Industrial Policy and Comparative Political Economy: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

The Great Recession renewed calls for a return of state activism in support of the European economy. The widespread nationalizations of ailing companies and the growing activism of national development banks led many to celebrate the re-appearance of industrial policy. Despite this reappraisal, however, comparative political economy (CPE) contributions to the study of industrial policy are still scarce. This review article critically overviews the existing literature linking CPE and industrial policy meeting three goals. First, to trace the evolution of the goals, protagonists, and policy instruments of industrial policy in the European Union (EU) since the post-war period. Second, to provide a periodization of the evolution of industrial policy based on the distinction between the inward-looking forms of state intervention prevalent until the late 1970s and the open-market industrial policy of later decades. Third, to outline future research pathways based on the integration between CPE, heterodox economics, and economic geography.Introduction Industrial policy: What it is and why it was marginalized within the CPE debate? Inward-looking industrial policy: From the post-war period to the demise of fordism Open-market industrial policy and its main features Pathways for future research: Integrating CPE, heterodox economics, and economic geography Acknowledgments Notes Reference

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

Even when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis-struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open-ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross-country and cross-party, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal-typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union

Malta Study Center between preservation and digitisation. Documents for architectural historians and researchers

The historiography on the events of the Sovereign Military Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta (also known as the Order of Malta) during the medieval period is considerable. Prominent historians have devoted themselves to the reconstruction of its characteristics and its administrative structures from its very beginnings, from Jerusalem to Rhodes. The study of the history of the Knights Hospitallers in the Early Modern is, on the other hand, incomplete, both because many documents were lost before the Order’s arrival in Malta in 1530 and partly because sources are harder to track down, having been dispersed in State Archives all over Europe. The archives of the Order of Saint John were in fact largely dispersed due to the Napoleonic Suppressions and, the remaining fonds are often not inventoried or difficult to access and dispersed in local archives. Furthermore, the main archives kept in Malta are largely unexplored. The preservation situation of architectural documents and drawings is often dramatic for the collections of the Order of St. John, but also for other fonds of drawings preserved in archives all across Italy. Furthermore, Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the problems of preserving primary sources, as documents and work of art and architecture: in most cases, archives do not have financial resources to preserve their documents and it is challenging for some institutions to offer the possibility to study on deteriorated primary sources, and even not available for conservation reasons. This is the reason why the Malta Study Center’s digitisation activity is particularly valuable

The relative value of different QALY types

The oft-applied assumption in the use of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) in economic evaluation, that all QALYs are valued equally, has been questioned from the outset. The literature has focused on differential values of a QALY based on equity considerations such as the characteristics of the beneficiaries of the QALYs. However, a key characteristic which may affect the value of a QALY is the type of QALY itself. QALY gains can be generated purely by gains in survival, purely by improvements in quality of life, or by changes in both. Using a discrete choice experiment and a new methodological approach to the derivation of relative weights, we undertake the first direct and systematic exploration of the relative weight accorded different QALY types and do so in the presence of equity considerations; age and severity. Results provide new evidence against the normative starting point that all QALYs are valued equally.This study was funded by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council project grant APP1047788

No Strings Attached: Corporate Welfare, State Intervention, and the Issue of Conditionality

This paper contributes to Comparative Political Economy (CPE), developing an analytical concept of corporate welfare. Corporate welfare — the transfer of public funds and benefits to corporate actors with weak or no conditionality — is a prominent form of state-business relations that CPE scholarship regularly overlooks and misinterprets. Such transfers should be understood as a structural privilege of business in a globalized post-Fordist capitalism, and an increasingly common strategy through which states attempt to steward national economic dynamism within a highly constrained range of policy options. However, without a well-developed concept of corporate welfare – premised upon the key criterion of conditionality – studies that identify a “return” of the state in industrial planning misrepresent these transfers to business as a reassertion of state influence and control, rather than a reflection of state weakness and subordination. The paper provides the analytical building blocks to properly conceptualize transfers to business, works out the core challenges for empirical research, and provides empirical illustrations of this burgeoning phenomenon from the fields of unconventional monetary policy, privatization, and urban political economy.Der Aufsatz entwickelt ein analytisches Konzept der corporate welfare für die Vergleichende Politische Ökonomie. Corporate welfare – der Transfer öffentlicher Mittel an Unternehmen mit schwachen oder gar keinen Konditionalitäten – ist weitverbreitet und wird regelmäßig übersehen oder falsch eingeordnet. Solche Transfers sollten als strukturelles Privileg von Wirtschaftsunternehmen im postfordistischen Kapitalismus verstanden werden und als eine zunehmend verbreitete Strategie, mit der Staaten versuchen, wirtschaftliche Dynamik innerhalb eines stark eingeschränkten Spektrums politischer Optionen zu erzeugen. Ohne ein entwickeltes Konzept der corporate welfare – das auf dem Schlüsselkriterium der Konditionalität basiert – stellen Studien, die eine Rückkehr der Industriepolitik diagnostizieren, Transfers an Unternehmen fälschlicherweise als Wiederbelebung staatlichen Einflusses dar. Der Aufsatz liefert die analytischen Bausteine für eine angemessene Konzeptualisierung von Transfers an Unternehmen, arbeitet die zentralen Herausforderungen für die empirische Forschung heraus und liefert empirische Illustrationen des Problems aus den Bereichen unkonventionelle Geldpolitik, Privatisierungen und regionale Wirtschaftsförderung.Contents 1 Introduction 2 Prior art and the need for concept recovery Towards a restrictive definition of corporate welfare Corporate welfare as a form of structural power 3 The centrality of conditionality 4 Empirical illustrations ECB monetary policy interventions The marketization of public service industries in the European Union Regional development policies 5 Conclusion Reference

No strings attached:Corporate welfare, state intervention, and the issue of conditionality

This paper contributes to Comparative Political Economy (CPE) by developing an analytical concept of corporate welfare. Corporate welfare—the transfer of public funds and benefits to corporate actors with weak or no conditionality—is a prominent form of state-business relations that CPE scholarship regularly overlooks and misinterprets. Such transfers should be understood as a structural privilege of business in a globalized post-Fordist capitalism, and an increasingly common strategy through which states attempt to steward national economic dynamism within a highly constrained range of policy options. However, without a well-developed concept of corporate welfare—premised upon the key criterion of conditionality—studies that identify a “return” of the state in industrial planning misrepresent these transfers to business as a reassertion of state influence and control, rather than a reflection of state weakness and subordination. The paper provides the analytical building blocks to properly conceptualize transfers to business, works out the core challenges for empirical research, and provides empirical illustrations of this burgeoning phenomenon from the fields of unconventional monetary policy, privatization, and urban political economy.Introduction Prior art and the need for concept recovery The centrality of conditionality Empirical illustrations Conclusion Notes Reference

Snakebite: An Exploratory Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Adjunct Treatment Strategies.

The cost-effectiveness of the standard of care for snakebite treatment, antivenom, and supportive care has been established in various settings. In this study, based on data from South Indian private health-care providers, we address an additional question: "For what cost and effectiveness values would adding adjunct-based treatment strategies to the standard of care for venomous snakebites be cost-effective?" We modeled the cost and performance of potential interventions (e.g., pharmacologic or preventive) used adjunctively with antivenom and supportive care for the treatment of snakebite. Because these potential interventions are theoretical, we used a threshold cost-effectiveness approach to explore this forward-looking concept. We examined economic parameters at which these interventions could be cost-effective or even cost saving. A threshold analysis was used to examine the addition of new interventions to the standard of care. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were used to compare treatment strategies. One-way, scenario, and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to analyze parameter uncertainty and define cost and effectiveness thresholds. Our results suggest that even a 3% reduction in severe cases due to an adjunct strategy is likely to reduce the cost of overall treatment and have the greatest impact on cost-effectiveness. In this model, for example, an investment of $10 of intervention that reduces the incidence of severe cases by 3$75 per individual. These findings illustrate the striking degree to which an adjunct intervention could improve patient outcomes and be cost-effective or even cost saving