Revising the European Central Bank’s fiscal rules to support growth and employment

Abstract

The paper presents a reform proposal for the operations of the European Central Bank (ECB) whose purpose is to create a common set of risk-free assets for financial institutions operating in the euro area (EA), which is the necessary condition for having a single internal financial market. The proposal does not require the introduction of changes in the existing European Union treaties. The effects of this reform on the debt dynamic of EA member countries permit a revision of the existing fiscal rules. With the help of some simulations, it is shown that maintaining compliance with the European treaties, the reform of the ECB operations and revised fiscal rules would transform the current fiscal deflationary stance into a reflationary one. Some implications for aggregate demand and growth for the EA are briefly discussed.     

Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e., the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore alters the organization of the average family.     

Spanish Economic Review referees (2003-2004)

Spanish Economic Review referees (2003-2004)

Spanish Economic Review referees (2003-2004)     

Obstacles and solutions on the ladder of citizen participation: a systematic review

This article presents a systematic review of the English-language empirical literature about citizen participation to identify the obstacles to its implementation and the most successful ways to address them. Three sets of variables seem to impact effectiveness: contextual factors, including information asymmetries and public officials’ attitude; organizational arrangements, including community representation criteria and process design; and process management patterns, including group dynamics and collaboration quality. Two recommendations stem from our analysis: internalize decisions in organizational procedures, and establish ongoing interactions between government bodies and their stakeholders. We conclude that half-hearted engagement is unlikely to lead to successful citizen participation.     

Decisioni di gruppo: Una rassegna dei contributi nell'ambito della teoria degli insiemi sfocati

In questo lavoro viene fornita una rassegna delle pubblicazioni più significative relative ai modelli di decisione di gruppo in ambiente sfocato (fuzzy). Particolare attenzione è stata riservata, oltre ai modelli di consenso, ai metodi per la risoluzione dei problemi di aggregazione delle preferenze individuali, per i quali si è proposta una ripartizione nelle seguenti classi: metodi euristici, metodi assiomatici e metodi di approssimazione.

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Summary The paper contains a review of contributions about the use of fuzzysets to study group decisions. The contributions about the aggregation problem are classified into heuristical methods, axiomatic methods and approximation methods.Particular attention is devoted to normal collective choice theory and consensus theory.

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Lavoro eseguito con il finanziamento C.N.R. n. 83.02619.10. I paragrafi 2.1, 2.2 e 2.3 sono dovuti a M. Fedrizzi, i paragrafi 3 e 4 a W. Ostasiewicz.     

A systematic mapping study on enterprise architecture mining

Enterprise architecture allows companies to deal with digital transformation through the proactive presentation and alignment of business and IT in a holistic manner. One important challenge is EA modelling since it is time-consuming (thus expensive), error-prone, and biased owing to experts’ subjective opinions. This challenge might consequently be addressed through automatic EA modelling. We conducted a systematic mapping study to classify and evaluate the research concerning EA mining proposals developed specifically for TOGAF and Archimate. After analysing results, we concluded that the research field is not sufficiently mature and further research on EA mining is necessary.     

Location Choice and Contract Bargaining

We study how managerial bargaining power affects outcomes and payoffs in a Hotelling‐type duopoly framework with restricted and unrestricted locations. We show that bargaining power only affects the distribution of the surplus between owners and managers but does not affect the locations, prices, managerial incentives, and consumer welfare. This is in stark contrast to van Witteloostuijn et al. (2007) and related contributions where bargaining power has real effects. We argue that the difference between our irrelevance result and their findings originates from the fact that their approach seems to be based on a behavioral assumption and not on microeconomic principles of owner–manager bargaining. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutions and Foreign Subsidiary Growth in Transition Economies: The Role of Intangible Assets and Capabilities

Although transition economies experience significant institutional transformations that vary in their degree and pace, scholarly knowledge of what distinguishes more successful foreign subsidiaries from less successful ones in such environments is limited and inconsistent. We enhance the understanding of this subject by examining how variations in the institutional development of transition economies influence the usefulness of a subsidiary's intangible assets and capabilities and, in turn, their effectiveness in enhancing its growth. Prior research assumes that foreign subsidiaries that operate in any given environment are always better off when they possess strong intangible assets and capabilities. Our analysis of more than 33,000 observations in 14 transition economies challenges this view and enables us to explain why some subsidiaries grow more quickly in less‐developed institutional environments, whereas others more quickly in countries with institutions that are more developed. More specifically, we show that although a subsidiary's intangible assets enhance its growth in transition economies with stronger institutions, these effects are particularly weak or insignificant in transition countries with less developed institutional environments. Conversely, a completely different pattern emerges for subsidiary capabilities, with their marginal effects on subsidiary growth being significantly higher in countries that are institutionally less developed than in transition countries with more developed institutions.     

On Non-Nash Equilibria

I consider generalisations of the Nash equilibrium concept based on the idea that in equilibrium the players' beliefs should not be contradicted, even if they could possibly be incorrect. This possibility depends on the information about opponents' behaviour available to the players in equilibrium. Therefore the players' information is crucial for this notion of equilibrium, called Conjectural Equilibrium in general and Rationalizable Conjectural Equilibrium (Rubinstein-Wolinsky 1994) when the game and the players' Bayesian rationality are common knowledge. In this paper I argue for a refinement of Rationalizable Conjectural Equilibrium showing by propositions and by examples how this equilibrium notion works and how the suitable equilibrium concept depends on the players' information.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, D83, D82.