Disentangling derivatives: international policy reforms concerning central counterparties

After the 2008 financial crisis, international policy reforms were adopted on various aspects of derivatives markets, highlighting the need for precise and consistent rules. We examine the making of international rules concerning the resilience, recovery and resolution of central counterparties (CCPs), which form acritical global financial infrastructure. We argue that regulators played an important role in setting relatively precise and consistent international standards on CCPs over time. Facing common challenges, such as market fragmentation and interlinkages between issues, fostered a problem-solving approach in transgovernmental networks. We also identify the policy coordination tools used by regulators

Explaining the response of the ECB to the COVID-19 related economic crisis: inter-crisis and intra-crisis learning

The economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have placed a renewed strain on the economic governance of the European Union (EU). The European Central Bank (ECB) was a key player in the EU's response to the crisis induced by the pandemic. This paper adopts a theoretical approach focused on policy learning to explain how and why the ECB responded to the crisis in 2020-2021. By drawing on speeches, newspaper articles and interviews with policy-makers, the paper finds that the ECB was able to rely on earlier crisis experiences in the euro area in forming its response to the pandemic crisis. Although the sovereign debt crisis and the pandemic crisis had both similarities and differences from one another, the ECB was able to engage in inter-crisis and intra-crisis learning. Its learning concerned objectives, instruments as well as an awareness that timely and forceful response was crucial, so that the member states and other EU institutions had time to act

Weaponisation of finance: the role of European central banks and financial sanctions against Russia

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Group of Seven (G7) countries and the European Union (EU) adopted a variety of financial sanctions, including the freezing of foreign reserve assets of the Central Bank of Russia held by other central banks. Drawing on a Principal-Agent framework and on speeches, newspaper articles and interviews with policy-makers, this study examines what it means for the ECB and the central banks of the Eurosystem to be involved in these sanctions. As a consequence of these actions, these central banks have been enlisted in monetary and financial warfare. Moreover, the three-fold objective of the ECB has de facto effectively been reweighted somewhat, as the focus on ‘price stability’ (primary objective) has become seemingly temporarily less prominent. Instead, the secondary and tertiary objectives have moved centre-stage, favouring geopolitical considerations

Explaining the EU’s Uneven Influence Across the International Regime Complex in Shadow Banking

This article shows that the EU has exerted uneven influence within the global regime complex in shadow banking. Why? We seek to explain the variation in the EU’s ability to exert influence across different elemental regimes—those on hedge funds and securitization—in the broader regime complex over time. In hedge funds regulation, the EU has pursued more stringent international rules, to no avail. In securitization, the EU has been more successful in promoting more lenient regulation at the international level. We focus on the EU’s internal cohesiveness (which can change over time) as the key explanatory variable

The European Central Bank, the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the COVID-19 related economic crisis: a neofunctionalist analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a major economic crisis worldwide. The monetary policy response of the European Central Bank (ECB) was fast and massive. The ECB also intervened on the supervisory side because, after the establishment of Banking Union, the ECB was given responsibility for banking supervision in the euro area through the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). This paper explains the response of the ECB-SSM to the COVID-19 related economic crisis during 2020 and 2021, up until February 2022. These ECB actions include the reduction of bank capital buffers, the redefinition of non-performing loans, and the limitations on dividends and bonuses paid by banks. We adopt a neofunctionalist approach, which suggests that policies are developed at the EU level in response to need, whereby supranational actors and spillovers are particularly important. We offer some concluding insights into whether the ECB-SSM’s responses have led to a further deepening of integration

Network-aware design-space exploration of a power-efficient embedded application

The paper presents the design and multi-parameter optimization of a networked embedded application for the health-care domain. Several hardware, software, and application parameters, such as clock frequency, sensor sampling rate, data packet rate, are tuned at design- and run-time according to application specifications and operating conditions to optimize hardware requirements, packet loss, power consumption. Experimental results show that further power efficiency can be achieved by considering also communication aspects during design space exploratio

Autonomous detection and ascent of a step for an electric wheelchair

With the number of individuals using a wheelchair on the rise, the issue of removing architectural barriers, or at least overcoming them, has to be faced to improve independence, inclusiveness, and participation of wheelchair users. Some electric wheelchairs can climb and descend stairs and obstacles, however, the actual operations required to do so safely may be complex and may require an experienced or trained user. To overcome this issue, a method to first detect and classify a step and then autonomously climb it safely is proposed here. The same method is then applied and tested on an actual stair-climbing wheelchair prototype to prove its reliability in different conditions