The single market remains the decisive power of the EU. CEPS Policy Priorities for 2019-2024, 18 October 2019

The EU’s single market should not just be one among several priorities for the new Commission and Parliament. The single market was and is the core business of the EU. Much of what goes on or is proposed under elaborate titles is actually part and parcel of the single market. The striking revelation of Brexit for many EU citizens and all businesses is precisely the centrality of the single market (including the customs union) to EU membership. Its value is first of all economic, of course, as it yields higher prosperity. However, it is critical in other arenas where ‘EU clout’ derived from the single market matters, such as multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations, global climate deals, standard setting, rule-making for international financial stability and even foreign policy

The single European market - a Schumpeterian event?

It is now four years after the White Paper launched the project on the completion of the internal market [Commission, 1985]. 300 steps were packaged and sold in a manner by Delors and Lord Cockfield that "caught on". The basic strategy is simple: abolish or reduce market segmentations that still exist, facilitate free market access, as well as establish the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital (the so-called four freedoms). Will the single European market prove to be an institutional innovation - a Schumpeterian event in a region of the world that has been characterized by Eurosclerosis [ Giersch, 1985] and overreg ulation? Is Europe '92 an example of political entrepreneurship in the sense of Schumpeter and shall we see "new combinations of means of production" [Schumpeter, 1934, p. 74] being carried out? Or is Europe' 92 a "flash in the pan", flambe a la Delors, concocted by Cockfield, propagated by the press, public speeches and scientific conferences, but eventually dying from internal rent-seeking and protectionism? --

Consumer Credit Rates in the Eurozone: Evidence on the Emergence on a Single Retail Banking Market. ECRI Research Report No. 2, 1 January 2002

[From the Introduction] This study provides new evidence on the emergence of a single eurozone retail banking market with particular reference to consumer credit. Given the heterogeneous nature of consumer credit products in the eurozone, the authors reject the earlier proposition of the Cecchini study, which equates banking market integration with identical interest rates throughout the eurozone. The present study advocates the use of the co-integration methodology, which allows us to investigate integration in the presence of country-specific credit rates. The empirical results indicate only very limited evidence of an integrated retail banking market prior to 1 January 1999, pointing to the limited effectiveness of the single market cum Second Banking Directive in particular in integrating consumer credit markets. The relationship of national lending markets with the remaining eurozone lending markets, however, exhibits strong signs of structural changes that have come along with the introduction of the single currency. Regarding this period under monetary union, the results provide a first picture of an emerging uniform eurozone banking market. This tendency is more pronounced for the corporate lending market, while consumer lending markets are still more fragmented. The study identifies three possible driving forces of this integration process: cross-border borrowing and lending (arbitrage), a competitive national and international retail banking environment, and a smooth and uniform passthrough of interest rate changes onto lending rates. While the extent of cross-border retail banking is still very limited and interest rate pass-through is working most efficiently and uniformly in the more competitive corporate lending market, the authors conclude that the single currency has the potential to “complete” the single market in a very special sense. It is not so much cross-border arbitrage that has so far produced the “statistical signs” of an uniform retail banking market, but a smooth and uniform passthrough of interest rate changes induced by the single monetary policy. The lack of evidence of integration in consumer credit so far therefore also points to the relevance of competition policy for creating a uniform consumer credit market in the eurozone

THE SINGLE INDEX MARKET MODEL IN AGRICULTURE

This study illustrates the differences in empirical results due to data measurements and estimating procedures when applying the single index market model in agriculture. Gross and net return betas along with systematic and unsystematic risk proportions are estimated and found to be different. The stochastic coefficients model is used to show the difference in beta-risk estimates compared with the traditional fixed coefficients OLS procedure. A third estimating technique, weighted least squares/Prais Winsten method, is also proposed.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

A Self-organising Model of Market with Single Commodity

We have studied here the self-organising features of the dynamics of a model market, where the agents `trade' for a single commodity with their money. The model market consists of fixed numbers of economic agents, money supply and commodity. We demonstrate that the model, apart from showing a self-organising behaviour, indicates a crucial role for the money supply in the market and also its self-organising behaviour is seen to be significantly affected when the money supply becomes less than the optimum. We also observed that this optimal money supply level of the market depends on the amount of `frustration' or scarcity in the commodity market.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures (encapsulated postscript

European taxes: Do we need them? Bertelsmann Stiftung EUROPA Briefing 2017

In the European Union, each member state is responsible for its tax system. Different national regimes help with tax competition, but can also lead to tax evasion or unfair rules in the Single Market. That is why better coordination or even standardisation of taxes is debated. What tax regulations are there already in the Single Market? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of a European tax? And what reforms are being discussed in Europe

THE FREEDOMS OF MOVEMENT OF THE SINGLE MARKET

The European Single Market implies not only the free movement of goods and services, but also the free movement of production factors (the capital and the labor force).The liberalization of goods and services and of production factors movement has determined, on the short term, the appearance of some structural and specialization adjustment processes within the member countries, and on the long term a more efficient allocation of the production factors, an improvement of labor productivity and positive effects in the field of labor force employment. According to the neoclassical theory, the labor force migrates from regions with low wages and low profit rates, to regions having high wages and high profit rate. Thus, the production factors are used in a more productive way. According to this theory, the factors mobility contributes to the equalization of the wages and to a better factors allocation. Issues such as structural funds, persons' freedom of movement, convergence could be turned into advantages by any member state, and especially by a new member state. From an economic perspective, the causes of labor force mobility, as a production factor, are: the price differences (wage differences, profit rates differences, interest rates differences) - according to neoclassical theory; income difference, meaning saving excess or insufficiency for the capital, according to Keynes approach; differences in the level of economic development, determining unequal changes, according to the monetarists. Romania has become a European Union member at January, the 1st, 2007. The accession road has been a long one, full of challenges, issues, but also satisfactions. The 1st of January has not been the end of a process, but the beginning of a new period for Romania's present history. The author will try to emphasize the freedoms of movement of the Single Market. The humanitarian reasons also determine the migration of the population; these are the refugees, the asylum solicitors, the persons having temporary protection or persons accepted for other humanitarian reasons.Economic Integration, Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition, Labor Market Interactions, freedom, movement

Re-Politicising Regulation: Politics: Regulatory Variation and Fuzzy Liberalisation in the Single European Energy Market

[From the introduction] The idea that we are living in the age of the regulatory state has dominated the study of public policy in the European Union and its member states in general, and the study of the utilities sectors in particular.1 The European Commission’s continuous drive to expand the Single Market has therefore been a free-market and rule-oriented project, driven by regulatory politics rather than policies that involve direct public expenditure. The dynamics of European integration are rooted in three central concepts: free trade, multilateral rules, and supranational cooperation. During the 1990s EU competition policy took a ‘public turn’ and set its sights on the public sector.2 EU legislation broke up national monopolies in telecommunications, electricity and gas, and set the scene for further extension of the single market into hitherto protected sectors. Both the integration theory literature (intergovernmentalist and institutionalist alike) and literature on the emergence of the EU as a ‘regulatory state’ assumed that this was primarily a matter of policy making: once agreement had been reached to liberalise the utilities markets a relatively homogeneous process would follow. The regulatory state model fit the original common market blueprint better the old industrial policy approaches. On the other hand, sector-specific studies continue to reveal a less than fully homogeneous internal market. The EU has undergone momentous changes in the last two decades, which have rendered the notion of a homogeneous single market somewhat unrealistic

Recent developments in the EU single market suggest an increasing hostility towards labour market regulation

Can workers still fight for wage increases and the protection of their rights during times of economic crisis? The current mood of austerity in Europe means that this is becoming much more difficult. Yet, Anneliese Dodds argues that just as responses to the financial crisis are socially constructed rather than being ‘natural’ or ‘inevitable’, the same applies to pressures on workers and capital to become more mobile and flexible; nothing should be taken for granted about the impact of the financial crisis on social and labour rights