Doing Away with the Sovereign: Neoliberalism and the Promotion of Market Discipline in European Economic Governance

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a critical reading of market discipline and its limitations as a mechanism in European economic governance. Consistent with neoliberal beliefs about market-based governance, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is premised on the functioning of the government bond market as a fiscal-policy discipliner. However, the operation of market discipline requires that neither governments nor their private creditors can rely on an authority to bail them out. It, therefore, precludes the kinds of intervention by Eurozone’s supranational institutions witnessed during the euro crisis. In the post-crisis context, efforts to strengthen market discipline continue to be frustrated by the growing reliance of financial institutions on government bond markets as well as the European Central Bank’s (ECB) active participation in those markets. Having undermined the credibility of the market as an autonomous and apolitical mechanism of discipline, European economic governance struggles to come to terms with the rise of a supranational ‘economic sovereign’ in the Eurozone.     

论我国现行缺陷产品召回制度

我国有关缺陷产品召回制度的法律规范或者原则性较强缺乏可操作性、或者位阶较低不具有广泛性、或者针对特定产品适用面较窄。所以,我们应借鉴发达国家的先进经验制定有关缺陷产品召回制度的基本法律和针对特定行业的特别法律,同时建立明确的缺陷产品召回管理体系,以形成保护消费者、维护市场安全与稳定的健全的法律制度和运行机制。     

旅游业与资源型产业之间的和谐发展——兼论山西省煤炭和旅游和谐发展

旅游业是一个和谐的产业,和谐旅游是推动和谐社会建设的重要力量,而和谐旅游的实施难点在于很好地处理旅游业与资源型产业之间的摩擦.文章以山西省为案例研究了旅游与煤炭的和谐发展,总结了煤旅关系的五个本质特点和煤旅矛盾的五种表现方式,找到了煤旅和谐发展的亮点,提出了煤旅和谐发展的四种思路,认为大力发展煤炭工业和大力发展旅游产业都是山西经济发展的重中之重,发展煤炭工业可以实现社会经济的跨跃式发展,发展旅游产业可以实现经济增长方式的转变,推进社会和谐发展和可持续发展.     

深圳应更好发挥产业集群的增长引擎作用

近几年，我国各地区掀起了一股发展产业集群的热潮，这股热潮的背后也隐藏着诸多问题。本文以深圳市为例，分析了目前产业集群发展中存在的各产业集群间联系效应不强、地区间集群同构等问题，并为产业集群的进一步健康、可持续发展提出了发展链条型产业集群、互补型产业集群等相应的建议。     

西方产业竞争政策的体系和目标

本文讨论美国、欧共体和日本的竞争政策的方法和体系的差异问题。美国的竞争政策侧重于追求消费者剩余和生产者剩余最大化 ,强调通过竞争的作用来达到这一经济效率目标。欧共体的竞争政策则强调在消费者福利的基础地位 ,通过协调竞争规则来促进欧共体经济一体化的进程。日本的反垄断法原本从西方吸收过来的 ,经过半个世纪的发展和演变 ,已经具有明显的日本特色 ,其基本功特征是对价格机制的运作缺乏信任 ,对规模经济神话的盲目崇拜和信任 ,结果是经常提倡和鼓励那种必然会导致寡占市场结构的兼并活动。     

英国脱欧后美欧贸易投资关系及其变化

由于英国正式脱欧,美国与欧洲的贸易和投资关系快速变化。从贸易角度看,商品贸易中欧盟地位有所下降,成为美国第三大商品出口市场和第二大进口来源市场,美欧之间的贸易商品构成也发生了变化;服务贸易中由于英国所占份额最大,英国脱欧也将影响美欧之间的服务贸易额。从投资角度看,美欧仍是彼此最大的外国直接投资的来源地和目的地。     

国民经济优先发展行业排序方法

为优化经济发展途径 ,筛选出经济中的优势行业给予重点支持 ,是宏观经济学的重要任务。本文首先应用统计学中的主成分分析法 ,针对湖北省情况 ,对国民经济 4 0个 1级行业进行排序 ,取得符合实际的结果 ,筛选出消费优势部门及生产优势部门。     

Measuring new product success: an empirical investigation of Australian SMEs

New product development (NPD) has long been recognised as one of the corporate core functions. However, measuring new product success has remained elusive. This paper attempts to examine several conceptual issues underlining the measurement of new product success and the measurement practice adopted in Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The sample included 276 SMEs from two most innovative industries: chemical and machinery industries. Results have indicated that four factors underline the commonly used success measurement: financial performance, objective market acceptance, subjective market acceptance, and product-level measures. These four factors are related to each other and can be used to well predict the overall measurement. The most frequently used specific measures in Australian SMEs are customer acceptance, customer satisfaction, product performance, and quality.     

Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability

In this paper, we empirically examine whether superior performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) results in lower credit risk, measured by credit ratings and zero-volatility spreads (z-spreads). We are especially interested in how the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related performance of the corresponding countries moderates this relationship. We find only weak evidence that superior corporate social performance (CSP) results in systematically reduced credit risk. However, we do find strong support for our hypothesis that a country’s ESG performance moderates the CSP–credit risk relationship. Superior CSP is regarded as risk-reducing and rewarded with better ratings and lower z-spreads only if it is recognized by the environment. In addition, we find a reduction of corporate bonds’ z-spreads by approx. 9.64 basis points if the CSP of a company mirrors the ESG performance of the country it is located in.     

Balanced scorecard based performance measurement of European airlines using a hybrid multicriteria decision making approach under the fuzzy environment

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the European airlines, using a balanced scorecard perspective. Within this scope, a hybrid multi-criteria approach was used by combining the Fuzzy DEMATEL, Fuzzy ANP, and MOORA methods. The results demonstrate that customer dimensions and profit per customer are the most significant key factors in the balanced scorecard perspective. Additionally, the airline companies with the largest profit (per employee) and highest number of passengers and flights (per employee) had the best scores in the multidimensional performance results. Furthermore, the airline companies with the highest profitability and efficiency are more successful than other companies. Therefore, we recommend European airlines to focus on these aspects in order to improve their performance. This study makes an important contribution to literature by helping to solve a significant problem in the market with the proposed methodology.