The Common Agricultural Policy and the Next EU Budget. Bertelsmann Stiftung Reflection Paper No.1: Preparing for the Multiannual Financial Framework after 2020. Paper prepared for Expert Workshop “CAP and the next MFF” Berlin, Federal Foreign Office, 30 March 2017

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was set up in a time when (a) the memory about post-war food shortage was fresh, (b) Europe was a large net importer of agricultural products, (c) agricultural production was still highly labour-intensive, (d) food was a major item in a typical consumer basket and (e) significant shares of the work-force received their major income from the agricultural sector. The CAP objectives enshrined in Art. 39 TFEU (see box) clearly reflect this historical situation. When the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, it was understand-able that the standard of living of the agricultural workforce was a major issue and that “reasonable prices” for consumers were regarded as a matter of social stability

The Drivers of Deregulation in the Era of Globalization

This paper treats the question to what extent globalization trends restrict a countryspecific regulation policy in industrial countries. The empirical analysis makes use of recently collected regulation indicators for four policy fields: financial market, product markets, labour markets and trade. After a short discussion of the link between globalization and deregulation and a descriptive view at the correlations, a panel analysis for OECD countries for the period 1975 to 2001 is executed. The evidence shows that globalization in the narrow sense of trade openness and capital mobility has a rather limited impact as an immediate driver of deregulation. However, in a wider sense globalization definitions also comprise the easier flow of knowledge and information across borders resulting in more effective cross-border learning processes. --economic policy reforms,structural reforms,regulation

EMU and fiscal discipline: the end of the depreciation threat

Are the characteristics of the exchange rate regime relevant for the degree of fiscal discipline? What are the conclusions for fiscal behavior in Europe after the transition to EMU? These are the central questions that are analyzed in this paper from a theoretical point of view. After a general discussion of these issues, the optimization process of fiscal agents is analyzed in the context of a model based on the monetary approach to the exchange rate. The model conclusion is that monetary union leads to more fiscal discipline for high debt countries that used to have a benign neglect stance on the exchange rate. Contrasting to that, low debt countries that used to pay much attention to the exchange rate in the past will behave less disciplined in the future. --EMU,Exchange Rate Regime,Fiscal Discipline,Globalization,Public Debt

Central Europe and European monetary integration: a strategy for catching up

The Maastricht Treaty has augmented the preconditions that have to be fulfilled by ED applicants before a full membership can be achieved. Candidates have to prove that a participation in the European Monetary Union is a realistic possibility at least in the medium term. This paper explores the difficulties of the Visegrád countries to fulfill this monetary precondition. Apart from the convergence criteria, the cyclical correlation both within Central Europa and between Central and Western Europe is analysed. Based on that evidence, an early membership in the European Monetary System is proposed as an element of a promising EU membership strategy. Besides that, the potential role of a stabilization fund is discussed that could cushion asymmetric shocks hitting the Visegrád countries. --

Sustainability of national debt in Europe: why it matters in the EMU and how it is assessed

There are at least two reasons why sustainability of public debt is an issue of increasing importance. First, public choice considerations show the danger of an excessive use of deficit finance in a democracy. Second, the conditions of a European Monetary Union (EMU) imply further incentives for deficit finance. Various approaches to assess sustainability of public debt are presented and partially applied to the EC countries. According to these results, sustainability is as issue of empirical relevance in Europe today and has to be taken seriously on the further way to EMU. --

Factor Mobility, Government Debt and the Decline in Public Investment

This paper tries to explain the declining level of public investment in OECD countries. The theoretical framework hints to the relevance of a number of demand and supply factors – ranging from the yield of public investment to institutions like the EU deficit limits. The econometric results indicate that the decline is largely due to two developments: First to the pile-up of public debt since the 70s which in the 90s severely restricted ability to finance new investment. Second to the increasing mobility of factors that has added to the financing difficulties. In contrast to that neither the privatisation process nor EU deficit restrictions of the Maastricht Treaty can explain the decline. --public investment,factor mobility,globalisation,public debt,OECD,EU

After the Death of Inflation: Will Fiscal Drag Survive?

Declining inflation rates might have negative consequences for tax revenues. Phenomena like the inflationary bracket creep in a progressive income tax system do not work any longer. With this background the paper analyzes the extent of fiscal drag for OECD countries since 1965. Some considerations on the role of money illusion and indexation in this context lay the theoretical base followed by a descriptive view on the relation between inflation, growth and tax revenues in the past decades. A framework is presented that allows for the classification of fiscal structures with regard to the type of fiscal drag. The subsequent econometric analysis is performed for total and disaggregated government revenues. The results reveal that an end of inflation would have a negative impact on tax revenues for a number of OECD countries. The results also back theoretical considerations on inflation?s impact on different kinds of taxes: This impact tends to be positive for individual income taxes and social security contributions, it is neutral or negative for corporate income, property and indirect taxation. The paper concludes that both declining inflation and recent trends in tax reforms can be expected to limit the potential for future fiscal drag. --bracket creep,fiscal drag,indexation,inflation,money illusion,Olivera-Tanzi effect,taxes,Wagner?s law

Explaining Reform Deadlocks

Countries are often slow to adjust their economic structures to new necessities although this reform reluctance is costly in terms of growth and employment. This paper analyses the relevant factors that block or foster economic reforms. Theoretical considerations show that there are at least three classes of potentially relevant factors: the objective need for reforms, political-economic issues and factors associated with limited rationality or rational ignorance. In the empirical analysis, a reform event is quantified as a significant change of the Economic Freedom of the World indicator within a five-year-period. This allows to run probit estimations for a large country panel starting in the 1970s where the probability of reform is explained by a number of proxies covering all three classes of potential factors. The results suggest that the initial extent of economic freedom and growth performance are empirically relevant factors. Furthermore, countries with an ageing population appear to behave less reform friendly. --economic policy reforms,economic freedom,reform resistance,limited rationality

Planning or propaganda? An evaluation of Germany's medium-term budgetary planning

In Germany, the medium-term financial planning ("Mifrifi") was introduced at the end of the sixties. This study scrutinizes the experience of the German Bund with more than thirty years of financial planning. In the first step, the paper explores the potential normative and political-economic driving forces of fiscal projections. The following empirical part evaluates Mifrifi?s forecasting quality with regard to expenditures, taxes and deficits. A model is tested relating the forecasted budgetary trends to economic, institutional and political-economic factors. The financial planning turns out to be ineffective in making budgetary policy more predictable. The projections are heavily biased towards over-optimism. The Maastricht Treaty appears to have transformed Germany?s budgetary planning not into the direction of more credible and binding projections, but rather towards the production of less realistic and unduly favourable outlooks. The policy conclusion hints towards an independent institution taking over the responsibility for fiscal forecasts. Such an institution would not face the government?s inherent problem being unable to promise in a credible way the production of unbiased forecasts. --Mifrifi,budgetary planning,Stability and Growth Pact

The EMU Consolidation Game - or: Does 3.0 Really Mean 3.0?

Within the economic profession, it is a widely held view that the fiscal criteria of the Maastricht treaty are arbitrary numbers without economic foundation. Much of this criticism seems to overlook an important aspect - the strategic dimension of the criteria. This paper focuses on one particular question out of this broad strategic complex: How do the criteria change the fiscal bargaining situation on the national level? For this purpose, a bargaining game between a national finance minister and an interest group over budget consolidation is designed. The purpose of this paper is twofold : On the one hand the analysis should contribute to a better understanding of the strategic effects of the fiscal criteria in the pre-EMU period. On the other hand it is to provide insights helpful for the construction of credible and strategically consistent debt limits in the time after the introduction of the Euro. --European Monetary Union,Convergence Criteria,Budget Consolidation,Boundary,Signalling,Conditionality