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Market deregulation has been integral to economic globalization, but we do not know very much about the comparative dimension of reform, i.e., the performance of liberal and co-ordinated market economies. Co-ordinated market economies are often assumed to perform poorly in deregulation reform, while such reform is path-dependent to the liberal market economy model. The article compares the trajectory of market deregulation in these different ‘varieties of capitalism’. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's ‘product market regulation indicators', the analysis shows that co-ordinated market economies have implemented more extensive deregulation than have the liberal market economies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Competitive interdependence characterizes the EU-US relationship vis-a-vis third markets. Each defines success in relation to the other while each also views the other as its key geo-economic competitor in the world economy. CI has developed as the EU has attempted to manage globalization in the field of trade policy by focusing on the multilateral level and then by reversing course and privileging the regional, which in turn has expanded the EU's territorial influence. The reversal occurred largely because the Bush Administration in Washington pursued free trade agreements (FTAs) in a process of 'competitive liberalization'. The US outflanked the EU by negotiating FTAs that favored US firms in third markets. The EU, to protect its own firms, then began to negotiate FTAs itself. Geo-economic competition between the EU and the US is thus key to shaping EU trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the role the Commission plays in European foreign policies goes beyond the execution of the competences delegated by the member states. The Commission is not just the external negotiator of the EU, it can also use its powers as the guardian of the Treaties to expand its foreign policy competences. The case study of international air transport illustrates how the Commission was able to obtain an external negotiation mandate in June 2003 to which member states were originally opposed. The analysis draws particular attention to the Commission's reliance on the European Court of Justice and to a cognitive strategy centred on the United States. By means of these two tools, the Commission was able to affect the default condition of member state preferences and reorient the focal point of intergovernmental negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the European Patent Office and how the political economy of intellectual property policy helps to explain the observed sluggishness of European patent filing activity compared to the US and Japan. The analysis also focuses on intellectual property (IP) policy tensions regarding the protection versus the dissemination of IP. The article shows that the protection function of the European Patent Office (EPO) is driven increasingly by big business pressure (from European and US multinationals) to improve pendency rates and lower costs. On the other hand, regarding the dissemination function, the EPO and national patent offices are under greater pressure to enhance awareness of IP rights and IP knowledge to interests, such as small business, that are more dispersed and weak. The analysis further shows that the relations between the EPO and national offices exhibit a delicate balance between co-operation and competition, financial viability and fee sharing, and concerns about translation and the language of commerce and the survival of national offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word independent in the United States (US) context is most properly used in connection with the independent regulatory commissions. Those commissions are not independent of Congressional control. Both the commissions and the agencies of the regular cabinet departments live in a regime of statutory duties under which Congressional statutes not presidential policies control much of their behavior. Both are subject to judicial review. Commissions basically are independent in the sense that they are usually not subject to the complete control by commissioners of one political party. They are somewhat independent of the President in that no single President has appointed all the commissioners of a particular commission and commissioners may only be dismissed by the President for cause. American experience suggests that European Union (EU) independent agencies will create severe problems of co-ordination, legitimacy and control. These problems are not alleviated by the claim that EU agencies will have purely informational roles because information is a key element in policy-making and policy controversy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the phenomenon known as 'globalization', on the one hand, and the regional integration process undertaken by European Union (EU) member states, on the other. Bearing in mind that the EU single market programme was a more deliberate and radical act of integration than the more haphazard globalization process, the article argues that the relationship between the two is a complex mix of convergence and conflict. The argument is applied to the financial services sector, and in particular the securities industry. The first conclusion is that the EU integration process is compatible with global financial integration. The EU single financial area has not led, and will not lead, to the emergence of a separate European 'bloc'. Indeed, on a number of regulatory issues, the combination of globalization and EU integration has induced convergence and a degree of harmonization between the EU and other jurisdictions such as the United States and Japan. The second conclusion is, however, that this progress towards convergence and harmonization is inherently conflictual and is currently blocked on the key issue of capital adequacy for securities firms. The US, supported by Canada and Japan, has resisted convergence, or indeed compromise, with what it views as unduly lax EU capital standards. Internal EU dynamics, domestic considerations within the US, market-driven pressures and the temptations of regulatory arbitrage have all contributed to the conflictual aspects of the convergence process. The EU and the Basle banking supervisors have now accepted the EU approach to capital adequacy, and the pressure is on the US regulatory authorities to conform to these lower standards or take the risk that trading activity will migrate to where standards, and therefore transaction costs, are lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws three main lessons from recent regulatory developments on both sides of the Atlantic. First, deregulation and privatization have not meant an end to all regulation. On the contrary, newly deregulated or privatized industries lose their pre-existing statutory immunity from competition law and other regulatory requirements. Thus, privatization leads to the creation of new regulatory bodies and to a considerable widening of the scope of agencies to promote competition. Second, experience has revealed the fallacy of assuming that public ownership guarantees public control. The crisis of the nationalized industries is more a failure of regulation than a problem of productive efficiency. Public ownership not only reduced government's ability to regulate the economy, but also interrupted a policy learning process which could have produced, half a century ago, the kind of regulatory institutions which Europe is struggling to develop now. Finally, American deregulation has proved to be considerably more forceful than European privatizations in introducing competition and restructuring key economic sectors such as telecommunications. Differences in styles and methods of regulation explain these different outcomes. A style emphasizing professional independence and public accountability is needed not only to achieve all the benefits of privatization, but also to push through deregulation when economic and technological changes make public oversight no longer necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]