Europeanization in Cypriot Borderscapes: Experiencing the Green Line in Everyday Life

ABSTRACT

Despite the EU accession of the Republic of Cyprus in 2004, the “Green Line” dividing Cyprus that was added as a border in 1974 remains an external EU-border between the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), a self-proclaimed state internationally recognized exclusively by Turkey. Pro- and con European attitudes on Cyprus are therefore not recent phenomena, but date back to the start of EU accession negotiations in 1998 and the Annan-Plan for reunification in 2004. These aspects, however, refer to the Turkish-Greek antagonism on the island and the ongoing national tensions that have resulted in violent conflicts since independence in 1960, the establishment of a demilitarized UN Buffer Zone in 1964 and the division of the island in 1974, also cutting through the island’s capital Nikosia/Lefko?a. Drawing on fieldwork from 2004/2005 and 2014/2015 regarding the border’s shifting meanings and pointing to the border as a place where pro- and con-EU-articulations converge, emphasis is placed on the borderscape in Nikosia/Lefko?a that impedes and increases the movement of people and goods. After all, the border is a dividing line that both shapes and exhibits identities. Moreover, it serves as an individual economic resource whilst border-crossings likewise offer benefits. Nevertheless, the border also stands as painful emotional remembrances for people on both sides. The pro- and con-EU attitudes that were dominant when the RoC joined the EU in 2004 have thus been blurred on both sides of the Green Line. The empirical research for this paper has been framed by the question of how this blurring is intertwined with the division of Cyprus and how people are affected by the Green Line as a socio-material and symbolic artefact on the micro-scale of personal feelings, identities and practices.     

How modern economics learned French: Jacques Drèze and the foundation of CORE

The Center of Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE), founded in 1966, was one of the channels through which economic modelling practices were imported from the USA to Europe. Officially modelled after the Cowles Foundation for Economics Research, it reflected Jacques Drèze's broad experiences in the USA during the 1950s when modelling techniques were not yet anchored in disciplines. CORE gained an international reputation, however, through the rather exclusive community of Neo-Walrasian economists represented by Werner Hildenbrand, Jean Gabszewicz, and Gérard Debreu. After this community modified the disciplinary divisions at CORE, the influence of CORE on continental economics occurred mainly through disequilibrium economics, which still represents a “French accent” in modern macroeconomics. At the same time, operations research and econometrics prospered at CORE while receiving scant attention from economists. This essay tells the story of how CORE changed continental economics through the unique career path of its founder, Jacques Drèze.     

Does new health information affect health behaviour? The effect of health events on smoking cessation

This article empirically assesses the role of new health information in the decision to quit smoking. Using individual level data from the Swiss Household Panel, health information is proxied by three different types of health events: physical health problems, mental disorders, and accidents. Exploiting retrospectively reported information on smoking behaviour, smoking cessation is modelled using a discrete time hazard model that also accounts for estimation problems arising from almost quasi-complete separation in the data. The empirical results yield robust evidence that general health problems increase the probability of instantaneous smoking cessation. Differentiating between the type of health event reveals that the overall effect is mainly driven by physical health events.     

Intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in Austria

Up to now, there exist several studies documenting the educational expansion in Austria in the 20th century but only few studies measureing the degree of persistence of educational attainment over generations. Furthermore, for Austria there are no internationally comparable persistence-measures of educational attainment available. This study aims to fill this gap and delivers key-measures for intergenerational persistence of educational attainment. The Austrian Household Survey on Housing Wealth includes information on socioeconomic characteristics of respondents and their parents. The results demonstrate strong persistence in educational attainment in Austria. Using uni- as well as multivariate econometric techniques and a Markovian approach we show that educational persistence decreased over time. Overall, Austria ranks third in terms of intergenerational educational attainment persistence among a number of european countries and the US. Our results therefore allow to question the significance of meritocratic values and equal opportunity for educational advancement in the Austrian society compared to other European countries and the USA.     

Revisiting the trans-situationality of values in Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire

Quality & Quantity - Schwartz in his famous theory of basic values follows Parsons and Rokeach in arguing that human values are trans-situational or context free. For any individual, the same...     

The frontiers within: why employee representatives fail to set up European works councils

This article reviews results of a study conducted by the Technische Universität München into why the majority of German multinationals covered by the European Works Council (EWC) Directive (1994) continue not to take advantage of this legal provision. After providing a brief outline of the project's research design, the main part of the article considers reasons why employee representatives fail to set up an EWC. As will be shown, these reasons mainly concern (i) a knowledge deficit about the EWC Directive; (ii) a lack of transparency regarding company structure; and (iii) the perceived limited value of an EWC on the part of German works councillors.     

The impact of territorially concentrated FDI on local labor markets: Evidence from the Czech Republic

This paper investigates the impact of a large and territorially concentrated foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow on local labor market outcomes in the Czech Republic. A conditional difference-in-differences technique is employed for an estimation of the impact and block bootstrapping is used for computing consistent standard errors. The results indicate a positive and statistically as well as economically significant effect of a large investment project on the local unemployment outflow rate, which is driven mainly by increases in the aggregate unemployment exit hazard rates for unemployment durations smaller than nine months. Subsequent to the investment, the unemployment rate decreased by 1.7 percentage points and the employment rate increased by 3.7 percentage points in the host district. However, the impact on long-term unemployed was negligible as the exit hazard rates for durations longer than nine months remain unchanged. Moreover, a simple cost–benefit analysis suggests that investment incentives paid from a state budget would pay off only in a horizon of twelve years.     

Time-varying higher-order conditional moments and forecasting intraday VaR and Expected Shortfall

We estimate several GARCH- and Extreme Value Theory (EVT)-based models to forecast intraday Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for S&P 500 stock index futures returns for both long and short positions. Among the GARCH-based models we consider is the so-called Autoregressive Conditional Density (ARCD) model, which allows time-variation in higher-order conditional moments. ARCD model with time-varying conditional skewness parameter has the best in-sample fit among the GARCH-based models. The EVT-based model and the GARCH-based models which take conditional skewness and kurtosis (time-varying or otherwise) into account provide accurate VaR forecasts. ARCD model with time-varying conditional skewness parameter seems to provide the most accurate ES forecasts.