When who and how matter: explaining the success of referendums in Europe

This article aims to identify the institutional factors that make a referendum successful. This comparative analysis seeks to explain the success of top-down referendums organized in Europe between 2001 and 2013. It argues and tests for the main effect of three institutional factors (popularity of the initiator, size of parliamentary majority, and political cues during referendum campaigns) and controls for the type of referendum and voter turnout. The analysis uses data collected from referendums and electoral databases, public opinion surveys, and newspaper articles. Results show that referendums proposed by a large parliamentary majority or with clear messages from political parties during campaign are likely to be successful

When who and how matter: explaining the success of referendums in Europe

This article aims to identify the institutional factors that make a referendum successful. This comparative analysis seeks to explain the success of top-down referendums organized in Europe between 2001 and 2013. It argues and tests for the main effect of three institutional factors (popularity of the initiator, size of parliamentary majority, and political cues during referendum campaigns) and controls for the type of referendum and voter turnout. The analysis uses data collected from referendums and electoral databases, public opinion surveys, and newspaper articles. Results show that referendums proposed by a large parliamentary majority or with clear messages from political parties during campaign are likely to be successful

Euro membership and fiscal reaction functions : [Version 10 May 2013]

The paper uses fiscal reaction functions for a panel of euro-area countries to investigate whether euro membership has reduced the responsiveness of countries to shocks in the level of inherited debt compared to the period prior to succession to the euro. While we find some evidence for such a loss in prudence, the results are not robust to changes in the specification, such as an exclusion of Greece from the panel. This suggests that the current debt problems may result to a large extent from preexisting debt levels prior to entry or from a larger need for fiscal prudence in a common currency, while an adverse change in the fiscal reaction functions for most countries does not apply

Party system institutionalization and the quality of democracy in eastern Europe

Almost two decades have passed since the Third Wave of democratization brought an avalanche of new, relatively unstable democracies into being in Eastern Europe. Although democracy and a market economy seem to have taken firm root, at least for the ten Eastern European countries currently members of the European Union (EU), in the light of the complicated post-communist legacy, this may have not been enough time for their political parties and party systems to institutionalize. Moreover, a well-rehearsed litany of complaints has been recited against the countries in the region encompassing, inter alia, weak governability and accountability, a representation deficit; corruption and clientelism, populism, and threats to democratic stability; raising once again the question, "How important the former (i.e. political parties and party systems) are for the quality of democracy?

Implementing structural funds in the new member states: ten policy challenges

Paper presented at the ‘Roundtable on Benchmarking the Ten New Member States’, organised by the Scottish Executive EU Office

Are R&D subsidies provided optimally? Evidence from a simulated agency-firm stochastic dynamic game

By means of a simulated funding-agency/supported-firm stochastic dynamic game, this paper firstly shows that not only the level of R&D performed by firms is underprovided (as maintained by traditional literature on the subject), but also the level of the subsidy provided by the funding (public) agency (used to correct exactly for the corporate R&D shortage). This event is due to externalities generated by the agency-firm strategic relationship. Two versions of the model are simulated and compared: one assuming rival behaviors between companies and agency, and one associated to the Social-planner (or cooperative) strategy. Secondly, the paper looks at what “welfare” implications are associated to different degree of funding effect’s persistency. Three main conclusions are drawn: (i) the relative quota of subsidy to R&D is undersized in the rival compared to the Social-planner model; (2) the rivalry strategy generates distortions that favor the agency compared to firms; (3) when passing from less persistent to more persistent R&D additionality/crowding-out effect, the lower the bias the greater the variance is and vice versa. As for the management of R&D funding policies, all the elements favouring greater collaboration between agency and firm objectives can help current R&D support to reach its social optimum.R&D subsidies, Rivalry vs. cooperation, Dynamic-stochastic games, Simulations

Social Security and Retirement during Transition: Microeconometric Evidence from Slovenia. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 57, 2 September 2008

This paper analyses old-age retirement decisions of Slovenian men and women eligible to retire in the period 1997-2003. In addition to established market economies, relatively high hazard rates of retirement are found, which decline with age. This peculiar pattern can be partly attributed to weak incentives to work inherent in the design of social security and is reflected in predominantly negative values of accruals and to transition-specific increases in wage inequality in the late 1980 and early 1990s. The authors also find that the probability of retirement increases with social security wealth and decreases with net wages, although the response to option value to work, with controlling for wage differences, is rather weak. The results also imply that less educated persons, persons with great private wealth and persons entitled to severance payment are more likely to retire