No description available.

No description available.

The literature trying to link the increase in unemployment in many western European countries since the middle of the 1970s to an increase in labour market rigidity has run into a number of problems. In particular, changes in labour market institutions do not seem to be able to explain the evolution of unemployment across time. We conclude that a new theory of medium run unemployment swings should explain the increase in unemployment in many European countries and the lack thereof in the United States. Furthermore, it should also help to explain the high degree of endogenous unemployment persistence in the many European countries and findings suggesting a link between disinflationary monetary policy and subsequent increases in the NAIRU. To address these issues, we first develop an endogenous growth sticky price model. We subject the model to an uncorrelated cost push shock, in order to mimic a scenario akin to the one faced by central banks at the end of the 1970s. Monetary policy implements a disinflation by following an interest feedback rule calibrated to an estimate of a Bundesbank reaction function. 40 quarters after the shock has vanished, unemployment is still about 1.8 percentage points above its steady state. The model also partly explains cross country differences in the unemployment evolution by drawing on differences in the size of the disinflation, the monetary policy reaction function and wage setting. We then draw some conclusions about optimal monetary policy in the presence of endogenous growth and find that optimal policy is substantially less hawkish than in an identical economy without endogenous growth. The second model introduces duration dependent skill decay among the unemployed into a New-Keynesian model with hiring frictions developed by Blanchard/Gali (2008). If the central bank responds only to inflation and quarterly skill decay is above a threshold level, determinacy requires a coefficient on inflation smaller than one. The threshold level is plausible with little steady-state hiring and firing ("Continental European Calibration") but implausibly high in the opposite case ("American calibration"). Neither interest rate smoothing nor responding to the output gap helps to restore determinacy if skill decay exceeds the threshold level. However, a modest response to unemployment guarantees determinacy. Moreover, under indeterminacy, both an adverse sunspot shock and an adverse technology shock increase unemployment extremely persistently.

published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

No description available.

The present work utilizes both quantitative and qualitative techniques to extract the cognitive and affective elements of national identity from political discourse. However, a focus on national identity tends to depict the group as undifferentiated, obscuring the significant diversity which exists within the political community, at least in terms of how political objects are interpreted. Accordingly, another objective of this work is to investigate the diversity of interpretative schemes among different classes of individuals in the same political community. Another key argument is that discourses obscure undesirable political realities, domestic and international, at least temporarily. Apropos this thesis, the euro was sold by some elements of the ruling class in miraculous terms, as some sort of ‘savior’ that would solve all of Italy’s problems. This obscured the fact that only Italians, and not the euro, could lead to the real and sustained political and economic modernization that Italians desire. In the international sphere, the euro was sold as a policy that would help end Italy’s marginalization in Europe of second-class status (compared to the first-class status enjoyed by Germany, France, and the UK). This obscured the fact that the determinants of status in the international system are rooted in other variables, most of which have little to do with whether a country adopts a common currency like the euro. The case study to explore the validity of these arguments is the European Monetary Union (EMU), specifically, the links between national politics and EMU. Two countries were selected: Italy, which initially wholeheartedly supported EMU, and the UK, which overwhelmingly rejected the common currency from its inception in 1999. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-07-08 17:05:52.57

This research is a response to suggestions by the various European Community (EC) institutions that differences between the property law regimes of the various member states represent an obstacle to further European integration. The EC is itself a legal entity having legislative powers. Within its areas of competence it legislates on many social and economic issues and its legislation is binding in the legal systems of its fifteen member states. However, EC legislative powers are said to be ‘attributive’ in that sovereignty ultimately resides with the members states. The EC is therefore only competent to legislate in areas where the member states have invested it with the necessary powers. Specifically, in the context of this research, the EC has no competence to legislate on matters related to property law. Article 295 of the EC treaty (former Article 222) states that law-making powers in these areas remain with the member-states. The research examines the suggestion that certain features of some national property law regimes are in conflict with the social and economic aspirations of further European integration and investigates the regimes of the fifteen member states in this context. It adopts a comparative law methodology and seeks to identify similarities and differences between the various regimes. The methodology utilises an expert from each of the states to produce a collection of national reports which are then analysed within the thesis.

This study is an exploration of an institutionalised world that refugees inhabit in today’s Europe. It argues that the institutional system that organises the reception of refugees and their settlement in a receiving country is based on historically and politically contingent constructions of “a refugee”. The research was conducted in the Czech Republic – an emerging country of immigration and asylum at the semiperiphery of the European Union. It draws on qualitative empirical data generated in interviews and participant observations among state officials, intergovernmental and nongovernmental workers, asylum seekers and refugees from Armenia, Belarus and Chechnya. The thesis brings together the key actors that shape the construction of “a refugee” and examines the key sites of the refugee system where this construction takes place: asylum and immigration legislation, refugee determination process, refugee camps and nongovernmental spaces of assistance and public representation of refugees. “A refugee” is analysed as an idealised concept that underlies asylum policymaking; as an object of governance that shapes institutional practices; and as a lived and performed gendered experience that forms and transforms identities. The dominant view of refugees as people of little or no choice is challenged by presenting them as knowledgeable actors who act strategically in an unevenly contoured terrain of the refugee system. Also the view of institutions as operating in a consistent and unified manner is questioned. Their actions are described as often contradictory and dissenting voices are incorporated into the analysis. Moreover, the institutions of the refugee system are presented as tied together by mutually constitutive relationships in the context of unequal power relations.

Since 1993, the European Union has dramatically increased the scope and volume of its procurement regulation; particular increases have been made in terms of the procurement procedures made available, and the obligations that national contracting authorities have in light of EU law. This thesis examines the influence that recent developments in EU public procurement law have had on national procurement regulation in the UK, the Netherlands, and France. To assess this influence, three 'case study' areas were selected for investigation: the new procurement procedure 'competitive dialogue', made available for the procurement of complex contracts; the ability to repeat purchase using 'framework agreements', recently made available for purchasing in non-utilities sectors; and the Court of Justice's use of 'general principles of equal treatment and transparency', which has created new obligations for national contracting authorities. The thesis found that, in the areas examined, the influence of EU secondary legislation is substantial and-in two of the three countries examined-also plays a visible role in national regulation where EU law is not mandatory. The Court of Justice jurisprudence evaluated has had its most significant impact on the national judiciary: courts were found to reinforce the Court's judgments in all countries. Soft law issued by the European Commission had little perceivable influence on the formal legal regulation of the Member States examined, but may have influenced approaches taken to guidance or legislation more generally. The thesis also observed that harmonization of national laws, despite not being an objective of the EU rules, has increased in recent years-but even now, national differences (usually reflective of historical approaches taken to procurement regulation) are visible in those areas where the EU rules are optional, rather than mandatory.