Lisbon, Europe 2020, and the case for soft coordination in EU policymaking

Positive spillovers from structural and other reforms figure among the key reasons for the Lisbon and the Europe 2020 Strategies. This paper investigates the theoretical and empirical evidence for such spillovers and shows that the need for coordination in some policy areas is less evident than commonly assumed, whereas in others a lack of coordination is at the root of persistent economic imbalances.