2009 releases
[+] |RECO| Our Progressive Society in the 21st Century
A study by the Economic Council of the Labour Movement (Denmark) | November '09
The European economy is now in the middle of the worst crisis in the history of the European Union. At worst unemployment will continue to rise and will reach 10½ percent in 2011. At best, with a GDP growth rate above 2 percent in 2011, the unemployment curve will break, but this will break off in 2011, but the unemployment rate will still be higher in 2011 than in 2009. There is therefore a major need to increase the European growth potential in the medium and long run. The strategy suggested in this paper focus on the following three pillars: Green investments, education and gender equality.
[+] Facing the test of global financial and economic crisis: will the EU rise to the challenge and deepen integration?
A study by Christian DEUBNER | November '09
How does one prevent domestic crisis-management from damaging European integration? How do we assess the added value of EU integration and take advantage of it in anti-crisis policy? Can the crisis favour new advances in European Union building? These are questions which FEPS considers to have a crucial importance of their own and tackled in the latest study by Christian DEUBNER, member of the FEPS Research Group.
[+] |FIN| Assessment of the Swedish Presidency proposal to regulate alternative investment funds managers
Contribution elaborated in the frame of FEPS expert group on hedge funds | November '09
The Swedish proposal is an attempt to move from an insufficient proposal to an almost empty one. All changes go in the same direction: the one of hedge funds and private equity.
[+] Fiscal Discipline in Federations in the After-math of the 2008 Financial Crisis: Can Market Discipline Survive in the USA and EMU?
A study for FEPS by Jonathan RODDEN, Stanford University | November '09
This study presents a game theory approach for insolvency risks of monetary unions.
[+] |RECO| From the financial crisis to the world economic crisis | The role of inequality
A contribution elaborated in the frame of the collaboration between FEPS and the IMK-Hans Böckler Stiftung | October '09
The importance of a growing income inequality for the explanation of the global economic crisis is increasingly emphasised by internationally renowned economists. At the same time the growing economic disparity is interpreted as the result of a shift in the political power structure, which has to be reversed in favour of lower income groups. The German debate, by contrast, is still characterised by demands for further wage restraint, social spending cuts and increases of the international competitiveness.
[+] |FIN| Building on the counter-cyclical consensus: a policy agenda
Background paper of the Basel-III conference [+] by Stephany GRIFFITH-JONES, Jose Antonio OCAMPO and Ariane ORTIZ, Initiative for Policy Dialogue | October '09
The long history of financial cycles, of which the current global crisis is an example, shows that pro-cyclical behaviour is inherent to the functioning of financial markets. Pro-cyclicality is characterised by excessive risk-taking and financial activity in good times, followed by insufficient risk-taking and financial activity in bad times. The pro-cyclical nature of finance calls for regulation that "leans against the wind".
[+] |FIN|RECO| Good banking practices
by Sony KAPOOR, Executive Director of Re-Define | September '09
Banks fulfil a very fundamental role in modern economies but are inherently fragile exactly as a result of performing these core functions of maturity transformation, credit creation and credit allocation. That having been said, a number of developments – some technology driven, some regulatory, some as a result of financial liberalization and some due to development in finance theory have made the banking system more fragile and increasingly susceptible to systemic risk.
[+] |FIN| Financial transaction taxes - The taxes of the future
by Sony KAPOOR, Executive Director of Re-Define | September '09
This concept paper lays out the case for a big expansion in this family of taxes and shows how the crisis has made it both more desirable and easier to implement financial transaction taxes.
[+] |FIN| Europeans and Americans for financial reforms: Summary of financial regulation proposals in the US and in Europe
by Sony KAPOOR, Executive Director of Re-Define
Brussels, Belgium | September '09
We are still in the middle of the most serious financial crisis at least since the Great Depression. Just as the 1930s, a meltdown in the financial system starting in 2007 has pulled the real economy into a recession. While things are looking less bad than they have been over the past 18 months, both the financial sector as well as the real economy remains highly vulnerable to the possibility of a second dip.
[+] |FIN| FEPS answers to House of Lords Call for evidence of AIFM Directive
Contribution elaborated in the frame of FEPS expert group on hedge funds
Brussels, Belgium | September '09
[+] |FIN| Update - Regulating hedge funds, private equity and other alternative investment vehicles
Contribution elaborated in the frame of FEPS expert group on hedge funds
Brussels, Belgium | September '09
Designing a comprehensive and efficient regulatory scheme for hedge funds, private equity and other alternative investment vehicles has become an urgent necessity. This position paper makes detailed proposals regarding what should be done. It is divided into three sections: key items, detailed explanations on our proposal and tables summarizing our position.
[+] |RECO| State of the crisis
FEPS Policy Note | Brussels, Belgium | September '09
Have we already reached the botton? The question arises if the pace of contraction of GDP in Europe is really slowing down and no further fiscal stimulus are warranted. Many economic institutes are arguing in this sense. In a short note, we are arguing that firstly it is too early to speak of a recovery at the European level. There is still an urgent need for an additional stimulus. The possibility to recover from the present crisis will finally depend on the effective demand to enterprises and consequently in changing the income distribution patterns for supporting aggregate demand. The current crisis is not only a crisis in financial markets, it finds its roots in global imbalances at national, regional and international levels.
[+] |FIN| A systemic approach to financial regulation - A European perspective
by Michel AGLIETTA, Professor of Economics at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and Scientific Advisor at CEPII, and Laurence SCIALOM, Professor of Economics at the University of Paris X-Nanterre
Brussels, Belgium | June '09
Malfunctioning in finance is so deep and disorders are so widespread that sweeping reforms are at the order of the day, if financial stability is viewed as a primary public concern.In this paper, the authors argue that macro prudential policy should be the linchpin of relevant reforms. Being a top-down approach, it impinges both upon monetary policy and micro prudential policy.
[+] |THEO| Towards a Reflection on Political Economy: Employment Theory
by Matthieu MEAULLE, FEPS Advisor in Economics | June '09
As suggested by Keynes in 1934, there seems to be a gulf separating two fundamental views in economic theory. They have their analytical continuations in the field of employment theory and therefore policy practices. Some economists think that the economic system is self-adjusting in the long-run, “though with creaks and groans and jerks, and interrupted by time-lags, outside interference, and mistakes”. Others see the economic system as intrinsically unstable; unstable in its capacity to tend towards a full employment equilibrium. This work belongs to the second school of thought. [full] [summary]
[+] |FIN|GOV| The Road Ahead after De Larosière
by Karel LANOO, Chief Executive of the Centre for European Policy Studies
Brussels, Belgium | June '09
The European Finance Ministers' decision of 9th June '09, successively adopted by the European Council, broadly implement the proposals of the De Larosière Committee and the European Commission on European financial supervision, and provided the necessary detail. From 2010 onwards, a new structure should be in place to ensure more integrated European macro- and micro-prudential oversight. The macro-economic risk council will be consultative and will largely function within the context of the ESCB, hence not posing big implementation issues. The Authorities coordinating micro-prudential supervision will be established by the Council in the autumn, basically upgrading the existing Committees, but with a substantially increased workload, raising important structural and organisational issues.
[+] |GEN| The Ways out of the Crisis and the Building of a more Cohesive World
by Joseph STIGLITZ and Jean-Paul FITOUSSI - Summary of the Shadow Gn organised by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue of Columbia University, with the collaboration of Luiss University (Italy) | May '09
The Shadow Gn is an initiative of IPD which aim is to gather experts and policymakers from around the world, to analyse the work of the official G8/G20, highlighting the issues that had benn left off the table and making recommendations for the alternative approaches to some of the topics at hand. FEPS is taking part to this initiative since the last meeting in New York, in February 2009, in the frame of its collaboration with Columbia University.
More on Shadow Gn initiative at [IPD] or [LUISS] websites.
[+] |FIN|GOV| A Development-Friendly Reform of the International Financial Architecture
Paper prepared by Jose Antonio OCAMPO, co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University | 23 March '09
"The financial crisis has shown how dysfunctional the current international financial architecture is to manage today's global economy. The need to govern globalisation has never been clearer, but at the same time the institutional arrangements that we have had never been so impotent. The calls for deep reforms of such architecture and even for a second Bretton Woods Conference are, therefore most welcome. Similar calls for reform were made after the Asian and Russian crises, which engulfed most of the developing world in deep recessions, but they led to at best marginal reforms. The fact that this time the industrial countries are at the center of the storm may lead them into action, but also creates the risk that measures of direct interest to developing countries may be marginalised in the current debate."
[+] |GEN| Round table meeting about "Global New Deal"
FEPS | Brussels | 13 March '09
[+] |RECO| European Recovery I
[+] |RECO| European Recovery II
[+] |RECO| European Recovery III]
Contributions elaborated in collaboration with the Danish Economic Council of the Labour Movement [ECLM] | February-June '09
These contributions consist of an analysis of two different stimulus packages : the first one based on EU Commission and Bruegel Institute estimates with 1.5% GDP stimuli both in 2009 and 2010; the second based on OECD economic outlook report of March 2009 with a 2% of GDP stimulus in 2009 and an extra 2.5% of GDP stimulus in 2010.
[+] |FIN| FEPS answer to Commissioner McCreevy's consultation on hedge funds]
Contribution elaborated in the frame of FEPS expert group on hedge funds
Brussels, Belgium | 29 January '09
The European Commission launched a wide-ranging public consultation on hedge funds, which will play an important role in informing the ongoing reflections at European and international level on whether there is a need to reassess the appropriateness of existing approaches to the regulation and supervision of this sector. FEPS contributed to this process.
