Involvement of the Social Partners in the European Semester: 2016 Update

[Excerpt] The European Semester is a key component of economic governance in the European Union, aimed at coordinating the fiscal and economic policies of Member States. Although the role of social partners in the process is not defined in the European economic governance provisions, European institutions consider them to be key actors and have called for them to be more closely involved. The participation of the social partners is crucial for enhancing the ownership of European policies and ensuring meaningful implementation, as acknowledged in the Employment Guidelines

Bank Distress during the Great Depression: The Illiquidity-Insolvency Debate Revisited

During the contraction from 1929 through 1933, the Federal Reserve System tracked changes in the status of all banks operating in the United States and determined the cause of each bank suspension. This essay analyzes chronological patterns in aggregate series constructed from that data. The analysis demonstrates both illiquidity and insolvency were substantial sources of bank distress. Periods of heightened distress were correlated with periods of increased illiquidity. Contagion via correspondent networks and bank runs propagated the initial banking panics. As the depression deepened and asset values declined, insolvency loomed as the principal threat to depository institutions.

Mapping Varieties of Industrial Relations: Eurofound\u27s Analytical Framework Applied

Eurofound’s 2016 report Mapping key dimensions of industrial relations identified four key dimensions of industrial relations: industrial democracy, industrial competitiveness, social justice, and quality of work and employment. This report builds upon that earlier study, developing a dashboard of 45 indicators to assess how and to what extent the conceptual framework of these key dimensions can be applied at national level. The indicators were tested across the Member States by Eurofound’s Network of European Correspondents and show reasonable accuracy when used to map the predominant features and trends of the national industrial relations systems. The study confirms that a dashboard of indicators that can accurately measure and summarise the complex reality of industrial relations across the EU is a valuable tool for comparative research and a useful instrument for supporting policymakers, social partners and stakeholders. The report sets out a range of options for further developing this conceptual approach

Live Blogging- Digital Journalism's Pivotal Platform? A case study of the production, consumption, and form of Live Blogs at Guardian.co.uk

This article describes and analyses the production, consumption, and form of Live Blogs at a popular UK newspaper website and contributes to related debates in journalism studies. Qualitative research interviews with journalists and editors, a reader survey, content analysis, and web metrics were used to obtain data about production practices, product outcomes, and the consumption stage of the product lifecycle. The study finds that Live Blogs are a popular daily component of the news site, used increasingly to cover serious breaking news. Although rarely authored exclusively on location, they may utilise more original sources than traditional online hard news formats. Their frequent updates mean factual verification is cursory, but compensatory factors, including their attribution practices, contribute to a positive evaluation of their objectivity by readers. Live Blogs—with their timeliness, navigational simplicity, and bite-sized content units—suit readers’ consumption of news in the workplace. Live Blogs may increase online news readers’ interest in public-affairs content, and their inclination to participate. This study contradicts some existing scholarship on sourcing practices, content preferences, and immediacy in online news, while supporting the observation that news is increasingly consumed at work. It makes the novel suggestions that Live Blogging is uniquely suited to readers’ at-work news consumption patterns and that the format provides journalists with a means to manage the competing demands of their elite and mass publics

"Too close to call" : CNN's politics of captions in the coverage of the Florida Recount

Proceeding chronologically in terms of the events covered, Raimund Schieß in his paper „Too close to call: CNN’s politics of captions in the coverage of the Florida Recount“ focusses on Nov. 11, 2000, when the Bush campaign applied to Miami Federal Court to stop the manual recount of ballots which had been started in some counties. The paper studies the discursive practices employed by the CNN journalists to construct a particular version of the events, focussing on captions, i.e. the lines of text inserted at the bottom of the tv screen, and on the way in which they interact with the other verbal and visual components of the television text. Raimund Schieß concludes that captions, far beyond providing mere details of a speech event (who is talking to whom about what, where and when), are used to select, to highlight and hide, and thus to invite a preferred interpretation of the event. He is also able to show that captions are often employed to exploit a story’s potential for drama and sensation. His detailed micro-analysis of the verbal and visual dimensions of the television text is supported by careful documentation of the data, either through screen shots or via transcriptions of the stretches of broadcast discussed

Representativeness of the European Social Partner Organizations: Tanning and Leather Industry

This study provides information designed to encourage sectoral social dialogue in the tanning and leather sector. The aim of Eurofound’s series of studies on representativeness is to identify the relevant national and supranational social partner organisations in the field of industrial relations in selected sectors. The study identified IndustriAll Europe (representing employees) and the Confederation of National Associations of Tanners and Dressers of the European Community (COTANCE) (representing employers) as the most important European level social partner organisations in the sector

Fetters of Debt, Deposit, or Gold during the Great Depression? The International Propagation of the Banking Crisis of 1931

A banking crisis began in Austria in May 1931 and intensified in July, when runs struck banks throughout Germany. In September, the crisis compelled Britain to quit the gold standard. Newly discovered data shows that failure rates rose for banks in New York City, at the center of the United States money market, in July and August 1931, before Britain abandoned the gold standard and before financial outflows compelled the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Banks in New York City had large exposures to foreign deposits and German debt. This paper tests to see whether the foreign exposure of money center banks linked the financial crises on the two sides of the Atlantic.

Seeking a Philosophy of Music in Higher Education: The Case of Mid-nineteenth Century Edinburgh

In 1851-2 the Trustees of the Reid bequest at the University of Edinburgh undertook an investigation into music education. Concerned that the funds which supported the Chair of Music should be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible, they consulted professional and academic musicians in search of new forms of teaching music at university level. The investigation itself, and the resulting correspondence, illuminate the problems inherent in defining music for the academy. They reflect the difficult position of music as a profession, as well as its uneasy relationship with science and ideas of craft and genius. For modern music educators, such an investigation invites an opportunity to consider the basic tenets of music as an academic subject. The questions posed by the Edinburgh Trustees go to the heart of what it means to teach and study music, and demonstrate the value of historical perspectives for interrogating present-day norms and practice