'Up and down' : Genoese financiers and their relational capital in the early reign of Philip II

Defence date: 26 January 2021Examining board: Professor Regina Grafe (European University Institute); Professor Luca Molà (University of Warwick); Professor Carmen Sanz Ayán (Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Professor Manuel Herrero Sánchez (Universidad Pablo de Olavide)This doctoral thesis analyses the process of state construction in the early modern period from a joint perspective that amalgamates the agencies of state officials, lending communities, and local elites in the Hispanic Monarchy during the four initial years of Philip II’s reign. The project examines the convergence of private agendas inside and outside the royal administration, which were channelled by the Genoese lending community to overcome the consolidation of royal short-term debt in 1557 and its consequences. The application of an institutional approach, based on the works of Avner Greif, to the analysis of the social organisations that prevented a failure of coordination in the Hispanic Monarchy offers a fresh perspective on a topic normally assessed under predatory models. The specific study of two Genoese lenders who contributed to the establishment of a more viable and efficient financial system in the monarchy, Costantin Gentil and Nicolao de Grimaldo, provides details about how interregional transactions and local economies contributed to the consolidation of the early modern state

An introduction to the collected works of Domenico Mario Nuti

Published online: 21 May 2023These two volumes bring together many of the most significant contributions to economic theory and policy of Domenico Mario Nuti (1937–2020)

Regulatory sandboxes : do they speed up innovation in energy?

Published online: 08 June 2023Regulatory sandboxes are generally seen as an important tool to make policy and regulation evolve with the changes in our energy system and to create an equal playing field for new technologies and business models that arise with the energy transition. Although an increasing number of legal frameworks on regulatory sandboxes are being implemented in Europe, the pioneers in the Netherlands decided to close their sandbox program. These contradictory events lead to questions about the potential of regulatory sandboxes to bring innovation to the European energy sector. This paper contributes to this discussion by examining the experiences with regulatory sandboxes in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain. We compare approved sandbox projects based on their scope and regulatory derogations to identify areas of innovation and regulatory learning brought by regulatory sandboxes. We also examine the legal frameworks of the concerned countries to evaluate the interaction between the implementation of the framework and its potential to bring innovation. In this way, we develop best practices on the topics of regulatory sandboxes and their imple[1]mentation frameworks

The social partners and EU treaty-making : revisiting Maastricht through the archives

This working paper sheds new light on the social partners in EU Treaty-making, particularly on today’s Title X TFEU on social policy, their interactions with EU institutions and the Member States in this process, and on EU treaty-making itself as a focus of scholarly inquiry. The Treaty-making process that led to the Maastricht Treaty is famously identified as a moment where three social partners organizations – ETUC, UNICE, and CEEP - drafted and agreed a social policy agreement (‘SPA’) annexed to the Treaty, later integrated in it. This SPA established a European social dialogue procedure by which social partners could ‘take over’ the EU law-making process on social policy and adopt a collective agreement, then capable of being generally extended by EU law. Our research proposes an adjusted reading of this important episode of Treaty-making by the social partners. The social partners’ role for Maastricht is indeed an atypical example of Treaty-making in that they had an unusual, EU institutionally supported, position to make proposals for Treaty change and their agreement was recorded as part of the official IGC documents. In a first perspective, this working paper provides an archive-based, in-depth account of their negotiations with the Commission and the Member States on a Treaty-based social dialogue procedure. In a second perspective, the social partners’ unusual role invites to reflect about the little knowledge we have of EU Treaty-making as a scholarly subject of enquiry. The working paper makes the case for the analysis of Treaty-making as a promising field and research agenda for legal-historical enquiry into the meaning and context of EU law and integration. An understanding of Treaty-making, for example, allows us to understand the origins and in particular the many uncertainties underpinning primary law in their elongated context, sometimes stretching across multiple Treaty revisions. It stresses the productiveness of disaggregating states, institutions and organisations into people with projects thereby highlighting the often-elusive nature of finding a clear will of the Member States inherent to EU law. It clarifies the concepts and context that allowed agreement on a Treaty text at a given point in time, and underscores the paths not taken in EU integration. These are only some ways in which research on EU Treaty-making is susceptible to enrich our understanding of EU law and integration.The ShaPE project (ShaPE – The Social Partners as shapers and makers of Social Europe: discovering foundations and futures) is funded by the European Union

Thoughtful competition law : power and reflexivity

The paper critically engages with the argument that competition law functions as a socially constructed power structure. In doing so, it examines competition law as a system dealing with legal and empirical facts. It develops the theory of competition law system as the sum of multiple choices of exclusion and inclusion being shaped by several inconsistent determinants such as the basic legal structure, politics, science and culture. The paper demonstrates how these choices are triggered by cycles of epistemological re-examinations, which are either practice-oriented or fueled by broader socio-economic or political events

'All AIs are psychopaths'? : the scope and impact of a popular analogy

Published online: 25 February 2025Artifcial Intelligence (AI) Agents are often compared to psychopaths in popular news articles. The headlines are ‘eye-catching’, but the questions of what this analogy means or why it matters are hardly answered. The aim of this paper is to take this popular analogy ‘seriously’. By that, I mean two things. First, I aim to explore the scope of this analogy, i.e. to identify and analyse the shared properties of AI agents and psychopaths, namely, their lack of moral emotions and their capacity for instrumental rationality. Second, I aim to examine the impact of the analogy. I argue that both agents, as ‘amoral calculators’, present the perfect candidates to revisit two long-standing debates on moral and criminal responsibility, regarding the necessity of moral emotions for ‘moral-agent-capacity responsibility’ and the necessity of ‘moral-agent-capacity responsibility’ for criminal responsibility. Finally, crossexamining the debates on the moral and criminal responsibility of psychopaths and AI agents is instructive and revealing. Instructive since the moral and legal treatment of psychopaths can be telling about the future treatment of AI agents (and vice versa) and revealing since it makes explicit our often-implicit philosophical commitments on the criteria of moral agency and the overarching purpose of criminal law.This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - Springer Transformative Agreement (2020-2024). Agreement extended and set to expire on 30 June 2025

Migrant and non-migrant views on immigration in Europe

Published online: 02 June 2025Attitudes toward immigration are usually investigated from the non-migrant residents’ perspective. Much less is known about how perceptions of immigration policy and immigrants vary across immigration background lines, especially in the wider European context, and whether migrants’ attitudes toward immigration are affected by the same factors and in the same way as those of the non-migrant population. With still-growing populations of migrants and their descendants in Europe, it is, however, crucial to study interethnic relations not only between migrant and non-migrant populations but also among different immigrant groups. Firstly, we investigate whether immigration attitudes among European migrants are based on intergroup solidarity or, rather, an intergroup threat toward new immigrants and whether minority-specific characteristics have differential effects across the (non-)migrant populations. We uncover that first- and second-generation immigrants' attitudes toward immigration are mostly guided by intergroup solidarity with other immigrants. Our results also show that first-generation immigrants' attitudes become more negative the longer they stay in the host country. Finally, we demonstrate that minority-specific characteristics work differently across our three subsamples and across different destination countries. Our analysis is based on nine rounds of the European Social Survey from 20 European countries and by estimating multilevel regression models of individual factors affecting (non-)migrants' attitudes. The findings contribute to our broader understanding of social cohesion, social inclusion and intergroup conflict

Legal reform versus private action : experimental evidence on attitudes toward gender equal inheritance from Tunisia

Published online: 06 May 2025Gender-discriminatory inheritance law persists in many countries, restricting women’s access to land, property and financial assets. In the absence of legal reform, individual action may offer a second-best solution. This paper investigates the extent to which favoring daughters with gifts is viewed as a socially acceptable way of privately attenuating the gender discrimination imposed by Islamic inheritance law in Tunisia. In a randomised experiment I test the impact of providing information on public support for inheritance law reform and/or the possibility to give a gift to one’s daughter on inheritance-related gender attitudes. Descriptive evidence suggests high levels of acceptance of compensating daughters with gifts, especially among higher-income individuals. Demand for legal reform is significantly higher among women and individuals with low education. The effectiveness of the informational treatments is mixed: the treatment effects on several inheritance-related gender attitudes are positive and marginally significant, but the effect is not long-lasting. By demonstrating that informational and social norms interventions may fail in the presence of strong baseline beliefs, this study contributes to the literature on misperceived social norms and the effectiveness of informational interventions in shaping gender norms and political attitudes. Given the current legal restrictions, I conclude that gifting is a socially accepted practice in Tunisia. However, since its use is restricted to a wealthy subset of the population who holds progressive gender attitudes, it is unlikely to be a sustainable alternative to legal reform in the long run

Blockchain interoperability : implications for EU competition law and data protection law

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, blockchain technology has undergone significant development and demonstrated its potential to revolutionize several industries. Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) enable the transparent recording and secure sharing of data across a network of participants in a decentralized manner. However, the adoption of DLTs has been hindered by the existence of numerous protocols and diverging standards, leading to the creation of isolated ‘walled gardens’ where each blockchain operates independently. Achieving interoperability between different blockchains is thus essential for the broader application of the blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrencies. So far, blockchain interoperability has been analysed primarily from a technical perspective, with a noticeable gap in scholarly contributions addressing its legal implications. This article is the first attempt to examine how EU competition law and data protection law will be affected by, and can support, the evolution towards interoperable blockchains. To this objective, it first provides the background by briefly explaining blockchain interoperability and its underlying mechanisms, as well as demonstrates the benefits of fostered interoperability and the challenges preventing it from fully materializing. As regards a competition law assessment, our analysis identified three potential areas that might be affected by blockchain interoperability: collusion and information exchanges, anti-competitive foreclosure, and standardization. A data protection analysis focuses on evaluating the potential impacts of blockchain interoperability on the principles of accountability, data minimization, and purpose limitation, as well as on the rights of individuals, particularly the ‘right to be forgotten’. The article concludes that blockchain interoperability does not introduce entirely new legal challenges beyond those already identified in the existing literature on blockchain’s compatibility with competition law and data protection law. However, it has the potential to exacerbate these challenges. By enhancing the degree of data sharing among different parties, blockchain interoperability may foster collusion and complicate compliance with the GDPR. At the same time, blockchain interoperability could lower market entry barriers and reduce market concentration, thereby decreasing the risk of foreclosure practices. Our analysis also revealed that, in the near future, particular attention should be paid to the standardization efforts surrounding blockchain interoperability, which are likely to become a crucial nexus between blockchain technology and competition law

Implementing the Clean Industrial Deal and strengthening Europe's economic resilience

Published online: April 2025The European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal (CID) seeks to align industrial competitiveness with decarbonisation, ensuring economic resilience amid geopolitical challenges. The success of this will depend on progress in a number of key areas. This paper proposes to secure funding of the Industrial Decarbonisation Bank (IDB) through EU ETS revenues and free allowances, to foster lead markets via public procurement and low-carbon standards, and to strengthen clean trade partnerships. Social cohesion measures are critical while sustainability reporting should be streamlined