The age of (Western) European integration: A history of trial and error

Summary In this article the process of post-war European integration has been analyzed against the background of an explanation of the Council of Europe in 1950 that political and economic unification should be developed simultaneously. History shows that in order to realize this objective, the gradualist approach believing primarily in a functional economic integration was preferred to the more radical method of taking immediate steps towards a full political union. The establishment of the European Communities formed the embodiment of the gradualist approach. Though these Communities — and the European Economic Community in particular - have fostered economic and monetary cooperation between the Western European countries, they could not, however, take the necessary steps towards the political ideal due to different views of the member states regarding the process of European integration. With the Treaty of Maastricht, coming into force on 1 November 1993, a new European élan has been born but the question posed by the Council in 1950 still has to be solved. One of the main lessons of European integration in the past fifty years may well be that economic and monetary unification will not proceed without some kind of prompting of a political nature.Historical section of the Econometric Reseach and Special Studies Department of De Nederlandsche Bank NV, Amsterdam. The author is indebted to Willem Boeschotcn, martin M.G. Fase, Nico van Horn, and Joke Mooij for thier valuable comments. All errors and opinions arc mine.     

Improving competitiveness. Critical success factors for tourism development

For a variety of reasons an increasing number of local authorities and other agencies have turned to tourism as a means of economic development. To date, however, the level of activity among policy makers has not been matched by research that might inform their deliberations. Although the importance of demand-related issues — such as the promotion of particular destinations — is recognised, this paper shifts the focus to the neglected issue of sector supply. It argues that if tourism is to contribute to economic development that is sustainable, private — and public-sector facilities (such as attractions or hotels) must be nationally — and often internationally — competitive. The paper proposes a model for understanding the competitiveness of organisations in the sector and reports the findings of its application in a case study of east and south-east London.     

European integration and corporate restructuring: the strategy of Unilever,c.1957–c.19901

European integration and corporate restructuring: the strategy of Unilever, c.1957‐c.1990. While much has been written about the politics of European integration, discussion about the role of business in this process has been largely confined to lobbying activities. This article focuses on the business reaction to European integration. It highlights the constraints facing one of Europe's largest firms in building a regional detergents business. These included divergences in market demand and political obstacles to rationalization, but more serious was a corporate culture based around local decision making and consensus. The study demonstrates that a full understanding of the European integration process must incorporate a firm‐level analysis of how Europe‐wide businesses were built after 1957.     

Towards a European urban policy

In the face of some opposition from those who plead subsidiarity as the central plank of European policies, the emergence of an urban dimension to European policies has been significant in the last five years. Now, reinforced by a research base, with the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions providing a political route to influence, and with a modest programme of experimentation in urban projects in progress, the “urban” appears genuinely fixed on the political agenda of Europe. From a UK perspective the substance of the programmes is limited; small in scale and following many of the lines established within City Challenge or the Urban Partnerships, the new European urban initiatives are substantively modest and marginal. Much more important is the symbolic importance of a European urban perspective. This gives impetus to the policy debate at both European and national levels with the Commission's Community Initiative directing attention not simply to growing polarisation, marginalisation and exclusion in cities, but also to issues of urban fiscal crisis — the interaction of heavy expenditure needs with inadequate tax or grant base. Increasingly fierce competition between cities for investment and growth, with both Brussels and nation states involved as regulators and/or co-competitors is certain to exacerbate inter urban differentials and to reinforce the salience of questions of social exclusion and urban fiscal crisis.     

The Link between Institutional and Economic Integration: Insights for Latin America from the European Experience

The European experience illustrates that institutional integration interacts with economic integration at the regional level. In this paper we ask how economic and institutional integration are linked and whether there is a causal link between the two. We present an original indicator of institutional integration and study how it developed vis-à-vis diverse measures of economic integration. In particular, we ask what insights can be drawn from the European process of regional integration, which started in the 1950s, for regional integration in Latin America today. We find that Latin America is currently less economically integrated not only than the European Union today, but for certain economic variables even than the European Union in the 1960s. A VAR analysis illustrates that the link between institutional and economic integration has worked both ways throughout the European experience. There is also evidence that stronger institutional integration has indeed led to deeper economic integration.     

Globalisation and the European disease

Summary This paper analyses the impact of globalisation of economic relationships on the European labour market. The main finding is that Europe's unemployment problem is rooted in rigidities in the labour market itself, while the increasing importance of international trade should provide an opportunity to reduce long-term labour market slack. To reap the potential benefits in this respect, European governments would need to re-orient structural policies towards a better functioning of labour and product markets.Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Economics Department, Paris. The author is indebted to several of his colleagues in the Economics Department — in particular Bob Ford, Katie Gordon, Wim Suyker, Thorsteinn Thorgeirsson, and Nick Vanston — and two anonymous referees for their useful comments on an earlier draft. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Organisation or the governments of its member countries.     

The Contribution of the Italian Liberal Thought to the European Union: Einaudi and His Heritage from Leoni to Alesina

The Italian classical liberal tradition of Federalism and European integration is well founded. Starting with Luigi Einaudi, who took up the heritage of Carlo Cattaneo, it has continued with Giovanni Malagodi, Giovanni Demaria, and Bruno Leoni, not to mention the liberals of Einaudi’s times. The same reflection continues today. Alberto Alesina is a prominent personality among the scholars who can be considered as full heirs of Einaudi. A foresight, often impressive, is the thread linking Einaudi’s writings on European federation. Between the twenties and the early fifties of the 20th century, Einaudi traced with great precision the profile and many details of a politically and economically unified Europe. Today, we do not have the federation that he wished for, but the economic sovereignty among EU countries has been shared to a great extent. Other prominent Italian liberal thinkers and politicians have reflected on the idea of a federal Europe and on the incipient European construction: thinkers such as Bruno Leoni, Giovanni Malagodi and Giovanni Demaria. Giovanni Malagodi, for many years a member of the Italian Parliament and secretary general of the Italian Liberal party, in his speech for the ratification of the Treaty of Rome, advocated a European monetary union with a single currency substituting those of the Member States of the EEC. Both Giovanni Demaria and Bruno Leoni warned against the danger of Government interventionist policies in the European common market. Alesina, in various scholarly contributions on European integration and in the essay The Future of Europe, adopts a liberal perspective for his critical analysis of EU policies.     

National economic forecasting at local level: Applications of the Cambridge model in the West Midlands

The pioneering local economic strategies developed by the GLC and Metropolitan County Councils prior to their abolition in March 1986 frequently drew upon comprehensive research and analysis. The West Midlands County Council was the only local authority using forecasts derived from a national economic model as an input to research for local economic development. This article discusses the West Midlands' experience in using forecasts derived from Cambridge Econometrics' model of the UK economy for sectoral analysis, strategic land-use planning and evaluation of the regional impact of national economic policies.     

Does financial development help to align growth opportunities with growth? Evidence from industry-level data

Financial institutions are expected to play a crucial role in reallocating resources in favor of industries facing greater global and local shocks to growth opportunities. Fisman and Love, in their paper entitled “Financial development and intersectoral allocation: A new approach”, argue that growth opportunities are unobservable and propose a new methodology to test the capital allocation hypothesis. The methodology is based on correlations in the patterns of intra-industry growth between two countries and similarities in the level of financial development and income. This paper extends their methodology by proposing direct and forward-looking measures of local and global growth opportunities, obtained by interacting the country’s patterns of industrial specialization with industry-level price-earnings ratios, as in the paper “Global growth opportunities and market integration” by Bekaert et al. The results, obtained in a cross-section framework including 37 developed and developing countries over the period 1992–2006, confirm the relevance of financial development to promote economic growth and to help industries in taking advantage of global and local growth opportunities. They also show that the methodology developed by Fisman and Love can be extended to include direct measures of growth opportunities.     

Finland and the question of West European economic integration, 1947–1961

Abstract

The study deals, on one hand, with the international politics connections, and, on the other, the endogenous economic policy implications of Finland's relationship with West European economic arrangements from the Marshal! Plan up to the FINN-EFTA Agreement. In the 1950s, the Finnish economy was, in fact, a closed economy, albeit highly dependent on foreign trade. Finland's international position in the Soviet sphere of influence imposed restraints with regard to participation in international economic integration. Finland, for example, remained outside the Marshal! Plan and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), and even Nordic cooperation was a delicate matter from the point of view of relations with the Soviets. However, the protectionist foreign trade policies, consisting of both tariffs and quantitative restrictions, explain at least as much of the relative isolation of the Finnish economy. In these circumstances, Finland's participation in EFTA cooperation, within the framework of the FINN-EFTA agreement, from 1961 onwards was the decisive turning point towards an opening economy.     

Local economic development by community business

The contribution of community business to local economic development is being increasingly recognised. In Scotland's largest Region, Strathclyde, there are already 35 community businesses trading. The companies - community owned, community controlled and non-profit distributing - are almost exclusively based in 'deprived' areas. Glen Buchanan looks at the background of deteriorating employment opportunities against which community businesses have emerged, outlines the characteristics of community business, analyses their role as an agent for local economic development, and appraises the work of Strathclyde Community Business Ltd, the UK's largest community business development agency.     

Private transnational governance in the heyday of the nation‐state: the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF)1

This article examines an example of private transnational governance in the first decades after the Second World War: the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF), created in 1949 by the peak‐level trade associations in western Europe. Based on this case, the article takes issue with two predominant views in the current literature: a view that sees the European integration process, at least in its early stages, as driven largely by nation‐states and political agendas; and another view, widespread among business and economic historians, that contacts between business associations at that time served the main purpose of re‐establishing international cartels. The CEIF actually performed a wide variety of functions: it represented organized business at international events and in organizations, acted as a multilateral arena for the exchange of information and for building trust among the businesspeople of various European countries, and, from 1958 onwards, helped bridge the divide between those inside and those outside the Common Market. On occasions, for example, in the case of export incentives, it even managed to forge a consensus for policy action when national governments were unable to agree.     

The European Monetary Policy Responses During the Pandemic Crisis

This paper uses an event-based analysis to describe how the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) policy responses to the pandemic crisis have affected the European financial and economic system. The result of our exercise, which is based on the examination of the main measures taken by the ECB during 2020, is that these responses have positively affected the European economic system by improving banks’ lending activity and by indirectly creating room for expansionary fiscal policies in the euro area’s high-debt countries that do not have fiscal capacity.

     

鄂西生态文化旅游圈地质公园旅游可持续发展路径探讨

地质公园旅游是旅游业发展的重要增长点,对于推动地学科普和带动地方经济社会发展具有重要的促进作用。鄂西生态文化旅游圈地质地貌旅游资源十分丰富,但在地质公园建设与发展过程中面临诸多困境,严重制约了地质公园旅游的可持续发展。为了改变这些困境,对鄂西生态文化旅游圈地质公园发展进行了优势、劣势、机遇和威胁分析,并针对这些问题提出深挖内涵、重视科普、严格保护、整合资源和打造特色等五个方面路径,以期推动鄂西生态文化旅游圈地质公园旅游的可持续发展。     

广佛肇一体化框架下绥江流域发展战略研究

运用SWOT分析方法,正确认识广佛肇一体化框架下绥江流域经济发展的优势和劣势,以及绥江流域面临的发展机会和障碍性威胁,强调绥江流域经济发展应着力解决的根本问题,并提出相关的对策和建议,以期推动实现绥江流域经济的跨越式发展。     

日本中小企业的历史地位及其在经济再生中的作用

在战后日本经济总量的扩大和产业结构的优化过程中，中小企业发挥了不可替代的作用，它与大企业一起共同支撑了日本经济的振兴。究其缘由，这是中小企业具有自己相对固定的优势领域、与大企业形成的长期分工和互补关系以及多品种小批量的生产体制等多种因素共同作用的结果．20世纪90年代以后，中小企业更是利用其在生产经营上具有的机动性和灵活性特点，在吸纳劳动力就业、推动技术革新以及振兴地方经济等方面积极发挥作用，为遏制日本经济的进一步恶化进而走上“再生”道路不断贡献力量．     

The French commitment to European monetary integration: A review of the two EMS crises (1981–83, 1992–93)

This paper focuses on the process of exchange rate management during the two European Monetary System(EMS) crises, in 1981–83 and 1992–93, and examines the factors which led the French governments to adhere to the EMS. France's strong franc (franc fort) policy is a useful test case for maintaining national commitment to European monetary integration. The origin of the franc fort policy can be traced back to the exchange rate crisis of 1981–83. By actively supporting European institutions and emphasizing the emergence of a strong and united European common currency, France discovered the way to bolster confidence in her economic policy. Beyond this focal point, political justification and economic rationality became mutually reinforcing, configuring French national preference in European monetary integration. The response of the French government to the EMS crisis of 1992–93 was more consistent compared to the response to the 1981–83 crisis, and reflected the accumulation of loyalty to European monetary integration. This loyalty, however, was made neither from purely economic calculation nor out of normative commitment French European monetary policy reflected the interaction between domestic politics and European monetary integration. The French commitment to the franc fort also was based on domestic political bases such as the existence of a core policy group, a centralized policy‐making structure, and an issue linkage between the franc fort and European integration.     

International Interdependence and Business Cycle Transmission between Turkey and the European Union

This study investigates the economic interdependence between Turkey and the European Union (EU). The main questions addressed are (i) Do Turkish and European business cycles move together? and (ii) Are European business cycles transmitted to Turkey? This investigation is important as Turkey seeks to become a full member of the EU. Trade flows, graphs, correlations, and a principal-components analysis are used to identify possible macroeconomic interdependence and transmissions. A structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model is estimated to determine the effects of European economic fluctuations on the Turkish economy. The SVAR includes GDP, consumer prices, money supplies, interest rates, and the exchange rate for Turkey and Germany. The investigation finds that Turkey's economy is only modestly influenced by European business cycles and is largely determined by domestic economic and political developments and various regional conflicts. The findings of this study have implications for Turkey's increasing economic integration into the EU.     

European integration and unemployment

Symes, V. 1995: UNEMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE - PROBLEMS AND POLICIES. London and New York: Routledge, £40.00 cased, £12.99 paper.

Alogoskoufis et al 1995: UNEMPLOYMENT: CHOICES FOR EUROPE. Monitoring European Integration 5, London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, £10.00, paper.

Blanchard et al 1995: SPANISH UNEMPLOYMENT — IS THERE A SOLUTION? London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, £14.95, paper.

Coates, K. and Holland, S. 1995: FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR EUROPE — THE COMMISSION, THE COUNCIL AND THE DEBATE ON EMPLOYMENT IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 1994-95. Nottingham: Spokesman for European Labour Forum, £9.99, paper.

Local Economy Policy Unit: CAN UNEMPLOYMENT BE CUT BY HALF BY 2000? A DISCUSSION STATEMENT PRESENTED BY THE BERLIN SENATE'S ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR LABOUR MARKET POLICY. London: Local Economic Policy Unit, £12.00, paper.     

Sustainable development and the local economy

This article sets out the divergence so far between the developing “environmental economics” and local authority “green strategies”. We propose a model of environmentally sustainable economic development. Our argument outlines “environmental efficiency” and more stringent “sustainability” objectives. It reviews current local authority activities and practices. All are within the “environmental efficiency” framework. It concludes by identifying opportunities created by recent government commitment to environmental improvement targets and argues that local authorities are well placed to take up the challenge of developing sustainable development in local economies. It suggests that this process will involve intervention in the market in a way not dissimilar to that adopted in the 1980s by local authorities concerned with developing socially progressive economic strategies and that this process might be termed “social environmentalism”.