Working Paper
Refine
Year of publication
- 2022 (126) (remove)
Document Type
- Working Paper (126) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (126)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (126)
Keywords
- Covid-19 (4)
- Digital Services Act (4)
- ESG (4)
- Digitalisierung (3)
- Mobilität (3)
- climate change (3)
- AI borrower classification (2)
- AI enabled credit scoring (2)
- Artificial Intelligence (2)
- Asset Pricing (2)
- Banking Union (2)
- Big Data (2)
- COVID-19 (2)
- Corona-Pandemie (2)
- DSA (2)
- Desinformation (2)
- Disclosure (2)
- European Central Bank (2)
- European Parliament (2)
- Experiment (2)
- Experten (2)
- FOMC (2)
- FinTech (2)
- Financial Regulation (2)
- Finanzkrise (2)
- Flüchtlinge (2)
- Forschung (2)
- Gesundheit (2)
- Hassrede (2)
- Household Finance (2)
- Klimawandel (2)
- Krise (2)
- Market Liquidity (2)
- Medienberichterstattung (2)
- Nachhaltigkeit (2)
- Performance (2)
- Politikberatung (2)
- Russia (2)
- SWIFT (2)
- Sustainability (2)
- Transparency (2)
- Ukraine (2)
- Wissenschaftskommunikation (2)
- accountability (2)
- brown-spinning (2)
- climate (2)
- credit scoring methodology (2)
- credit scoring regulation (2)
- financial privacy (2)
- institutional investors (2)
- natural gas (2)
- peer effects (2)
- political economy (2)
- politische Reformen (2)
- portfolio management (2)
- price stability (2)
- private companies (2)
- private equity (2)
- responsible lending (2)
- social media (2)
- statistical discrimination (2)
- sustainability (2)
- uncertainty (2)
- 13F filings (1)
- 2-Sector Model (1)
- 401(k) plan (1)
- Accounting (1)
- Acquisitions (1)
- Affordability crisis (1)
- Akzeptanzuntersuchung (1)
- Akzeptierbarkeit (1)
- Antitrust (1)
- Art investment (1)
- Art. 17 DSM-Richtlinie (1)
- Asset prices (1)
- Bailin (1)
- Bank Accounting (1)
- Bank's Balance Sheets (1)
- Banks (1)
- Bayesian Estimation (1)
- Behavioral Finance (1)
- Behavioral Measurement (1)
- Beliefs (1)
- Beliefs and Choice (1)
- Bestimmtheit (1)
- Bias in medical research (1)
- Biased Beliefs (1)
- Big Five (1)
- Big Five Personality (1)
- Big Techs (1)
- Big Three (1)
- Big data (1)
- Blockchain (1)
- Broker (1)
- Business Subsidies (1)
- CBDC (1)
- CECL (1)
- Carbon Taxation (1)
- Cash (1)
- Caste (1)
- Causal Machine Learning (1)
- Chihuahuan Desert (1)
- Choice under Risk (1)
- Cholesky decomposition (1)
- Climate Change (1)
- Coalitions (1)
- Colocation (1)
- Complex Financial Instruments (1)
- Consulting (1)
- Consumer Welfare (1)
- Content ID (1)
- Corporate Governance (1)
- Corporate concentration (1)
- Covid pandemic (1)
- Cryptocurrencies (1)
- Cultural Economics (1)
- Cultural Finance (1)
- Cultural Norms (1)
- Customer data sharing (1)
- DMA (1)
- DSGE (1)
- DSGE models (1)
- Data access (1)
- Data portability (1)
- Dienst der Informationsgesellschaft (1)
- Digital Markets Act (1)
- Digital footprints (1)
- Disclosure regulation (1)
- Discrimination (1)
- Dyson (1)
- ESM (1)
- Economic and Monetary Union (1)
- Eindeutigkeit (1)
- Empirical Contract Theory (1)
- Energy Embargo (1)
- Enriched Digital Footprint (1)
- Environmental (1)
- Environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG) (1)
- Estimation (1)
- Ethics (1)
- European Banking Union (1)
- European Capital Markets Union (1)
- European Commision (1)
- European Commission (1)
- European Investment Bank (1)
- European Stability Mechanism (1)
- European integration (1)
- Eurozone (1)
- Execution Cost (1)
- Exklusion (1)
- Expected credit losses (1)
- Externalities (1)
- Factor Models (1)
- Fahrradinfrastruktur (1)
- Fiduciary Duties (1)
- FinTech and Textual Analysis (1)
- Financial Markets (1)
- Financial Supervision (1)
- Financial interests (1)
- Fintech (1)
- Fire Sales (1)
- Fixed Income (1)
- Forecasting (1)
- Frankfurt am Main (1)
- Fraud (1)
- Fund family (1)
- Gambling (1)
- Gemeinschaftliches Wohnen (1)
- Gemeinwohl (1)
- Generationenrente (1)
- Generations (1)
- Global Optimization (1)
- Governance (1)
- Green Nudging (1)
- Green Quantitative Easing (1)
- Greenwashing (1)
- Hate Speech (1)
- Haushaltsbefragung (1)
- Headline (1)
- Heterogeneous Agents (1)
- Heterogeneous Firms (1)
- High-Frequency Trading (1)
- High-dimensional Methods (1)
- History & Finance (1)
- Household finance (1)
- IFRS 9 (1)
- IPS (1)
- IV (1)
- IV approach (1)
- Idiosyncratic Risk (1)
- Impairments (1)
- Incomplete Contracts (1)
- Institutional Investor (1)
- Integrated Assessment Model (1)
- Inter-ethnic Conflict (1)
- Invasion (1)
- Klarheit (1)
- Krisenprotokoll (1)
- LBO spillovers (1)
- Lending (1)
- Levola (1)
- Life insurance companies (1)
- Limited Commitment (1)
- Limited Enforcement (1)
- Limits to Arbitrage (1)
- Liquidation Preferences (1)
- Liquidity (1)
- Liquidity Risk (1)
- Loans (1)
- Long-run risk (1)
- Lottery stocks (1)
- Maastricht criteria (1)
- Management (1)
- Marginal Propensity to Consume (1)
- Market Fragmentation (1)
- Market Microstructure (1)
- Market Quality (1)
- Marketplace lending (1)
- Methodenbericht (1)
- MiCA (1)
- Middle East and North Africa (1)
- Mixed-frequency data (1)
- Mobilitätsverhalten (1)
- Model-based regulation (1)
- Monitoring (1)
- Monte Carlo Methods (1)
- Morality (1)
- NFT (1)
- NetzDG (1)
- Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (1)
- Neuaufteilung öffentlicher Räume (1)
- Non-Compete Agreements (1)
- Non-Fungible Tokens (1)
- Numerical accuracy (1)
- Online Poker (1)
- Online-Plattformen (1)
- Open banking (1)
- Option-implied Risk (1)
- Organizational Economics (1)
- Overblocking (1)
- P2P lending (1)
- Paycheck Protection Program (1)
- Paycheck Sensitivity (1)
- Persistence (1)
- Personnel Economics (1)
- Pivotality (1)
- Plattform (1)
- Policy Center (1)
- Political Economy (1)
- Portfolio optimization (1)
- Price elasticity of gasoline demand (1)
- Pricing Determinants (1)
- Product returns (1)
- Prosociality (1)
- Public Finance (1)
- Random Route (1)
- Random-Route-Verfahren (1)
- Real estate (1)
- Reallocation (1)
- Regulation (1)
- Religion (1)
- Rents (1)
- Research and development (1)
- Retail Challenge (1)
- Retail investors (1)
- Ridepooling (1)
- Risikomanagement (1)
- Risikominderung (1)
- Risk Attitudes (1)
- Risk Preferences (1)
- Risk Sharing (1)
- Robo-Advising (1)
- Russian Sanction (1)
- Rücklaufquote (1)
- SME Trading (1)
- SRB (1)
- SRF (1)
- SVAR (1)
- Sanctions (1)
- Securities Market Regulation (1)
- Short-run and long-run inflation expectations (1)
- Short-time work (1)
- Sieckmann (1)
- Social (1)
- Social Capital (1)
- Social Conditioning (1)
- Social Impact (1)
- Social Learning (1)
- Social Security claiming (1)
- Socially responsible investments (1)
- Solution methods (1)
- Solvency regulation (1)
- Soziale Teilhabe / Partizipation (1)
- Sporthelm (1)
- Stability and Growth Pact (1)
- States (1)
- Stationary Equilibrium (1)
- Subsidization (1)
- Supervision (1)
- Supply Chain (1)
- Survey Data (1)
- Swiss Army Knife (1)
- Temporal aggregation (1)
- Textual Analysis (1)
- Time Inconsistency (1)
- Time Preferences (1)
- Trados (1)
- Transaction Data (1)
- Trust (1)
- Universal banks (1)
- Venture Capital (1)
- Venture capital (1)
- Verhaltenskodex (1)
- Verkehr (1)
- Verkehrspolitik (1)
- Verkehrspolitische Maßnahmen (1)
- Vermittlungsdienst, (1)
- Vernetzung (1)
- Vertrauen (1)
- Volcker Rule (1)
- Wettbewerbsrecht (1)
- Wirksamkeit (1)
- annuity (1)
- art (1)
- asset valuation (1)
- asymmetric information (1)
- auctions (1)
- bail-in (1)
- bank regulation (1)
- bank resolution (1)
- banking (1)
- banking union (1)
- banknotes (1)
- banks (1)
- based on a single specimen (1)
- belief formation (1)
- beliefs (1)
- betting (1)
- biases (1)
- big data (1)
- bitcoin (1)
- blockchain (1)
- bond market liquidity (1)
- bureaucrats' incentives (1)
- business cycle (1)
- capital markets (1)
- capital regulation (1)
- capital requirements (1)
- central bank communication (1)
- civil war (1)
- climate-related disclosures (1)
- coal (1)
- collateral reuse (1)
- common ownership (1)
- computer vision (1)
- computer visionbiases (1)
- concept and conceptions of trust (1)
- conditionality (1)
- conflict (1)
- contentious politics (1)
- continuous limit order book (1)
- core (1)
- credit risk (1)
- creditors runs (1)
- crises (1)
- cross-equation restrictions of rational expectations (1)
- cross-section (1)
- cryptocurrencies (1)
- debt cost (1)
- democracy (1)
- deposit guarantee scheme (1)
- derivatives (1)
- diesel (1)
- digital planning tool (1)
- digitale Geschäftsmodelle (1)
- disagreement (1)
- disaster risk (1)
- discourse analysis (1)
- discrimination (1)
- economic governance (1)
- economies of scale (1)
- electricity (1)
- endogeneity (1)
- energy crisis (1)
- equity cost (1)
- experts (1)
- external instruments (1)
- factorization of matrix polynomials (1)
- filtering (1)
- finance (1)
- finance and development (1)
- finance wage premium (1)
- financial distress (1)
- financial solidarity (1)
- fintech (1)
- fiscal rules (1)
- fiscal solidarity (1)
- frequent batch auctions (1)
- gasoline (1)
- gasoline supply (1)
- gasoline tax (1)
- geistiges Eigentum (1)
- geo-economics (1)
- government bonds (1)
- green financing (1)
- high-frequency trading (1)
- identification (1)
- index funds (1)
- inequality (1)
- inflation (1)
- inflation expectations (1)
- inflation surge (1)
- insider trading (1)
- institutions (1)
- investment behavior (1)
- investment decisions (1)
- investment forum (1)
- investor coalitions (1)
- jet fuel (1)
- justification (1)
- kapitalgedeckte Alterssicherung (1)
- labelling (1)
- latency arbitrage (1)
- leverage constraint (1)
- life expectancy (1)
- liquidity provision (1)
- loanable funds (1)
- longevity (1)
- machine learning (1)
- market design (1)
- market microstructure (1)
- market supervision (1)
- market-making (1)
- monetary policy (1)
- monetary policy rule (1)
- monetary system (1)
- monetary transmission (1)
- money (1)
- money creation (1)
- moral hazar (1)
- motivated reasoning (1)
- national interest (1)
- neoinstitutionalism (1)
- net zero transition (1)
- net-zero transition (1)
- normative orders (1)
- oil (1)
- opinion (1)
- orthogonalization (1)
- ownership disclosure (1)
- pass-through (1)
- passive investors (1)
- pathogenic lichenicolous fungi (1)
- pensions (1)
- persistent or transitory inflation shock (1)
- polarization (1)
- policy reform (1)
- policy rule (1)
- politicization (1)
- profit weights (1)
- property rights (1)
- proprietary trading (1)
- randomized control trial (1)
- randomized controlled trial (1)
- rebel governance (1)
- reconciliation of Lucas's advocacy of rational-expectations modelling and policy predictions and Sims's advocacy of VAR modelling (1)
- recursive utility (1)
- regulation (1)
- rehypothecation (1)
- repo market (1)
- retirement (1)
- retirement expectations (1)
- retirement planning (1)
- risk preference (1)
- safe assets (1)
- saving behavior (1)
- savings banks (1)
- securities lending (1)
- sharing economy (1)
- simultaneity (1)
- skill-biased technological change (1)
- sniping (1)
- social impact (1)
- social movements (1)
- social networks (1)
- sovereign bonds (1)
- sovereign debt (1)
- stabilization (1)
- stock market investment (1)
- structural power (1)
- städtebauliches Instrument (1)
- survey (1)
- survey experiment (1)
- survey forecasts (1)
- sustainability disclosures (1)
- tax arbitrage (1)
- taxes (1)
- trust (1)
- venture capital (1)
- worker-firm panels (1)
Institute
- Wirtschaftswissenschaften (99)
- Center for Financial Studies (CFS) (83)
- Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE) (81)
- House of Finance (HoF) (69)
- Foundation of Law and Finance (24)
- Rechtswissenschaft (21)
- Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) (14)
- Exzellenzcluster Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen (6)
- Geographie (5)
- Gesellschaftswissenschaften (4)
High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are an important tool for identifying the effects of monetary policy on asset prices and the macroeconomy. However, some recent studies have questioned both the exogeneity and the relevance of these monetary policy surprises as instruments, especially for estimating the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks. For example, monetary policy surprises are correlated with macroeconomic and financial data that is publicly available prior to the FOMC announcement. The authors address these concerns in two ways: First, they expand the set of monetary policy announcements to include speeches by the Fed Chair, which essentially doubles the number and importance of announcements in our dataset. Second, they explain the predictability of the monetary policy surprises in terms of the “Fed response to news” channel of Bauer and Swanson (2021) and account for it by orthogonalizing the surprises with respect to macroeconomic and financial data. Their subsequent reassessment of the effects of monetary policy yields two key results: First, estimates of the high-frequency effects on financial markets are largely unchanged. Second, estimates of the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy are substantially larger and more significant than what most previous empirical studies have found.
The authors study the impact of dissent in the ECB‘s Governing Council on uncertainty surrounding households‘ inflation expectations. They conduct a randomized controlled trial using the Bundesbank Online Panel Households. Participants are provided with alternative information treatments concerning the vote in the Council, e.g. unanimity and dissent, and are asked to submit probabilistic inflation expectations. The results show that the vote is informative.
Households revise their subjective inflation forecast after receiving information about the vote. Dissenting votes cause a wider individual distribution of future inflation. Hence, dissent increases households‘ uncertainty about inflation. This effect is statistically significant once the authors allow for the interaction between the treatments and individual characteristics of respondents.
The results are robust with respect to alternative measures of forecast uncertainty and hold for different model specifications. The findings suggest that providing information about dissenting votes without additional information about the nature of dissent is detrimental to coordinating household expectations.
The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine since 24 February 2022 has intensified the discussion of Europe’s reliance on energy imports from Russia. A ban on Russian imports of oil, natural gas and coal has already been imposed by the United States, while the United Kingdom plans to cease imports of oil and coal from Russia by the end of 2022. The German Federal Government is currently opposing an energy embargo against Russia. However, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action is working on a strategy to reduce energy imports from Russia. In this paper, the authors give an overview of the German and European reliance on energy imports from Russia with a focus on gas imports and discuss price effects, alternative suppliers of natural gas, and the potential for saving and replacing natural gas. They also provide an overview of estimates of the consequences on the economic outlook if the conflict intensifies.
In the communication of the European Central Bank (ECB), the statement that „we act within our mandate“ is often referred to. Also among practitioners of the Eurosystem the term „mandate“ has become popular. In his Working Paper, Helmut Siekmann analyzes the legal foundation of the tasks and objectives of the Eurosysstem and price stability as a legal term. He finds that the primary law of the EU only very sparsely employs the term „mandate“. It is never used in the context of monetary policy and its institutions. Moreover, he comes to the conclusion that inflation targeting as a task, competence, or objective of the Eurosystem is legally highly questionable according to the common standards of interpretation.
Central banks have faced a succession of crises over the past years as well as a number of structural factors such as a transition to a greener economy, demographic developments, digitalisation and possibly increased onshoring. These suggest that the future inflation environment will be different from the one we know. Thus uncertainty about important macroeconomic variables and, in particular, inflation dynamics will likely remain high.
Veronika Grimm, Lukas Nöh, and Volker Wieland assess the possible development of government interest expenditures as a share of GDP for Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Until 2021, these and other member states could anticipate a further reduction of interest expenditure in the future. This outlook has changed considerably with the recent surge in inflation and government bond rates. Nevertheless, under reasonable assumptions current yield curves still imply that interest expenditure relative to GDP can be stabilized at the current level. The authors also review the implications of a further upward shift in the yield curves of 1 or 2 percentage points. These implications suggest significant medium-term risks for highly indebted member states with interest expenditure approaching or exceeding levels last observed on the eve of the euro area debt crisis. In light of these risks, governments of euro area member states should take substantive action to achieve a sustained decline in debt-to-GDP ratios towards safer levels. They bear the responsibility for making sure that government finances can weather the higher interest rates which are required to achieve price stability in the euro area.
Gegen den Landeshaushalt 2022 des Freistaats Thüringen bestehen nach Einschätzung von Helmut Siekmann erhebliche verfassungsrechtliche Bedenken. In einem Gutachten kommt Siekmann zu dem Schluss, dass sich die festgestellten globalen Minderausgaben im Vergleich zum gesamten Haushaltsvolumen nicht rechtfertigen lassen. Der verfassungsrechtlich gebotene Haushaltsausgleich sei nur dadurch erzielt worden, dass die eigentlich gebotenen Einzelkürzungen nicht vom Parlament entschieden, sondern der Exekutive überlassen worden seien. Durch Globale Minderausgaben soll der Ausgleich von Einnahmen und Ausgaben erreicht werden, ohne dafür erforderliche und politisch oft schwer durchsetzbare Kürzungen bei Einzeltiteln vornehmen zu müssen.
In Thüringen fehlen der Minderheitskoalition aus Linke, SPD und Grünen im Parlament vier Stimmen für eine eigene Mehrheit. Sie muss damit bei allen Entscheidungen eine Unterstützung der oppositionellen CDU aushandeln. Siekmann weist in seinem Gutachten darauf hin, dass die Veranschlagung von globalen Minderausgaben gleich welcher Art in keinem Fall die Exekutive ermächtigt, bestehende Verpflichtungen nicht zu erfüllen.
The authors propose a new method to forecast macroeconomic variables that combines two existing approaches to mixed-frequency data in DSGE models. The first existing approach estimates the DSGE model in a quarterly frequency and uses higher frequency auxiliary data only for forecasting. The second method transforms a quarterly state space into a monthly frequency. Their algorithm combines the advantages of these two existing approaches.They compare the new method with the existing methods using simulated data and real-world data. With simulated data, the new method outperforms all other methods, including forecasts from the standard quarterly model. With real world data, incorporating auxiliary variables as in their method substantially decreases forecasting errors for recessions, but casting the model in a monthly frequency delivers better forecasts in normal times.
The authors present and compare Newton-based methods from the applied mathematics literature for solving the matrix quadratic that underlies the recursive solution of linear DSGE models. The methods are compared using nearly 100 different models from the Macroeconomic Model Data Base (MMB) and different parameterizations of the monetary policy rule in the medium-scale New Keynesian model of Smets and Wouters (2007) iteratively. They find that Newton-based methods compare favorably in solving DSGE models, providing higher accuracy as measured by the forward error of the solution at a comparable computation burden. The methods, however, suffer from their inability to guarantee convergence to a particular, e.g. unique stable, solution, but their iterative procedures lend themselves to refining solutions either from different methods or parameterizations.
Large companies are increasingly on trial. Over the last decade, many of the world’s biggest firms have been embroiled in legal disputes over corruption charges, financial fraud, environmental damage, taxation issues or sanction violations, ending in convictions or settlements of record-breaking fines, well above the billion-dollar mark. For critics of globalization, this turn towards corporate accountability is a welcome sea-change showing that multinational companies are no longer above the law. For legal experts, the trend is noteworthy because of the extraterritorial dimensions of law enforcement, as companies are increasingly held accountable for activities independent of their nationality or the place of the activities. Indeed, the global trend required understanding the evolution of corporate criminal law enforcement in the United States in particular, where authorities have skillfully expanded its effective jurisdiction beyond its territory. This paper traces the evolution of corporate prosecutions in the United States. Analyzing federal prosecution data, it then shows that foreign firms are more likely to pay a fine, which is on average 6,6 times larger.
Der Beitrag stellt dar, wie Online-Plattformen in den Bereichen Urheberrecht, Hassrede und Desinformation in der EU reguliert wurden. Die Analyse ergibt einen Regulierungskreislauf, der in vier Phasen ablief. Bis zum Jahrtausendwechsel war es die Legislative, die einen allgemeinen gesetzlichen Rahmen für die Online-Kommunikation in Gestalt von Äußerungsverboten und Haftungsprivilegierungen definierte. Dieser Rahmen wurde im folgenden Jahrzehnt von den Betreibern der neu entstehenden Plattformen unter Ausnutzung ihres privatautonomen Gestaltungsspielraums implementiert. In der dritten Phase ab ca. 2010 verschärften die Judikative und die Exekutive die sich aus dem allgemeinen gesetzlichen Rahmen ergebenden Mindestanforderungen an die Bekämpfung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen, Hassrede und Desinformation. In der vorläufig letzten Phase des Regulierungskreislaufs ab 2017/2018 ergriff wieder der Gesetzgeber die Initiative, indem die Standards, die in den Phasen zwei und drei entwickelt worden waren, kodifiziert und teilweise nochmals angehoben wurden. Damit ist der Kreislauf der unionalen Plattformregulierung allerdings nicht zu seinem Ende gekommen. Vielmehr ist bereits erkennbar, dass sich nun wieder eine eher experimentell-tastende Phase privatautonomer Implementierung und ko-regulativer Fortentwicklung des neuen gesetzlichen Rahmens anschließt. Der Beitrag schließt mit einer kurzen Bewertung dieser Entwicklung hin zu mehr hoheitlicher Kommunikationskontrolle.
In den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten sind Anmeldungen von Rechten des geistigen Eigentums (intellectual property, IP) bzw. Verletzungsklagen wiederholt an der unzureichenden Bestimmtheit des exklusiv beanspruchten Gegenstands gescheitert. Ihren Ausgang nahm diese Entwicklung im Markenrecht mit Entscheidungen des EuGH (Stichworte: Sieckmann, Heidelberger Bauchemie, Dyson, IP Translator, Oy Hartwall) und später auch des BGH (Stichwort: UHU). Die markenrechtlichen Grundsätze strahlten auf das Designrecht (Stichworte: Sporthelm, Mast-Jägermeister) und zuletzt auch auf das Urheberrecht (Stichwort: Levola) aus. Im Folgenden werden die maßgeblichen Urteile zur Schutzfähigkeit von Zeichen, Designs und Werken zusammengetragen und systematisiert. Dabei treten zwei Aspekte eines Bestimmtheitsgebots zu Tage, die, wie abschließend zu zeigen sein wird, auch im Patentrecht gelten
Der Beitrag nimmt kritisch zum gegenwärtig anhängigen EU-Gesetz über digitale Dienste (Digital Services Act, DSA) Stellung. Die Kernthese lautet: Big Tech muss reguliert werden, aber nicht wie im DSA vorgesehen. Zur Untermauerung dieser Position werden fünf grundlegend problematische Aspekte des DSA benannt. Es wird gezeigt, dass die derzeit verhandelten Fassungen des DSA (1) die Vertragsfreiheit nicht kommunikationsmächtiger Vermittlungsdienste missachten, (2) automatisiertes Overblocking begünstigen, (3) auch legale, aber in unspezifischer Weise „schädliche“ Äußerungen ins Visier nehmen, (4) einen vagen und für die Kommunikationsregulierung generell unpassenden Risikopräventionsansatz verfolgen und (5) eine Kommunikationsüberwachungsbürokratie errichten, die ihrerseits keinen zureichenden öffentlich-demokratischen Kontrollen unterliegt. Als Reaktion auf diese Befunde wird vorgeschlagen, (1) nur sehr großen Online-Plattformen inhaltliche Vorgaben im Hinblick auf ihre AGB zu machen, (2) die Verpflichtung/Berechtigung zum Einsatz automatischer Moderationssysteme auf offensichtlich rechtswidrige Inhalte zu beschränken, (3) im DSA auch keine indirekten Pflichten zur Unterdrückung legaler, aber „schädlicher“ Inhalte vorzusehen, (4) das systemische Risiko des Art. 26 Abs. 1 Buchst. c DSA ersatzlos zu streichen und (5) die DSA-Bürokratie staatsfern auszugestalten und einer parlamentarischen Kontrolle zu unterwerfen.
Der Beitrag bietet eine Übersicht der unionalen und deutschen Rechtsbegriffe zur Bezeichnung von Diensten im Bereich der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik (IKT). Neben Rechtsquellen der ersten Regulierungsgeneration (insbes. E-Commerce- und InfoSoc-Richtlinie) werden 26 Gesetze bzw. Gesetzesvorschläge aus den letzten fünf Jahren in die Bestandsaufnahme einbezogen. Die einzelnen Dienstebegriffe werden erläutert und nach Maßgabe ihrer technisch-sozialen Funktion klassifiziert. Die vergleichende Analyse arbeitet Unterschiede und Überschneidungen sowie allgemeine dogmatische Grundsätze heraus, etwa zur Beurteilung multifunktionaler Dienste. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt Diensten wie sozialen Netzwerken und Messengern, deren juristische Einordnung ungeklärt ist. Der Beitrag schließt mit begrifflichen Reformvorschlägen für das künftige Digitalrecht.
Der Beitrag bietet einen Überblick über den entstehungsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund sowie den Inhalt des ursprünglichen Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetzes (NetzDG) 2017, seine Wirkungen in der Praxis und die Änderungen durch die NetzDG-Reform 2021. Es wird gezeigt, dass aus einem Regelwerk mit engem Fokus auf die Durchsetzung des Strafrechts in OnlineNetzwerken ein Plattformregulierungsgesetz wurde, das sowohl Löschgebote (Strafrecht) als auch Löschverbote (Meinungsfreiheit) prozeduralisiert. Während das NetzDG 2017 keinen nennenswerten Niederschlag in gerichtlichen oder behördlichen Entscheidungen fand und inzwischen auch kaum noch eine Rolle in der Löschpraxis der Netzwerke spielt, dürfte es dazu beigetragen haben, dass die Netzwerkbetreiber ihre privaten Kommunikationsregeln verschärft haben. Hintergrund für diese „Flucht in die AGB“ ist, dass die großen Netzwerkbetreiber und der Gesetzgeber dasselbe Nahziel verfolgen: Einer Verrohung der Debattenkultur soll aus ökonomischen bzw. gesellschaftspolitischen Gründen entgegengewirkt werden. Der Beitrag schließt mit einem Ausblick auf den Digital Services Act (DSA), mit dem der Compliance-Ansatz des NetzDG europäisiert würde.
Im Zuge der fortlaufenden Digitalisierung im Mobilitätssektor werden aktuell besonders in Großstädten verstärkt geteilte on-demand Fahrdienstleistungen implementiert. Das sog. Ridepooling beschreibt eine dynamische und digitale Form des konventionellen Sammeltaxis, bei welcher durch eine intelligente Algorithmik mehrere voneinander unabhängige, zeitlich korrespondierende Fahrtwünsche in Echtzeit zu einer Route kombiniert werden. So können einander unbekannte Kund*innen gemeinsam und gleichzeitig nach ihren individuellen Bedürfnissen auf Direktverbindungen befördert werden. Viele der Ridepooling-Angebote werden in urban geprägten Raumstrukturen von privaten Verkehrsunternehmen - teilweise sogar eigenwirtschaftlich - betrieben und als nachhaltige Mobilitätsform beworben: Sie soll die sich individualisierenden Mobilitätsbedürfnisse der Bürger*innen befriedigen, dadurch städtische Problematiken wie hohe Luft- und Lärmbelastung, Staubildung sowie Flächenknappheit adressieren und zu einer umweltfreundlichen Verlagerung des lokalen Verkehrsaufkommens (Modal Shift) führen.
Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht am Beispiel der Großstädte Berlin und Hamburg, wie und unter welchen Zielsetzungen der unterschiedlichen Akteure die neuen Angebotsformen implementiert wurden und welche Auswirkungen sie auf die städtischen Mobilitätssysteme haben.
Durch Expert*innen-Interviews mit städtischen Behörden, öffentlichen und privaten Verkehrsunternehmen, Verkehrsverbünden und Expert*innen für digitale und städtische Mobilität soll der aktuell noch geringe Forschungsstand über die Zielsetzungen, Formen und Auswirkungen von Ridepooling-Angeboten in städtischen Räumen um praxisnahe Betrachtungen und Erkenntnisse erweitert werden. Es kann angenommen werden, dass die unterschiedlichen Ausgestaltungen der untersuchten Angebote von ioki, CleverShuttle, MOIA und BerlKönig dabei durchaus voneinander differierende Effekte auf das Nutzungsverhalten der Kund*innen und die städtische Verkehrsgestaltung sowie deren ökologischen und sozialen Nachhaltigkeitsdimensionen haben.
Im Januar 2020 änderte sich für viele Menschen die bis dahin gekannte Normalität durch das Aufkommen des Covid-19-Virus. Dies äußerte sich in einem gravierenden Einfluss auf die physische Mobilität und führte zu einer teilweisen Verlagerung in die virtuelle Mobilität. Angelehnt an die in dieser Arbeit dargestellten Forschungsansätze ist festzustellen, dass ein kausaler Zusammenhang zwischen eingeschränkter Mobilität und sozialer Exklusion von sozialer, politischer, ökonomischer sowie persönlicher Partizipation besteht. Diese Korrelation unter pandemischen Bedingungen wurde zum Zeitpunkt der Analyse kaum untersucht, weshalb es die Zielsetzung dieser Arbeit war, die Thematisierung der Einschränkungen mobilitätsbedingter sozialer Teilhabe durch die Covid-19-Pandemie im medialen Diskurs zu erörtern.
Die quantitative Analyse der drei Zeitungen Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung und Die Zeit ergab, dass die mediale Auseinandersetzung mit dem Untersuchungsgegenstand nur einen marginalen Teil der Artikel prägt und damit eine Randnotiz der Gesellschaft darstellt. Die darauffolgende qualitative Inhaltsanalyse der thematisch passenden Zeitungsartikel lassen auf die Notwendigkeit einer Erweiterung der existierenden theoretischen Exklusionsdimensionen schließen. Grund dafür sind das Auftreten einer Infektionsangst sowie einer neuen Reichweite der Digitalisierung als grundlegende Exklusionsstrukturen während der Pandemie. Insbesondere in der Entscheidung um den Umgang mit dem ÖPNV spiegeln sich vielfältige gesellschaftliche Fragen um Sicherheit und Gesundheitsschutz, aber auch um soziale Teilhabe und Zugang.
Mit dem Ziel, Erkenntnisse darüber zu gewinnen unter welchen Umständen verkehrspolitische Maßnahmen seitens der Bevölkerung befürwortet und angenommen werden, wurde im Hebst 2020 eine quantitative Haushaltsbefragung (N = 832) in vier Frankfurter Befragungsgebieten durchgeführt. Als Untersuchungsgegenstand wurde die Umwandlung von Auto- in Fahrradspuren ausgewählt – eine Maßnahme, die in Folge des Frankfurter Radentscheids entlang verschiedener Verkehrsachsen in Frankfurt geplant und teilweise bereits umgesetzt wurde. Dabei wurde deutlich, dass die Akzeptierbarkeit für die zukünftige Umsetzung einer solchen Maßnahme zur Neuaufteilung öffentlicher Räume in Frankfurt insgesamt sehr hoch ausfällt. Unter Heranziehung des stage model of self-regulated behavioural change (SSBC) konnte zudem aufgezeigt werden, dass sich eine starke Orientierung am Auto negativ auf die Höhe der Akzeptierbarkeit auswirkt, während eine regelmäßige Nutzung des Fahrrads höhere Zustimmungswerte für die Maßnahme hervorruft. In einem zweiten Schritt wurde weiterhin untersucht, inwiefern die bereits umgewandelten Radspuren zwischen der Alten Brücke am Main und dem Friedberger Platz im Frankfurter Nordend, eine Veränderung in der Wahrnehmung und Verkehrsmittelnutzung der Befragten begünstigen und somit auch wirksam sind. Dabei wurde mitunter ersichtlich, dass es seit der Umwandlung sowohl zu einer gesteigerten Fahrradnutzung als auch zu einer reduzierten Autonutzung entlang der umgewidmeten Strecke gekommen ist.
Global consensus is growing on the contribution that corporations and finance must make towards the net-zero transition in line with the Paris Agreement goals. However, most efforts in legislative instruments as well as shareholder or stakeholder initiatives have ultimately focused on public companies.
This article argues that such a focus falls short of providing a comprehensive approach to the problem of climate change. In doing so, it examines the contribution of private companies to climate change, the relevance of climate risks for them, as well as the phenomenon of brown-spinning (ie, the practice of public companies selling their highly polluting assets to private companies). We show that one cannot afford to ignore private companies in the net-zero transition and climate change adaptation. Yet, private companies lack several disciplining mechanisms that are available to public companies, such as institutional investor engagement, certain corporate governance arrangements, and transparency through regular disclosure obligations. At this stage, only some generic regulatory instruments such as carbon pricing and environmental regulation apply to them.
The article closes with a discussion of the main policy implications. Primarily, we discuss and evaluate the recent push to extend climate-related disclosure requirements to private companies. These disclosures would not only help investors by addressing information asymmetry, but also serve a wide group of stakeholders and thus aim at promoting a transition to a greener economy.
To ensure the credibility of market discipline induced by bail-in, neither retail investors nor peer banks should appear prominently among the investor base of banks’ loss absorbing capital. Empirical evidence on bank-level data provided by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority raises a few red flags. Our list of policy recommendations encompasses disclosure policy, data sharing among supervisors, information transparency on holdings of bail-inable debt for all stakeholders, threshold values, and a well-defined upper limit for any bail-in activity. This document was provided by the Economic Governance Support Unit at the request of the ECON Committee.
The European Central Bank (ECB) recently proclaimed a more active role for itself in the fight against climate change. Did the European Parliament (EP) play a part in this regard, and if so what was it? To answer this question, this paper builds on a multi-method text analysis of original datasets compiling communications between the ECB and the EP across three accountability forums between 2014 and 2021. The paper shows that there has been discursive convergence between central bankers and parliamentarians concerning the role of the ECB in combatting climate change. It argues that this convergence has resulted from a pragmatic (yet precarious) adoption of a common repertoire1 between ‘green’ central bankers and parliamentarians who have favored a more active role for the ECB in the fight against climate change. The adoption of a common repertoire is pragmatic, in that it results from the strategic use of specific discursive elements that are ambitious enough to address their respective opponents and trigger political change, yet vague enough to allow both sets of actors to converge on them momentarily. It is also precarious in the sense that it involves discarding fundamental political tensions, which is hardly tenable in the long term. The paper shows that both organizational and politicization dynamics have been at work in the emergence of this pragmatic yet precarious bedfellowship between ‘green’ central bankers and parliamentarians.
This briefing paper describes and evaluates the law and economics of institution(al) protection schemes. Throughout our analysis, we use Europe’s largest such scheme, that of German savings banks, as paradigm. We find strengths and weaknesses: Strong network-internal monitoring and early warning seems to be an important contributor to IPS network success. Similarly, the geographical quasi-cartel encourages banks to build a strong client base, including SME, in all regions. Third, the growth of the IPS member institutions may have benefitted from the strictly unlimited protection offered, in terms of euro amounts per account holder. The counterweighing weaknesses encompass the conditionality of the protection pledge and the underinvestment risk it entails, sometimes referred to as blackmailing the government, as well as the limited diversification potential of the deposit insurance within the network, and the near-incompatibility of the IPS model with the provisions of the BRRD, particularly relating to bail-in and resolution. Consequently, we suggest, as policy guidance, to treat large IPS networks similar to large banking groups, and put them as such under the direct supervision of the ECB within the SSM. Moreover, we suggest strengthening the seriousness of a deposit insurance that offers unlimited protection. Finally, to improve financial stability, we suggest embedding the IPS model into a multi-tier deposit re-insurance scheme, with a national and a European layer. This document was provided by the Economic Governance Support Unit at the request of the ECON Committee.
This paper studies the interactions between corporate law and VC exits by acquisitions, an increasingly common source of VC-related litigation. We find that transactions by VC funds under liquidity pressure are characterized by (i) a substantially lower sale price; (ii) a greater probability of industry outsiders as acquirers; (iii) a positive abnormal return for acquirers. These features indicate the existence of fire sales, which satisfy VCs' liquidation preferences but hurt common shareholders, leaving board members with conflicting fiduciary duties and litigation risks. Exploiting an important court ruling that establishes the board’s fiduciary duties to common shareholders as a priority, we find that after the ruling maturing VCs become less likely to exit by fire sales and they distribute cash to their investors less timely. However, VCs experience more difficult fundraising ex-ante, highlighting the potential cost of a common-favoring regime. Overall the evidence has important implications for optimal fiduciary duty design in VC-backed start-ups.
We estimate the cost of cultural biases in high-stake economic decisions by comparing agents’ peer-to-peer lending choices with those the same agents make under the assistance of an automated robo-advisor. We first confirm substantial in-group vs. out-group and stereotypical discrimination, which are stronger for lenders who reside where historical cultural biases are higher. We then exploit our unique setting to document that cultural biases are costly: agents face 8% higher default rates on favored-group borrowers when unassisted. The returns they earn on favored groups increase by 7.3 percentage points when assisted. The high riskiness of the marginal borrowers from favorite groups largely explains the bad performance of culturally-biased choices. Because varying economic incentives do not reduce agents’ biases, inaccurate statistical discrimination—unconscious biased beliefs about borrowers’ quality—can explain our results better than taste-based discrimination.
Prospective welfare analysis - extending willingness-to-pay assessment to embrace sustainability
(2022)
In this paper we outline how a future change in consumers’ willingness-to-pay can be accounted for in a consumer welfare effects analysis in antitrust. Key to our solution is the prediction of preferences of new consumers and changing preferences of existing consumers in the future. The dimension of time is inextricably linked with that of sustainability. Taking into account the welfare of future cohorts of consumers, concerns for sustainability can therefore be integrated into the consumer welfare paradigm to a greater extent. As we argue in this paper, it is expedient to consider changes in consumers’ willingness-to-pay, in particular if society undergoes profound changes in such preferences, e.g., caused by an increase in generally available information on environmental effects of consumption, and a rising societal awareness about how consumption can have irreversible impacts on the environment. We offer suggestions on how to conceptionalize and operationalize the projection of such consumers’ changing preferences in a “prospective welfare analysis”. This increases the scope of the consumer welfare paradigm and can help to solve conceptual issues regarding the integration of sustainability into antitrust enforcement while keeping consumer surplus as a quantitative gauge.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, European largest banks’ size and business models have largely remained unchallenged. Is that because of banks’ continued structural power over States? This paper challenges the view that States are sheer hostages of banks’ capacity to provide credit to the real economy – which is the conventional definition of structural power. Instead, it sheds light on the geo-economic dimension of banks’ power: key public officials conceive the position of “their own” market-based banks in global financial markets as a crucial dimension of State power. State priority towards banking thus result from political choices over what structurally matters the most for the State. Based on a discourse analysis of parliamentary debates in France, Germany and Spain between 2010 and 2020 as well as on a comparative analysis of the implementation of a special tax on banks in the early 2010s, this paper shows that State’s Finance ministries tend to prioritize geo-economic considerations over credit to firms. By contrast, Parliaments tend to prioritize investment. Power dynamics within the State thus largely shape political priorities towards banking at the domestic and international levels.
We provide the first comprehensive analysis of option information for pricing the cross-section of stock returns by jointly examining extensive sets of firm and option characteristics. Using portfolio sorts and high-dimensional methods, we show that certain option measures have significant predictive power, even after controlling for firm characteristics, earning a Fama-French three-factor alpha in excess of 20% per annum. Our analysis further reveals that the strongest option characteristics are associated with information about asset mispricing and future tail return realizations. Our findings are consistent with models of informed trading and limits to arbitrage.
The transition to a sustainable economy currently involves a fundamental transformation of our capital markets. Lawmakers, in an attempt to overcome this challenge, frequently seek to prescribe and regulate how firms may address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns by formulating conduct standards. Deviating from this conceptual starting point, the present paper makes the case for another path towards achieving greater sustainability in capital markets, namely through the empowerment of investors.
This trust in the market itself is grounded in various recent developments both on the supply side and the demand side of financial markets, and also in the increasing tendency of institutional investors to engage in common ownership. The need to build coalitions among different types of asset managers or institutional investors, and to convince fellow investors of a given initiative, can then act as an in-built filter helping to overcome the pursuit of idiosyncratic motives and supporting only those campaigns that are seconded by a majority of investors. In particular, institutionalized investor platforms have emerged over recent years as a force for investor empowerment, serving to coordinate investor campaigns and to share the costs of engagement.
ESG engagement has the potential to become a very powerful driver towards a more sustainability-oriented future. Indeed, I show that investor-led sustainability has many advantages compared to a more prescriptive, regulatory approach where legislatures are in the driver’s seat. For example, a focus on investor-led priorities would follow a more flexible and dynamic pattern rather than complying with inflexible pre-defined criteria. Moreover, investor-promoted assessments are not likely to impair welfare creation in the same way as ill-defined legal standards; they will also not trigger regulatory arbitrage and would avoid deadlock situations in corporate decision-making. Any regulatory activity should then be limited to a facilitative and supportive role.
Trust between parties should drive contract design: if parties were suspicious about each others’ reaction to unplanned events, they might agree to pay higher costs of negotiation ex ante to complete contracts. Using a unique sample of U.S. consulting contracts and a negative shock to trust between shareholders/managers (principals) and consultants (agents) staggered across space and over time, we find that lower trust increases contract completeness. Not only the complexity but also the verifiable states of the world covered by contracts increase after trust drops. The results hold for several novel text-analysis-based measures of contract completeness and do not arise in falsification tests. At the clause level, we find that non-compete agreements, confidentiality, indemnification, and termination rules are the most likely clauses added to contracts after a negative shock to trust and these additions are not driven by new boilerplate contract templates. These clauses are those whose presence should be sensitive to the mutual trust between principals and agents.
The article studies civil wars and trust dynamics from two perspectives. It looks, first, at rebel governance during ongoing armed conflict and, second, at mass mobilisation against the regime in post-conflict societies. Both contexts are marked by extraordinarily high degrees of uncertainty given continued, or collective memory of, violence and repression.
But what happens to trust relations under conditions of extreme uncertainty? Intuitively, one would assume that trust is shaken or even substantially eroded in such moments, as political and social orders are questioned on a fundamental level and threaten to collapse. However, while it is true that some forms of trust are under assault in situations of civil war and mass protests, we find empirical evidence which suggests that these situations also give rise to the formation of other kinds of trust. We argue that, in order to detect and explain these trust dynamics in contexts of extreme uncertainty, there should be more systematic studies of: (a) synchronous dynamics between different actors and institutions which imply trust dynamics happening simultaneously, (b) diachronous dynamics and the sequencing of trust dynamics over several phases of violent conflict or episodes of contention, as well as long-term structural legacies of the past. In both dimensions, microlevel relations, as well as their embeddedness in larger structures, help explain how episodes of (non-)violent contention become a critical juncture for political and social trust.
Venture capital (VC) funds backed by large multi-fund families tend to perform substantially better due to cross-fund cash flows (CFCFs), a liquidity support mechanism provided by matching distributions and capital calls within a VC fund family. The dynamics of this mechanism coincide with the sensitivity of different stage projects owing to market liquidity conditions. We find that the early-stage funds demand relatively more intra-family CFCFs than later-stage funds during liquidity stress periods. We show that the liquidity improvement based on the timing of CFCF allocation reflects how fund families arrange internal liquidity provision and explains a large part of their outperformance.
Financial ties between drug companies and medical researchers are thought to bias results published in medical journals. To enable readers to account for such bias, most medical journals require authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest. For such policies to be effective, conflict disclosure must modify readers’ beliefs. We therefore examine whether disclosure of financial ties with industry reduces article citations, indicating a discount. A challenge to estimating this effect is selection as drug companies may seek out higher quality authors as consultants or fund their studies, generating a positive correlation between disclosed conflicts and citations. Our analysis confirms this positive association. Including observable controls for article and author quality attenuates but does not eliminate this relation. To tease out whether other researchers discount articles with conflicts, we perform three tests. First, we show that the positive association is weaker for review articles, which are more susceptible to bias. Second, we examine article recommendations to family physicians by medical experts, who choose from articles that are a priori more homogenous in quality. Here, we find a significantly negative association between disclosure and expert recommendations, consistent with discounting. Third, we conduct an analysis within author and article, exploiting journal policy changes that result in conflict disclosure by an author. We examine the effect of this disclosure on citations to a previously published article by the same author. This analysis reveals a negative citation effect. Overall, we find evidence that disclosures negatively affect citations, consistent with the notion that other researchers discount articles with disclosed conflicts.
The author proposes a Differential-Independence Mixture Ensemble (DIME) sampler for the Bayesian estimation of macroeconomic models.It allows sampling from particularly challenging, high-dimensional black-box posterior distributions which may also be computationally expensive to evaluate. DIME is a “Swiss Army knife”, combining the advantages of a broad class of gradient-free global multi-start optimizers with the properties of a Monte Carlo Markov chain (MCMC). This includes fast burn-in and convergence absent any prior numerical optimization or initial guesses, good performance for multimodal distributions, a large number of chains (the “ensemble”) running in parallel, an endogenous proposal density generated from the state of the full ensemble, which respects the bounds of the prior distribution. The author shows that the number of parallel chains scales well with the number of necessary ensemble iterations.
DIME is used to estimate the medium-scale heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (“HANK”) model with liquid and illiquid assets, thereby for the first time allowing to also include the households’ preference parameters. The results mildly point towards a less accentuated role of household heterogeneity for the empirical macroeconomic dynamics.
Based on recent records, 89 lichen species are reported as new to Brazil. For the genera Ancistrosporella, Jamesiella, Lambiella, Paulia, Polyblastia, Porocyphus, and Trimmatothele, it is the first time they are reported from Brazil. Many more, in total 523 species, are newly reported from individual states.
Three new species of Catillochroma are described, viz. C. danfordianum Kalb and C. mareebaense Kalb, both from Queensland, Australia, and C. phayapipakianum Kalb from Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Eight species are transferred to Catillochroma, viz. C. alleniae, C. alligatorense, C. beechingii, C. bicoloratum, C. coralloideum, C. flavosorediatum, C. hainanese and C. yunnanense. Habit photographs of the new and some other species, mentioned in the text are provided.
European banks have substantial investments in assets that are
measured without directly observable market prices (mark-to-
model). Financial disclosures of these value estimates lack
standardization and are hard to compare across banks. These
comparability concerns are concentrated in large European
banks that extensively rely on level 3 estimates with the most
unobservable inputs. Although the relevant balance sheet
positions only represent a small fraction of these large banks’
total assets (2.9%), their value equals a significant fraction of core
equity tier 1 (48.9%). Incorrect valuations thus have a potential to
impact financial stability. 85% of these bank assets are under
direct ECB supervision. Prudential regulation requires value
adjustments that are apt to shield capital against valuation risk.
Yet, stringent enforcement is critical for achieving this objective.
This document was provided by the Economic Governance
Support Unit at the request of the ECON Committee.
The great financial crisis and the euro area crisis led to a substantial reform of financial safety nets across Europe and – critically – to the introduction of supranational elements. Specifically, a supranational supervisor was established for the euro area, with discrete arrangements for supervisory competences and tasks depending on the systemic relevance of supervised credit institutions. A resolution mechanism was created to allow the frictionless resolution of large financial institutions. This resolution mechanism has been now complemented with a funding instrument.
While much more progress has been achieved than most observers could imagine 12 years ago, the banking union remains unfinished with important gaps and deficiencies. The experience over the past years, especially in the area of crisis management and resolution, has provided impetus for reform discussions, as reflected most lately in the Eurogroup statement of 16 June 2022.
This Policy Insight looks primarily at the current and the desired state of the banking union project. The key underlying question, and the focus here, is the level of ambition and how it is matched with effective legal and regulatory tools. Specifically, two questions will structure the discussions:
What would be a reasonable definition and rationale for a ‘complete’ banking union? And what legal reforms would be required to achieve it?
Banking union is a case of a new remit of EU-level policy that so far has been established on the basis of long pre-existing treaty stipulations, namely, Article 127(6) TFEU (for banking supervision) and Article 114 TFEU (for crisis management and deposit insurance). Could its completion be similarly carried out through secondary law? Or would a more comprehensive overhaul of the legal architecture be required to ensure legal certainty and legitimacy?
This article compares the three initial safety nets spanned by the European Union in response to the Covid-19 crisis: SURE, the Pandemic Crisis Support, and the European Guarantee Fund. It compares their design regarding scope, generosity, target groups, implementation, the types of solidarity and conditionality, and asks how they reflect on core-periphery relations in the EU. The article finds that the most important factor in all three instruments is risk-sharing between member states, even though SURE and the EGF display elements of fiscal solidarity. Finally, the article shows that Euro crisis countries from the South are the main recipients of financial aid, while Central and East European countries receive significantly less assistance and core countries in the North and West have no need for them.
Die notwendige ökologische Transformation aber auch darüberhinausgehend die zunehmenden Erwartungen, die Gesellschaft und Politik an die Wirtschaft stellen, erfordern eine Prüfung des Wettbewerbsrechts und seiner Durchsetzung, insbesondere auch der dabei verwendeten (ökonomischen) Konzepte und Methoden, dahingehend, ob die aktuelle Praxis nicht einer stärkeren Berücksichtigung von Nachhaltigkeitszielen in unbegründeter Weise im Wege steht. Auf europäischer Ebene hat der Diskurs darüber im Jahr 2021 erheblich an Fahrt gewonnen. Wir stellen wesentliche Initiativen dar. Dabei zeigt sich unseres Erachtens allerdings auch, dass für eine konstruktive Weiterentwicklung noch die nötigen konzeptionellen und methodischen Grundlagen fehlen.
Linear rational-expectations models (LREMs) are conventionally "forwardly" estimated as follows. Structural coefficients are restricted by economic restrictions in terms of deep parameters. For given deep parameters, structural equations are solved for "rational-expectations solution" (RES) equations that determine endogenous variables. For given vector autoregressive (VAR) equations that determine exogenous variables, RES equations reduce to reduced-form VAR equations for endogenous variables with exogenous variables (VARX). The combined endogenous-VARX and exogenous-VAR equations comprise the reduced-form overall VAR (OVAR) equations of all variables in a LREM. The sequence of specified, solved, and combined equations defines a mapping from deep parameters to OVAR coefficients that is used to forwardly estimate a LREM in terms of deep parameters. Forwardly-estimated deep parameters determine forwardly-estimated RES equations that Lucas (1976) advocated for making policy predictions in his critique of policy predictions made with reduced-form equations.
Sims (1980) called economic identifying restrictions on deep parameters of forwardly-estimated LREMs "incredible", because he considered in-sample fits of forwardly-estimated OVAR equations inadequate and out-of-sample policy predictions of forwardly-estimated RES equations inaccurate. Sims (1980, 1986) instead advocated directly estimating OVAR equations restricted by statistical shrinkage restrictions and directly using the directly-estimated OVAR equations to make policy predictions. However, if assumed or predicted out-of-sample policy variables in directly-made policy predictions differ significantly from in-sample values, then, the out-of-sample policy predictions won't satisfy Lucas's critique.
If directly-estimated OVAR equations are reduced-form equations of underlying RES and LREM-structural equations, then, identification 2 derived in the paper can linearly "inversely" estimate the underlying RES equations from the directly-estimated OVAR equations and the inversely-estimated RES equations can be used to make policy predictions that satisfy Lucas's critique. If Sims considered directly-estimated OVAR equations to fit in-sample data adequately (credibly) and their inversely-estimated RES equations to make accurate (credible) out-of-sample policy predictions, then, he should consider the inversely-estimated RES equations to be credible. Thus, inversely-estimated RES equations by identification 2 can reconcile Lucas's advocacy for making policy predictions with RES equations and Sims's advocacy for directly estimating OVAR equations.
The paper also derives identification 1 of structural coefficients from RES coefficients that contributes mainly by showing that directly estimated reduced-form OVAR equations can have underlying LREM-structural equations.
Today in the United States, the notion that ‘the rise of the far right’ poses the greatest threat to democratic values, and by extension, to the nation itself, has slowly entered into common sense. The antecedent of this development is the object of our study. Explored through the prism of what we refer to as the domestication of the War on Terror, this publication adopts and updates the theoretical approach first forwarded in Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, the Law and Order (Hall et al. 1978). Drawing on this seminal work, a sequence of three disparate media events are explored as they unfold in the United States in mid-2015: the rise of the Trump campaign; the release of an op-ed in The New York Times warning of a rise in right-wing extremsim; and a mass shooting at a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. By the end of 2015, as these disparate events converge into what we call the public face of the rise of the far right phenomenon, we subsequently turn our attention to its origins in policing and the law in the wake of the global War on Terror and the Great Recession. It is only from there, that we turn our attention to the poltical class struggle as expressed in the rise of 'populism' on the one hand, and the domestication of the War on Terror on the other, and in doing so, attempt to situate the role of the rise of the far right phenomenon within it.
In more and more situations, artificially intelligent algorithms have to model humans’ (social) preferences on whose behalf they increasingly make decisions. They can learn these preferences through the repeated observation of human behavior in social encounters. In such a context, do individuals adjust the selfishness or prosociality of their behavior when it is common knowledge that their actions produce various externalities through the training of an algorithm? In an online experiment, we let participants’ choices in dictator games train an algorithm. Thereby, they create an externality on future decision making of an intelligent system that affects future participants. We show that individuals who are aware of the consequences of their training on the pay- offs of a future generation behave more prosocially, but only when they bear the risk of being harmed themselves by future algorithmic choices. In that case, the externality of artificially intelligence training induces a significantly higher share of egalitarian decisions in the present.
Large technology firms («BigTechs») increasingly extend their influence in finance, primarily taking over market shares in payment services. A further expansion of their businesses into the territory of cryptocurrencies could entail new and unprecedented risks for the future, namely for financial stability, competition in the private sector and monetary policy. When creating a regulatory toolbox to address these risks, financial regulatory, antitrust, and platform-specific solutions should be closely intertwined in order to fully absorb all the potential threats and to take account of the complex risks these platform companies bear. This policy letter evaluates the solutions lately proposed by the European Commission, with specific focus on the upcoming regulation of Markets in crypto-assets (MiCA), but also the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital services act (DSA), against the background of cryptocurrencies issued by BigTechs and sheds light on financial regulatory, competition and monetary law issues coming along with the possible designs of these cryptocurrencies.
This policy letter collects elementary economic statistics and provides a very basic look on Russian public finances (i) to inform the reader’s opinion on a possible planning process behind the war against Ukraine and (ii) to discuss prospects of an energy embargo and its capability to affect the stability of the Russian economy.
Using granular supervisory data from Germany, we investigate the impact of unconventional monetary policies via central banks’ purchase of corporate bonds. While this policy results in a loosening of credit market conditions as intended by policy makers, we document two unintended side effects. First, banks that are more exposed to borrowers benefiting from the bond purchases now lend more to high-risk firms with no access to bond markets. Since more loan write-offs arise from these firms and banks are not compensated for this risk by higher interest rates, we document a drop in bank profitability. Second, the policy impacts the allocation of loans among industries. Affected banks reallocate loans from investment grade firms active on bond markets to mainly real estate firms without investment grade rating. Overall, our findings suggest that central banks’ quantitative easing via the corporate bond markets has the potential to contribute to both banking sector instability and real estate bubbles.
Financial literacy affects wealth accumulation, and pension planning plays a key role in this relationship. In a large field experiment, we employ a digital pension aggregation tool to confront a treatment group with a simplified overview of their current pension claims across all pillars of the pension system. We combine survey and administrative bank data to measure the effects on actual saving behavior. Access to the tool decreases pension uncertainty for treated individuals. Average savings increase - especially for the financially less literate. We conclude that simplification of pension information can potentially reduce disparities in pension planning and savings behavior.
The financial sector plays an important role in financing the green transformation of the European economy. A critical assessment of the current regulatory framework for sustainable finance in Europe leads to ambiguous results. Although the level of transparency on ESG aspects of financial products has been significantly improved, it is questionable whether the complex, mainly disclosure-oriented architecture is sufficient to mobilise more private capital into sustainable investments. It should be discussed whether a minimum Taxonomy ratio or Green Asset Ratio has to be fulfilled to market a financial product as “green”. Furthermore, because of the high complexity of the regulation, it could be helpful for the understanding of private investors to establish a simplified green rating, based on the Taxonomy ratio, to facilitate the selection of green financial products.
This policy note summarizes our assessment of financial sanctions against Russia. We see an increase in sanctions severity starting from (1) the widely discussed SWIFT exclusions, followed by (2) blocking of correspondent banking relationships with Russian banks, including the Central Bank, alongside secondary sanctions, and (3) a full blacklisting of the ‘real’ export-import flows underlying the financial transactions. We assess option (1) as being less impactful than often believed yet sending a strong signal of EU unity; option (2) as an effective way to isolate the Russian banking system, particularly if secondary sanctions are in place, to avoid workarounds. Option (3) represents possibly the most effective way to apply economic and financial pressure, interrupting trade relationships.
In the aftermath of the Wirecard scandal the German lead stock market index DAX has undergone a series of reforms, including the introduction of a profitability criterion based on EBITDA for new DAX members and enhanced financial reporting requirements with specified sanctions for non-compliance. Furthermore, DAX members need to adhere to certain provisions in the German Corporate Governance Code relating to audit committees. The final step of the reform was implemented in September 2021: the extension of the DAX from 30 to 40 constituents, with the ranking based solely on the free float market capitalisation. After one year of experience with the new design of the DAX, this paper concludes that the reform has strengthened the DAX in terms of diversification, quality and adaptability. However, there is still room for further improvement by introducing a minimum ESG score for DAX companies and thus making sustainability a relevant factor in the selection process. In addition, full compliance with the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code should be a condition for DAX companies. Furthermore, the profitability criterion should be applied on a continuous basis to ensure that loss-making companies can be excluded from the DAX after a grace period.
For the academic audience, this paper presents the outcome of a well-identified, large change in the monetary policy rule from the lens of a standard New Keynesian model and asks whether the model properly captures the effects. For policymakers, it presents a cautionary tale of the dismal effects of ignoring basic macroeconomics. The Turkish monetary policy experiment of the past decade, stemming from a belief of the government that higher interest rates cause higher inflation, provides an unfortunately clean exogenous variance in the policy rule. The mandate to keep rates low, and the frequent policymaker turnover orchestrated by the government to enforce this, led to the Taylor principle not being satisfied and eventually a negative coeffcient on inflation in the policy rule. In such an environment, was the exchange rate still a random walk? Was inflation anchored? Does the “standard model”” suffice to explain the broad contours of macroeconomic outcomes in an emerging economy with large identifying variance in the policy rule? There are no surprises for students of open-economy macroeconomics; the answers are no, no, and yes.