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The dynamic links between stock market indices are analyzed in a GARCH-M framework, using daily data from France, Germany, Italy and the USA. It is shown that indices in the periods before and after the introduction of the Euro as a single currency display a very distinct behaviour. Consistent with the literature, in the earlier period price changes are found to have an impact the next day on other markets. In the latter period this type of co-movement disappeared within Europe. Feedback trading has been shown to induce (negative) autocorrelation in national stock markets. In this paper an international version of the feedback trading model is used to illustrate that the lead-lag relationships across countries and the strength of these links depend on the currency regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European integration is interpreted in this paper as the route by which (West) Germany, profiting from close ties with the English-speaking West, was able to restore its full sovereignty and economic pre-eminence in Europe. Yet in shaping the actual integration process, it was France which played the key role. Most of the landmark steps towards the current EU were French proposals to pre-empt Anglophone–German collusion; creating European structures in which a resurgence of Germany (politically and economically) was made subject to permanent negotiation. German unification in 1991 removed the one reason why successive governments of the Federal Republic had gone along with this. Paradoxically, sovereign Germany today finds itself bound by the dense networks of consultation and decision-making which make the EU unique in the field of regional integration. The paper shows that between 1992 and 2005, German capital has moved to the centre of the network of corporate interlocks in the North Atlantic area. This helps to explain why in the post-1991, post-Soviet era of neoliberal, finance-driven globalisation, Germany is increasingly ‘speaking for Europe’, as its corporations have become nodal points in the communication structures through which the responses to the challenges facing the EU and the West at large are being shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to investigate, from a generational perspective, the effect of human capital on individual earnings and earnings differences in Germany, France and Italy, three developed countries in Western Europe with similarconservativewelfare regimes but with important differences in their education systems. Income inequalitiesbetweenandwithineducation levels are explored using a two-stage probit model with quantile regressions in the second stage. More precisely, drawing upon 2005 EU-SILC data, returns on schooling and experience are estimated separately for employees and self-employed full-time workers by means of Mincerian earnings equations with sample selection; the sample selection correction accounts for the potential individual self-selection into the two labour force types. Although some determinants appear to be relatively similar across countries, state-specific differentials are drawn in light of the institutional features of each national context. The study reveals how each dimension of human capital differently affects individuals’ earnings and earnings inequality and, most of all, how their impacts differ along the conditional earnings distribution and across countries. In the comparative perspective, the country's leading position in terms of the highest rewards on education also depends on which earnings distribution (employee vs. self-employed) is analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Germany's apprenticeship system is and has always been considered to be the major sub-system of VET. In this context, the debate circling around the European and German Qualifications Framework (EQF and DQR) has become one of the central issues of VET research and policy. Tasks take on a concrete shape if (a) a serious approach is adopted towards the ideas underlying the European Qualifications Framework; and (b) if consideration is given to the 'construction sites' typical for the German VET system as a whole. This paper intends to sharpen VET policy awareness for the problem of dealing with those unresolved German VET issues within the context of the development of the DQR. A comparative view includes Austria and France as two countries with diverging learning cultures in VET from the German case, but obviously with more 'European' imprints within their respective VET systems. It can be shown that there is an interrelation between the attention apprenticeships as such receive against the background of European ideas such as 'progression', 'permeability' and 'lifelong learning' (LLL), including the implementation and use of 'hybrid qualifications'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more than 10 million Muslims living in Western Europe, states are struggling to accommodate the religious needs of Muslims in state-supported institutions. Such issues include whether to fund separate Islamic schools and how or whether to teach Islam in state-supported schools. Despite these common concerns, national governments vary widely in their response to the religious needs and practices of Muslim citizens and permanent residents. This paper looks at how Britain, France and Germany have resolved these issues. We explore how pre-existing Church-State practices and institutional arrangements structured the politics of state accommodation of Muslims' religious needs in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationships between the migratory policies of the EU countries with more experience of immigration and their national political cultures. It focuses on France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It then looks at Italy, a relatively new country of immigration, which, with 3,000,000 legal immigrants, has become the fourth country of immigration in Europe and the first in the Mediterranean basin. In its final part it highlights the incipient process of 'communitarisation' of the immigration policies of EU countries in the last decade. This process, which has already entailed a significant convergence of their migratory policies, is expected to continue after the recent enlargement of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Using the concepts of national and regional innovation systems as an analytical framework for analysing the cross-border networking activities between Baden and Alsace, the empirical analysis presented in this paper reveals that despite the political promotion of cross-border relations the reality in innovation networking looks different. In the industry sample used for empirical analysis, no firm in Baden had research contacts with an Alsatian research institute, while at least 7% of the Alsatian firms cooperated with research and transfer institutes in Baden. Although spatial distance does not matter, cultural and institutional distance does. The neighbouring region is not looked at as a significant knowledge source for firms in both regions. Despite technological and economic internationalization, for many firms innovation-relevant learning still takes place mainly within their own national and regional system of innovation. For the two regions under review, the Rhine is still a cultural and institutional barrier which needs more networking bridges to be crossed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the prospects for trilateral concord among Britain, France and Germany in terms of defence policies? Would more institutionalised links among them lead to more convergence of their defence policies? To answer these interrogations, this article investigates the relation between policy convergence and institutionalised cooperation, in particular by studying whether and when one is a prerequisite to the other. First, this article examines the extent to which these countries' defence policies have converged since the end of the cold war based on several indicators: their attitudes towards international forums, their defence budgets, the structure of their armed forces and their willingness to use force. Second, we study each of the bilateral relations between the three states to qualitatively analyse their degree of institutionalisation and the convergence of their defence policies. This article concludes that contrary to the arguments of many discussions, think-tank reports and political actors, there is no evidence that institutionalised cooperation leads to policy convergence as far as defence is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The global spread of degree courses taught in English as a Medium of Instruction raises questions about the identity or "branding" of English-taught degree programs in non-Anglophone countries and whether they differ from their equivalents in the national languages. To answer this question, we have examined a sample of master's degree programs in the same domain, International Relations, across Italy, France and Germany from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. Our findings suggest that they present a similar branding strategy in line with the standardization process of EU higher education, also reflecting the global trend toward the "entrepreneurial university." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the talks between France and Germany to create a nuclear deterrence system in Europe. Offer of a common defense system from French President Jacques Chirac; Response from a German foreign policy spokesman; Access of the Germans to French nuclear weapons; Germany's participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Objective: The main goal of this study was to determine the knowledge and beliefs of otorhinolaryngologists in a secondary setting in selected economically advanced European countries concerning severe hearing loss, hearing aids, and cochlear implants (CIs). Secondary goals of the study looked into the information sources of the otorhinolaryngologists and into key topics of importance for these professionals. In Europe, many adults, who could benefit from a CI, do not have one despite their availability via national health care systems. This lack of coverage might be due, in part, to the knowledge and beliefs of otorhinolaryngologists.Methods: Otorhinolaryngologists in a secondary setting in Germany, England, France, Austria, and Sweden were emailed a custom-made questionnaire on their knowledge and beliefs regarding hearing loss and its treatments. Results were presented in relative frequencies (%) according to each nation.Results: Two-hundred and forty otorhinolaryngologists responded (50 from each nation except Sweden). Each nation regarded rehabilitation and hearing preservation as particularly important in CIs. National and international conferences and conversations with colleagues were much more popular methods of keeping abreast of medical issues than other information sources such as online media or company information.Conclusion: The otorhinolaryngologists of the surveyed nations share many common beliefs about hearing loss, hearing aids, and CIs, although some national variation in opinion is present. The otorhinolaryngologists of each nation are knowledgeable, but could still benefit from an increased knowledge and awareness of hearing loss treatment modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1924 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a volume investigating the teaching of school history in former belligerent states in Europe. The project sought to reconcile former enemies through mutual understanding and educational exchange and reflected a widely held belief that although the military conflict had finished, its ideas still resounded and served to perpetuate antagonism. The CEIP project, conceived in the internationalist spirit, was itself derailed by nationalist enmity, a consequence of the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, demonstrating the limits of cultural reconciliation in the early 1920s, and the resultant volume showed that belligerent views of recent history were still being taught to schoolchildren in France and Germany in the early 1920s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Max Weber's concept of Kulturnation and Hans Blumenberg's project of metaphorology, this essay argues that modern nations follow distinct cultural programmes that are inherent to their national ideas. Each national idea is propagated by a particular biopolitical metaphor, which performs a transfer from practical or scientific ideas about how nature structures and organises life to cultural ideas about how human lives should be socially and politically organised. The essay examines the emergence of the principal metaphors of grafting in England (Great Britain), of regeneration and elective affinities in France, and of organic self-generation in Prussia (Germany). The fact that each nation claims for its particular national idea the status of a universal principle constitutes the intrinsic paradox of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information from various aspects of the field of international serials and electronic resource management. Abstracts for several research articles are included on topics such as scholarly electronic books (e-books) and open source data in academic publishing. Additionally, awards and grants presented by the American Library Association (ALA) in 2011 are highlighted along with notes on the reorganization of the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG). Brief information regarding the 2012 conference for the UKSG and a list of online resources related to serials librarians are also included.

Constitutional courts are often considered to be 'veto players' or 'third chambers of parliament'. However, no attention has been paid to the composition of European constitutional courts and how they make decisions. Do European judges exhibit political preferences as their US counterparts do? If so, it is important to know who selects the judges as the selection determines the outcome. This article analyses the composition of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht and the French Conseil constitutionnel. It tests the correlation between the party affiliation of the pivotal judge and oppositional success empirically for all abstract reviews filed between 1974 and 2002. In both countries the likelihood of an oppositional victory or defeat varies with the ideological position of the pivotal judge. This leads to the conclusion that European judges decide on the basis of their political preferences like their US counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores UK and German positions in the debates on European defence in the Convention on the Future of Europe and in the Intergovernmental Conference that followed. It also has a subsidiary interest in France, and develops a framework for exploring why UK, German and French positions on defence cooperation diverge, but also for plotting how those positions moved significantly towards convergence during the constitutional debate. The move towards more convergent positions is traced through a discussion of Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Petersberg Tasks, the solidarity clause, structured cooperation and the European armaments and strategic research agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic thought has often regarded business cycles as asymmetric. This study examines the existence of asymmetries over the business cycle in seven European countries: France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. To analyse this issue, industrial production in these countries from 1957 to 1998 is examined, and quarterly contractions and expansions in this variable are compared. The results obtained with both parametric and non- parametric methods allow the existence of asymmetries in these countries to be questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent investigations concerning the productivity of the UK construction industry and its performance compared with other European and world-wide nations have reported conflicting findings. These investigations have utilized various methodologies in attempting to measure and compare productivity levels. The present investigation uses a customized method to gauge the productivity at site level of three European national construction industries, namely Germany, France and the UK. Analysis of variance is employed to compare the productivity rates used by contractors' planning engineers for a specific concreting operation. The performance of UK contractors is found to be more disparate than those of contractors in either France or Germany. Although leading UK contractors can compete with the best on the continent, there are a number of companies whose performance is far worse than any in France and Germany, due mainly to the construction methods used by UK contractors. It is concluded therefore, that a best practice recommendation for UK contractors would be for them to avoid using traditional timber formwork methods to beams, and instead adopt more productive approaches afforded using either proprietary or prefabricated systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of France in Europe after the end of the Cold War and the unification of Germany. Many believe that France was already on the brink of a major redefinition of its role in Europe by early 1991 as a result of Germany's sudden unification and France's limited role in this process. This redefinition of the French role was also partly the result of personal communication between French President François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany. These efforts resulted to the Kohl-Mitterrand declaration, which was ignored both by the French public and the political class, because they were overshadowed by events in the Gulf and appeared unrealistic when compared with Europe's response in the Gulf.