105 research outputs found
WILL BUSINESS CYCLES IN THE EURO AREA CONVERGE? A CRITICAL SURVEY OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Outsourcing Governance: States and the Politics of a âGlobal Value Chain Worldâ
Politics, and by extension states, are marginal in debates about the genesis, evolution
and functioning of the GVC-based global economy. We contend here that the core complexity of
state agency and state power needs to be much more carefully understood in GVC and related
debates, as a basis on which the governance of the evolving GVC world can be properly
theorised as revolving around the inseparability of economic and political power. We advance a
framework for understanding the role of politics and states in the construction and maintenance
of a GVC world, using a three-fold typology of facilitative, regulatory and distributive forms of
governance, and propose a notion of âoutsourcing governanceâ as an attempt to capture the
ways in which states purposefully, through active political agency, have engaged in a process of
delegating a variety of governance functions and authority to private actors. Our overarching
argument is normative: âoutsourced governanceâ of the form we currently observe is associated
with regressive distributional outcomes, and is antithetical to an inclusive and sustainable global
economy
Monetary union and the economic geography of Europe
Monetary union is likely to change the spatial structure of economic activity in the EU. This article reviews what is known about these effects and discusses the implications for EMU. We argue that EMU is likely to promote a modest increase in specialization amongst EU countries, although industry-specific shocks are sufficiently small for this not to pose further difficulties for macroeconomic management. Improvements in market access are likely to raise income levels in insiders relative to outsiders. Taking a very long-term view, the urban structure of the EU might be expected to become more polarized, developing a steeper size distribution
Revisiting an Evasive Concept: Introduction to the Special Issue on Competitiveness
The term competitiveness stems from the analysis of firms and is usually thought to be well defined at the firm level. Today, however, the notion competitiveness has become a prominent concept in the assessment of countries, regions and locations. The competitive advantage of nations and the competitiveness of locations have become important topics in economic policy. Interest in this field has been notably stimulated by the work of Michael Porter. Although the diversity of approaches presented in this issue may appear large to the reader, it is in reality dwarfed by the multiplicity of concepts, articles and books which have been written in reference to the term competitiveness. The vagueness of the general term, the lack of theoretical background, implicit preferences and prejudices, and finally the scope of policy recommendations made in reference to this term have induced outstanding researchers to warn that the term competitiveness of a nation could be dangerous, obsessive, elusive or meaningless. 1 The articles presented in this volume share some elements of this critique, but also demonstrate that research is being continued, and that it is indeed relevant to the design and evaluation of economic policy, most notably, the so-called Lisbon Strategy of the European Union. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006competitiveness, welfare evaluation, innovation, Lisbon Strategy, F10, F15, F43, O31, O40, O57,
Impacts of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on Processed Food Trade under Monopolistic Competition and Firm Heterogeneity
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