Sicht (2.). Neben den wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Folgen der Transformation, soll die historische Pfadabhängigkeit verschiedener Transformationsergebnisse gezeigt und deren Bedeutung für die EU-Integrationsfähigkeit der MOEL diskutiert werden. Im Anschluss daran erläutern wir die Voraussetzungen einer EU-Osterweiterung aus Sicht der Beitrittskandidaten (Beitrittskriterien von Kopenhagen) und aus Sicht der Europäischen Union. Wir zeigen die aus einem Integrationsprozess resultierenden wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Folgen für Neu- und Altmitglieder auf und stellen den aktuellen Stand der EU-Beitrittsverhandlungen vor (3.). Die Arbeit endet mit der Darstellung alternativer Entwicklungen und einem Fazit (4.).
Major differences between national financial systems might make a common monetary policy difficult. As within Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom differ most with respect to their financial systems, the present paper addresses its topic under the assumption that the United Kingdom is already a part of EMU. Employing a comprehensive concept of a financial system, the author shows that there are indeed profound differences between the national financial systems of Germany and the United Kingdom. But he argues that these differences are not likely to create great problems for a common monetary policy. In the context of the present paper, one important difference between the two financial systems refers to the structure of the respective financial sector and, as a consequence, to the strength with which a given monetary policy impulse set by the central bank is passed on to the financial sector. The other important difference refers to the typical relationship between the banks and the business sector in each country which determines to what extent the financial sectors and especially the banks pass on pressure exerted on them by a monetary policy authority to their clients in their national business sector. In Germany, the central bank has a stronger influence on the financial sector than in England, while, for systemic reasons, German banks tend to soften monetary policy pressures on their customers more than British banks do. As far as the transmission of a restrictive monetary policy of the ECB to the real economy is concerned, these two differences tend to offset each other. This is good news for the advocates of a monetary union as it eases the task of the ECB when it comes to determining the strength of its monetary policy measures.
Although the world of banking and finance is becoming more integrated every day, in most aspects the world of financial regulation continues to be narrowly defined by national boundaries. The main players here are still national governments and governmental agencies. And until recently, they tended to follow a policy of shielding their activities from scrutiny by their peers and members of the academic community rather than inviting critical assessments and an exchange of ideas. The turbulence in international financial markets in the 1980s, and its impact on U.S. banks, gave rise to the notion that academics working in the field of banking and financial regulation might be in a position to make a contribution to the improvement of regulation in the United States, and thus ultimately to the stability of the entire financial sector. This provided the impetus for the creation of the “U.S. Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee”. In the meantime, similar shadow committees have been founded in Europe and Japan. The specific problems associated with financial regulation in Europe, as well as the specific features which distinguish the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee from its counterparts in the U.S. and Japan, derive from the fact that while Europe has already made substantial progress towards economic and political integration, it is still primarily a collection of distinct nation-states with differing institutional set-ups and political and economic traditions. Therefore, any attempt to work towards a European approach to financial regulation must include an effort to promote the development of a European culture of co-operation in this area, and this is precisely what the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) seeks to do. In this paper, Harald Benink, chairman of the ESFRC, and Reinhard H. Schmidt, one of the two German members, discuss the origin, the objectives and the functioning of the committee and the thrust of its recommendations.
Aus dem weiten Spektrum ökonomisch relevanter Fragen, die die europäische Integration und das Gesellschaftsrecht verbinden, soll hier diejenige herausgegriffen werden, ob sich die nationalen Corporate-Governance-Systeme in den großen europäischen Volkswirtschaften Deutschlands, Frankreichs und Großbritanniens unter dem Einfluß der europäischen Integration bereits aneinander angeglichen haben und ob es demnächst zu einer solchen Angleichung kommen wird. Unser Thema deckt nur einen Teil des Gesellschaftsrechts ab und geht zugleich hinsichtlich der angesprochenen rechtlichen Materie über das Gesellschaftsrecht hinaus, denn die Corporate Governance fügt sich nicht einfach in herkömmliche juristische Klassifikationen ein. Unser Vorhaben unterscheidet sich aber vor allem dadurch von einer juristischen Behandlung des Themas, daß primär ökonomische Mechanismen und Zusammenhänge angesprochen werden. Ökonomen betrachten die Corporate Governance im weiteren Kontext des Finanzsystems, denn das Corporate-Governance-System ist ein Teil des Finanzsystems eines Landes. Die Fragen, wie unterschiedlich die nationalen Systeme der Corporate Governance waren, ehe zu Beginn der 80er Jahre der Prozeß der Angleichung in Europa einsetzte, wie unterschiedlich sie heute noch sind, wie sehr sie sich somit bereits angeglichen haben und wie ein möglicher Angleichungsprozeß weitergehen könnte, sind deshalb ein Teil der weiteren Frage nach der Angleichung der Finanzsysteme in Europa. In diesem Beitrag konzentrieren wir uns aber nur auf Entwicklungen der 90er Jahre.