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The growth model (GM) programme in comparative and international political economy attempts to do three things. First, it encourages a dialogue between international and comparative political economy research through creating a shared theoretical framework that moves beyond the methodological and ontological nationalism of traditional comparative research. Second, it draws upon post-Keynesian macroeconomics to emphasise the importance of domestic demand, credit debt, and macro-financial regimes in shaping the politics of advanced capitalism. Third, it draws attention to the dynamics of political conflict, coalition building and social agency in shaping country-specific GMs. Each paper in this special issue either directly or indirectly touches on these different aspects of the nascent GM research programme. But they do so with a particular focus on the comparative political economy of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper dresses a literature systematic review based on 83 peer-reviewed papers studying the impact of income diversification on bank performance. This review is motivated especially by the mixed literature findings about the effectiveness of income diversification on bank performance. Findings indicate that the nature of the effect of diversification on bank performance depends on a range of factors concerning the research methodology adopted. Indeed, the results reveal that the mixed results may be caused by the fact that researchers have examined the diversification–performance relationship in different study settings (US, Europe, MENA, Asia) using different study periods, different measures of diversification, and performance, different estimation methods and different regression models including different control variables. We think that our review would be important for practitioners and regulators to assess the empirical benefits of this profound change in the traditional banking business. Also, our paper might highlight the related pertinent academic issues that should be addressed in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the general relationship between peoples' health-related practices and their affiliation with different fields in the occupational structure. It argues that 'healthy behaviour' may be particularly induced in the field of service occupations (jobs where one is providing a service, rather than producing a physical product), rendering such practices an emerging capital in the sense advanced by Bourdieu. The paper presents an empirical elaboration of this theoretical argument by assessing comparative European data on health behavioural dispositions. Across occupational class levels, defined according to Esping-Andersen's post-industrial class scheme, service workers display dispositions suggesting greater possessions of health capital than their counterparts in the industrial hierarchy. In a multilevel analysis, considering societal context, the paper furthermore associates such endowments with post-industrial development. Elaborating on the general relationships identified, we suggest the rising importance of individual health investments to be considered as potentially instigating and reinforcing symbolic boundaries (social closure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary conflicts of sovereignty in Europe have gone beyond the clash between national and supranational sovereignty. Sovereignty conflicts are increasingly occurring within member states. This paper develops a conceptual framework that distinguishes between foundational, institutional and territorial conflicts of sovereignty, elaborating on this taxonomy with reference to the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty in Europe. It provides an account of why we have seen a proliferation in conflicts of sovereignty within European states. This is due in part to the notion of "shared" sovereignty. Central to European integration, this notion has introduced considerable institutional indeterminacy into the political systems of member states, leading to many of the institutional conflicts of sovereignty we see in Europe today. The struggle of national party systems to institutionalize societal conflict via partisan competition is another contributory factor. This has displaced conflict onto the terrain of how popular rule is institutionalized within the national state. In developing this framework, the paper provides a method for distinguishing between political conflicts tout court and those touching specifically upon sovereignty. Moreover, the framework helps us distinguish between those conflicts of sovereignty most destabilizing for a polity and those which are less so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surge of populist and radical right phenomena reshaped European political geography. Yet the connections between places of residence and populist or radical right politics tended to be neglected until recently. This paper addresses the gap by exploring how residency relates to support for populism and the radical right in contemporary Europe. Focusing on the distinction between 'cities', 'towns–suburbs', and 'countryside', I conduct an individual-level investigation of populist and radical right votes and attitudes across different residential contexts. The analysis is based on European Social Survey data (2020–22) from 23 countries, in both Western (WE) and Central–Eastern (CEE) Europe. The key finding is that the cleavage between cities and suburban–rural areas is much more related to the thick ideological underpinnings of the radical right—authoritarianism and nativism—than the thin, purely populist, dimension. Nativism particularly is stronger the more rural the place of residence, irrespective of the individual's socio-economic profile, political orientations, the extent to which their region is left-behind, and whether they live in WE or CEE. Hence, future research on the geographical polarization of politics may turn its attention to the radical right, more than to populism per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Europe and the OECD, the bioeconomy is promoted as that which will succeed the carbon economy: an economy based in 'the bio' that will be innovative, sustainable, responsible and environmentally friendly. Yet how to critically approach an economy justified not only by its accumulative potentials but also its ability to do and be good? This paper suggests the concept of 'the good economy' as an analytical tool for investigating how economic practice is entangled in versions of the good. Building upon the classic contributions of Weber, Thompson and Foucault in combination with valuation studies, this paper shows how the good economy concept can be employed to examine how the economic and the good are intertwined. Empirically, the paper teases out how what is made to be good in the bioeconomy is radically different than in economies of the recent past. While 'the good economy' of the early oil and aquaculture economy concerned how to insert this economy into society in a good manner, society is surprisingly absent in the contemporary bioeconomy. The bioeconomy is enacted as an expert issue, pursued by the tools of economic valuation, and based in the unquestioned idea that 'the bio' makes any economy good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its potential, the application of dynamic pricing (DP) remains the exception rather than the rule in car parks across Europe. This paper conceptualizes DP as a practice and leverages mechanisms of practice diffusion and organizational implementation to explain its slow diffusion. Among European car park operators the lack of technical and cultural fit of DP is identified as one of the main reasons for the slow diffusion process. It appears that more time is needed for an acceleration of the diffusion process as data management improves and prevalence of increasing digital solutions in a rather analogue industry become more accepted. As parking customers will eventually become more susceptible to digital solutions, more market participants are likely to adopt DP as the driving pricing scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the characteristics of a successful electoral campaign is its ability to construct a consistent message over time, which can contribute to electoral gains. This paper analyses the political communication strategies of the two official campaigns (Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave) during the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership. It does so by analysing their ability to remain on point during the speeches, press releases and interviews given by campaigners in the context of the core campaign frame. The analysis finds that throughout the official campaign Vote Leave remained on point both in terms of the key frame operationalised and the components within the frame; meanwhile, Britain Stronger in Europe subjected the electorate to no fewer than five different frames, which were often internally cluttered and, as a result, reduced the campaign benefits of repetition. The differences between the two campaigns represents a further explanatory variable to account for the outcome of the 2016 referendum. The findings also draw attention to the role of political differences within BSiE as an underlying cause of its inconsistent campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis and countries' reactions led to analyses about how governance systems influenced the management of the pandemic and how COVID-19 influenced businesses. The concept of institutional resilience transcends these directions of research, but we know little about what it means and how to measure it. This paper proposes an innovative framework to conceptualize and assess institutional resilience based on three organisational traits: preparedness, agility and robustness. This approach provides the opportunity to sequence actions before, during and after the pandemic. This framework will be applied through various cases studies in Europe in the contributions to this symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the puzzle of how what could have been initially regarded as a decline in populist support became compatible with widespread conspiracy beliefs during the Covid crisis. Analyzing survey data collected in 16 countries in June–July 2021, we explore how support for Covid conspiracies is embedded in the attitudinal map of individuals and offer three contributions to the literature on conspiracy beliefs and populism. First, we employ an original scale for measuring conspiracy beliefs benchmarked both on a general conspiratorial mindset item and on a non-conspiratorial item. Second, building on the multidimensionality of the concept of populism and its empirical distinction to neighboring anti-technocratic attitudes, we employ a new scale developed and tested by Bertsou and Caramani (2022) that allows us to highlight the differential role that these attitudes play into conspiracy beliefs. Third, we inquire into the role played by previous factors associated with populist attitudes, such as trust and ideology, but also understudied ones such as performance evaluations and (dis)satisfaction with the management of the crisis at the domestic and at the EU level. Our results show that conspiracy, populist, and anti-technocratic attitudes are highly prevalent and related to each other, despite an initial "rally" effect in the beginning of the pandemic. Furthermore, government and EU performance in the crisis matter, net of trust and ideology, playing a moderating role in the populism–conspiracy nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By creating personalized offers, airlines aim at offering their customers what they are the most likely to buy. Knowing customers is usually considered as a mandatory step to achieve that goal. In this paper, we will examine Passenger Name Record (PNR) data as a source of information, and how it can be used for a better customer knowledge. PNR data's content is rich: not only on whom the customer is and on what he bought, but also on the history of his/her purchase (when he/she bought, canceled, changed). Once cleaned and organized, PNR data provide a solid base for personalization. But their usage is challenged by privacy rules, especially GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe. We will explain how. Most people think of personalization as producing 1:1 offers. The efficiency of such an approach is questionable. GDPR makes it very difficult. Nevertheless, making "personalized proposals" can come down to fitting what the customer is looking for. This way conversion rate and customer satisfaction improve directly. And the process remains achievable, ensuring a virtuous privacy approach. Statistical analysis of anonymous data and context usage can be combined for best results Anonymized data can be used to qualify consistent groups of customers, using very simple clustering methods. The content of a shopping request (= the context) can then be used to connect the customer to one of the identified groups. The offer that is then produced is adjusted accordingly [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the law and economics of insurance in Europe. Importance of the study of economic effects of legal rule to understand the problems of real-life insurance; Provision of a critical evaluation of flood insurance; Discussion of the economic features of catastrophe bonds.

In this paper, we investigate characteristic differences between Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds and conventional funds across 35 different categories, including previously unexplored areas, such as fund manager skills and investment strategies. Further, we examine SRI and conventional funds globally rather than from just one country (e.g., US) or one region (e.g., Europe), covering funds listed in 22 different countries. We also adopt a new Principal Component Analysis (PCA) methodology for matching SRI funds against their conventional counterparts that significantly increases the sample size from previous studies, reducing selection bias and possibly explaining contradictory findings in the prior literature. Contributing to the literature, our findings show that: (i) SRI funds have more diversified portfolios than conventional funds; (ii) SRI funds have lower cash holdings while investing more in US equities; and (iii) SRI fund managers charge a smaller fee and are more successful in managing their portfolios. This is reassuring for investors who invest in SRI funds and for the future health and sustainability of the planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the start of Solvency II in January 2016, there is no overview of the insurance market in Europe. This paper develops a methodology to link various data sets on foreign branches and subsidiaries. The result is a new and comprehensive data set of cross-border insurance in Europe. We find that cross-border business in insurance is higher than in banking. We also find that the share of cross-border insurance has increased over the last decade, notwithstanding the global financial crisis. EIOPA, the European supervisory authority, plays a coordinating role among the national supervisors in the approval of internal models under Solvency II. Game theory suggests that there are limits to the coordination model. The increasing share of cross-border insurance, documented in this paper, may tilt the supervisory balance from coordination towards centralisation in an Insurance Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address the conceptual and ethical problems that arise when scholars of contemporary European history resort to the notion of collective trauma. Different historical works on the reconstruction of Europe in the second half of the 20th century have relied on the notion of trauma to grasp the evolution of the memory of violence. More specifically, however, this paper focuses on the problems that arise from defining the Spanish Civil War as a collective trauma by examining the antagonistic ways in which the traumas derived from this conflict have been embodied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global trend of populism affects established democracies in Europe and around the world. Instrumental to this wave is the notion of the People, harnessed by populists' rhetoric to their political advantage. Yet only little is known on the various, even contradicting meanings of the People in political discourse. Drawing on popular sovereignty theories and representation studies, in this paper I develop a theoretical framework of four key facets of the People—political, national, spatial, and abstract, and their two dimensions—concrete and diffuse. I argue that while elections are associated primarily with the political facet of the People, cross-temporal approaches to electoral representation highlight the People as a multifaceted construct. I explore these theoretical conjectures with computational text analysis of news media coverage of the 2016 American election. I find that the People is a multidimensional construct, with temporal dynamics that connect the political facet with the broader political agency of the People. However, this connection holds only before the 2016 election, and not after them. The results are discussed in relation to populism and the challenges democracies are facing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the performance of different sector rotation strategies for the US and European market spanning the period 1999–2019. By utilising three different strategies, we shed further light on the effectiveness of interest rate, momentum and Fama–French three- and five-factor alphas as switching signals to enter and exit a particular sector. The emerging evidence suggests that within the European market, sector rotation strategies tend to produce returns above the average benchmark, both during contractionary and expansionary monetary policy regimes, while excessive returns within both the US and European markets are observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cost of life distribution varies considerably across markets and channels. This is increasingly important for insurers and regulators due to the continuing low interest rate environment in Europe, which strongly affects profits. The aim of this paper is to study the distribution costs of different distribution systems/channels and markets, examine the key drivers of distribution costs and discuss future developments against the background of digitalisation and an increasing intensity of intermediary regulation. Our analysis is based on empirical data for the European insurance market. This is complemented by interviews with several industry experts. Our findings suggest that distribution costs depend on various factors and cannot be explained solely by differences in distribution channel strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the audit policy in Europe in 2011, in which many questions have been raised on corporate governance and transparency of information due to the 2007 financial crisis. He cites the green paper "Audit policy: Lessons from the crisis," by the European Union, which explores the audit sector to know the improvements to be made in the public interest. He also notes that finding the steps to improve international cooperation is the one of the objectives of the green paper.

In keeping with practices elsewhere in Europe, Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Ireland have in recent decades adopted access policies for non-traditional students (not recent school leavers). This paper assesses a particular initiative to facilitate access to HEIs to non-traditional students. However, due to the initiative's origins as a non-accredited certificate for asylum seekers and refugees, specific attention will be paid to the immigrant community. This paper assesses the details of a new programme in Irish politics and political leadership for non-traditional students in Ireland. It will present the curriculum and document the teaching strategies that were selected while exploring the role for universities and political science departments, in particular in facilitating integration. Student-centred learning provides the overarching framework for the curriculum. Three teaching approaches - KWL, service learning, and enquiry- or problem-based learning - have been selected as the pedagogical underpinnings of this Certificate programme. The paper explores all three approaches and provides examples of how these will be employed. Finally, this paper concludes with a discussion of how the programme could be adapted in other jurisdictions and its uses in integrating citizens from new communities across European democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the stationarity hypothesis of non-life insurance consumptions is supported during the period 1979–2005 for 31 countries. The stationarity of insurance consumption has important implications for modelling and forecasting insurance activities. On a global scale, this paper first implements the recent panel seemingly unrelated regressions augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root test, which allows us to account for possible cross-country effects and to identify how many and which countries of the panel contain a unit root. The main conclusion is that whether non-life insurance consumptions are stationary or not will be affected by different regions and their levels of development. Overall, our empirical results illustrate that non-life insurance consumptions in these countries are a mixture of stationary (integrated of order zero) and non-stationary (integrated of order one) processes. Higher risk aversion, lower income level and lower level of insurance market development may lead to non-stationarity. Finally, for the estimated half-lives of Africa, the degrees of mean reversion are greater than those for Europe and America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the changes within the profession of political science in Europe. The first part of the paper outlines the emerging integrated academic labour market in Europe and the accompanying process of convergence around shared professional benchmarks. The main observation here is the increasing influence competitive meritocracy has on our profession. The second part of the paper deals with some of the structural barriers European political science faces in such a competitive market. The final part of the paper outlines ways by which to surpass these structural barriers and attain a competitive academic profile while doing a Ph.D. at a typical European university.European Political Science (2009) 8, 151–161. doi:10.1057/eps.2009.3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coverage of catastrophic risks, and in particular of industrial and technological risks, raises multiple questions. As nuclear risk is considered to be a special risk, its coverage is not provided in a traditional way. One of the problems in coverage of the nuclear risk is that operators today still to a large extent rely upon insurers. However, nuclear insurance is provided through national pools that operate on a non-competitive basis. These pools are costly for operators and the damage covered remains insufficient. Given their dissatisfaction with these insurance pools, many nuclear operators are now looking for alternatives. Relying on the previous work of Faure and Skogh, the goal of this paper is to examine whether a risk-sharing by nuclear operators could constitute a serious alternative for the current coverage system. In order to examine this alternative we will place it in a concrete context of nuclear operators in Europe. Moreover, we do not merely want to sketch the theoretical possibilities of a risk-sharing by operators (as this has been done before in the literature). We will in addition also examine the financial consequences for nuclear operators in Europe of such a risk-sharing agreement.The Geneva Papers (2008) 33, 288–322. doi:10.1057/gpp.2008.7 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains some of the authors' remarks made at the 33rd Geneva Assembly in Munich in May 2006. In a “tour d'horizon”, the author summarises seven trends and challenges the insurance companies are facing today in the continental European life insurance market.The Geneva Papers (2007) 32, 11–15. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510110 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European insurers who have to establish financial statements under IFRS must apply a temporary international accounting standard for insurance contracts which provides a flawed picture of their business. The IFRS long-term project for insurance is still under preparation by the IASB. The standard should not be issued until mid-2009 following a discussion paper to be submitted for comments in the first quarter 2007. The insurance industry has been involved for several years in a proactive way, including participation in the International Insurance Working group set up by the IASB. The European CFO Forum has proposed principles on which the international accounting standard for insurance should be based. The key elements are as follows: the insurance liabilities should be valued on a market consistent measurement including the management's best estimate of future cash flows discounted at a risk-free rate and a margin for risks and uncertainties; the profit should be recognized as the insurer is released from risks, and services are provided to the policyholders over the term of contracts and not at inception. Participating contracts liabilities should be based on an economic valuation. Liabilities should be reassessed at each closing. If applied, the CFO Forum‘s principles would have positive impacts for the investors and other users of the financial statements while entailing huge operational implications. The proposals from the European industry for accounting are closely linked to the proposals for Solvency II that the European Commission is preparing in the meantime: the measurement of the insurance liabilities proposed for both purposes by the CFO Forum, the CRO Forum and the CEA is the same. The American insurers members of the GNAIE and four Japanese Life Insurance groups have made similar propositions for accounting but with some differences that are under debate with the CFO Forum.The Geneva Papers (2007) 32, 62–74. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510121 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulatory regime in Europe is undergoing a fundamental change that will serve as a benchmark for the regulators in other countries. This paper analyses the influence of regulation imposed by Solvency II on life catastrophe risk management activities. The interplay of extreme mortality risks and risk management activities is demonstrated, and the special characteristics of different causes of life catastrophe risk are identified. The advice of the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors, now the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, regarding the life catastrophe risk sub-module of the solvency capital requirement standard formula is to apply a unified single mortality catastrophe shock scenario. We show that this approach does not properly reflect life catastrophe risk and that it potentially prevents the recognition of more sophisticated risk management instruments for the solvency capital requirement calculation. As a result of this analysis, proposals are made for how these shortcomings can be resolved by using a simple generic partial internal model. This model facilitates the recognition of non-proportional risk transfer techniques and thus provides incentives for their use. We show that these proposals are in line with and relevant to the current trend towards the potential development of a more liquid market for extreme mortality risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate cross-sector financial contagion over the period 2006-2014 for a sample of large European banks and insurers. We use CDS spreads and define contagion as correlation over and above what is explained by fundamental factors. Moreover, we assess the impact of different business models on contagion and the channels through which it spreads. We find that, for insurers, size and investment income raise contagion, while for banks capital adequacy, funding and income diversification are the most relevant factors. Furthermore, leverage is crucial in both sectors. We also provide evidence of the main risk transmission channels: the asset-holding and the guarantee channel for insurers and the additional collateral channel for banks. Our results offer new insight on how credit risk spillovers spread across sectors and call for further regulatory and supervisory effort in understanding if and where cross-industry similarities increase contagion risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European insurance industry is awaiting the new EU-wide harmonised Solvency II framework. Before its introduction, it is important to find out which incentive effects can arise from it. Practitioners predict a trend towards consolidation in the insurance sector due to recognition of geographic diversification effects in Solvency II's standard formula. This paper studies whether the new European regulation standards will constitute a driver for mergers and acquisitions in the non-life insurance sector. We identify situations in which consolidation becomes profitable. Our results indicate that the Solvency II framework may lead to an enhanced geographic restructuring wave. However, the profitability of this restructuring depends strongly on the correct estimation of costs and the characteristics of the consolidation partner chosen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have shown that the economic crisis that started in 2008 was followed by a sharp decline in political trust in some liberal democracies. These findings suggest that an economic downturn might contribute to a more structural crisis of democratic legitimacy. From 2011 on, however, unemployment levels in industrialized democracies started to decline again. In this paper, we investigate how public opinion reacted to this gradual economic recovery. Previous studies examining economic evaluations by the public suggest that there is a negativity bias, with public opinion reacting stronger to an economic downturn than to economic growth. We analyse the ESS data from 2002 to 2016 (eight waves) and find that public opinion reacted positively to economic recovery, with levels of political trust gradually rising to pre-crisis levels in most countries. In the discussion section, we reflect on the implications of our findings for the study of trends in political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important policy issue facing countries is the effectiveness of nominal currency devaluation in boosting exports and improving the trade balance of the devaluing country. It is argued that nominal devaluation would be effective only if it leads to real devaluation. This paper examines the relationship between nominal and real effective exchange rates for 17 European transition economies to determine whether nominal devaluation leads to real devaluation. Employing the ARDL cointegration test with quarterly data over the period 1994-2013, the results show that while nominal devaluation leads to real devaluation in the short run in all but Estonia, this short-run effect lasts into the long run in only Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic. Further analysis on sub-samples corresponding to different exchange rate regimes (pre and post ERM II) suggests that different exchange rate regimes may have different impacts on the link between nominal and real devaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European insurance industry is among the largest institutional investors in Europe. Therefore, major reallocations in their investment portfolios due to the new risk-based economic capital requirements introduced by Solvency II would cause significant disruptions in European capital markets and corporate financing. This paper studies whether the new regulatory capital requirements for market risk are a binding constraint for European insurers by comparing the required market risk capital of the Solvency II standard model with the Standard & Poor's rating model for a fictitious, but representative, European-based life insurer. The results show that for a comparable level of confidence, the rating model requires 68 per cent more capital than the standard model for the same market risks. Hence, Solvency II seems not to be a binding capital constraint for market risk and thus would not significantly influence the insurance companies' investment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an update of one written in 2002, when online surveys had made a significant impact on research in the USA, but were yet to take hold in Europe and elsewhere. This latest paper - part 1 of 2 - describes how online market research has now become a de facto methodology for many organizations. It describes the key drivers for growth of online access panels, plus the benefits, issues and applications of the other main quantitative research tools and techniques, including online surveys, river sampling, client panels and databases, and website visitor surveys. Part 2, to be published in the next issue of JDDDMP, will describe developments in qualitative online market research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age is often found to be associated with a plenitude of socioeconomic, politico-administrative, biological and thanatological variables. Much less attention has been paid by scholars, however, to explaining 'age'. In this paper we address this unfortunate scientific lacuna by developing a model of 'age' as a function of several factors suggested by (post)rational choice and social constructionist theories. Using state-of-the-art multilevel statistical techniques, our analysis allows the determinants of age to vary with the institutional characteristics of European countries. Our findings convincingly show that generalized trust in strangers, support for incumbent extremist political parties in provincial elections held in the month of January, and the percentage of overqualified women in the cafeterias of national parliaments are all statistically significant explanations of 'age'. Our findings have obvious implications for conspiracy theorists, organizational advisors, spin doctors and ordinary charlatans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship has categorized referendums predominantly along their procedural and institutional features. This paper moves beyond these formal dimensions, argues that the policy subjected to a popular vote is the missing link and proposes a complementary typology based on the policy areas. This typology fosters comparisons across countries, political systems and over time within one policy area, thus serving as a powerful analytical tool for further analyses. At the same time, the typology maps out the history of referendum use showing the chronology of salient issues in different societies. The empirical evidence draws on an original dataset of 630 nationwide referendums in Europe between 1793 and 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's road to RegTech has rested upon four apparently unrelated pillars: (1) extensive reporting requirements imposed after the Global Financial Crisis to control systemic risk and change in financial sector behaviour; (2) strict data protection rules reflecting European cultural concerns about data privacy and protection; (3) the facilitation of open banking to enhance competition in banking and particularly payments; and (4) a legislative framework for digital identification to further the European Single Market. The paper analyses these four pillars and suggests that together they are underpinning the development of a RegTech ecosystem in Europe and will continue to do so. We argue that the European Union's financial services and data protection regulatory reforms have unintentionally driven the use of regulatory technologies (RegTech) by intermediaries, supervisors and regulators, and provided an environment within which RegTech can flourish. The experiences of Europe in this process will provide insights for other societies in developing their own RegTech ecosystems in order to support more efficient, stable, inclusive financial systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European far-right parties have enjoyed mixed success in the past few years. The primary elements in many of these parties' policy platforms centre on security, terrorism, and foreign persons. Naturally, these platforms are designed to attract electoral support that these actors can parlay into governing positions. Our study offers an important test to ascertain how voters respond to terrorist attacks with respect to centre- and far-right parties. We contend that far-right parties are to likely benefit from terrorist attacks more than centre-right parties. The results from more than 30 European countries, spanning 1975–2013, affirm our hypothesis. The implications for partisanship, governance, and terrorism are explored in this paper as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storm and fire are the two main natural hazards in Europe. They result in high costs for forest owners. However, behaviour in terms of forest insurance demand is heterogenous across Europe. In this paper we focus on private forest owners' decisions to insure against fire. We collected data on: i) willingness-to-pay (WTP) for insurance based on hypothetical scenarios incorporating ambiguous risks; ii) real data on insurance decisions and the individual characteristics. We simultaneously estimated real insurance and WTP using a selection equation for zero WTP that we explain by protest responses against insurance under expected utility. We found that real insurance provision is relevant to explaining positive WTP and that unobservable determinants of insurance may explain protest responses. These results confirm the interest in including observed decisions to analyse preferences towards insurance. One additional result is that facing ambiguous risk increases the WTP for insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial to the symposium briefly contextualises current debates on the European ‘public sphere’ and/or on absence thereof. In light of concern with the EU's so-called ‘democratic deficit’, the issue of how to create a polis without a demos has focused, in part, on the role of the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit) with respect, for example, to the mass media, law, and organisations within civil society. The editorial introduces the individual papers and seeks to identify their potential contributions to academic and policy debate within and beyond the EU.European Political Science (2008) 7, 257–263. doi:10.1057/eps.2008.23 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe question of whether companies' share structure should be based on proportionality between ownership and control has been debated for decades. Powerful institutional investors have over the years tried to convince the EU that a harmonisation of share structures across Europe improves corporate governance. This, however, has been heavily disputed by the several listed companies and their organisations, which fear a standardisation is not in the long-term interests of the firms stakeholders. This paper describes the latest attempt by the EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy to challenge nonproportional share structures such as dual-class voting shares — a highly relevant question, as it turns out that nonproportionality is often more the rule than the exception. The paper provides sound arguments as to why regulators should not set aside the freedom of contract principle in order to standardise listed companies' share structure as ‘one size does not fit all’. However, the freedom of contract principle goes hand in hand with transparency. Moreover, disclosure about a company's share structure is essential in order to give investors information about which types of shares best satisfy the preferences of different investor groups. EU Commissioner McCreevy surprised almost everybody last year when he declared at the European Parliament that he had decided to abandon his quest for imposing a system of ‘one share–one vote’ across Corporate Europe. This does not mean that the debate is over, as the issue of share proportionality will come up again in a few years when the takeover directive is to be reconsidered, hence we may speak about ‘a newer ending story’. This paper seeks to tell the story's most interesting pages.International Journal of Disclosure and Governance (2008) 5, 126–139. doi:10.1057/jdg.2008.4 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cross-sectional properties of stock return forecasts based on Fama–MacBeth regressions using all firms contained in the STOXX Europe 600 index during the September 1999–December 2018 period. Our estimation approach is strictly out of sample, mimicking an investor who exploits both historical and real-time information on multiple firm characteristics to predict returns. The models capture a substantial amount of the cross-sectional variation in true expected returns and generate predictive slopes close to one, i.e., the forecast dispersion mostly reflects cross-sectional variation in true expected returns. The return predictions translate into high value added for investors. For an active trading strategy, we find strong market outperformance net of transaction costs based on a variety of performance measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at all the European and international organizations that have an influence on insurance companies' regulatory environment.The Geneva Papers (2005) 30, 19–28. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510014 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces series of articles regarding the European Economic and Monetary Union.

While some consider open insurance to be a buzzword with more hype than substance, the underlying trend of open finance stimulates insurers to use digital technology to exchange data with third parties to realise process efficiencies and develop new products and channels. Based on a literature review and 30 interviews with industry experts in Europe, we define open insurance, identify its key drivers, and discuss the dimensions and performance impact of open insurance strategy. The combined insights can help executives develop a better understanding of open insurance and formulate an open insurance strategy that provides performance benefits to them, customers, and third parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines policy goals pertaining to joint Master's in Europe as presented in Bologna-related and Erasmus Mundus (EM) policy texts. The profile of joint programmes has risen in the aftermath of the Bologna Process (BP), together with the launch of the EU EM. Despite a European policy tradition of cooperation in higher education (HE), degree developments were usually left outside the scope of policy declarations and did not have an explicit 'agenda status'. If so, what makes these degree developments 'worthy' of political attention in recent years? The paper shows that joint Master's developments have been represented as appropriate action for furthering integration and convergence, as well as for improving competitiveness. It examines the ways in which joint Master's developments have been framed within and by these policy goals. It finally questions drivers of competitiveness and considers their deeper implications for the aims of and practice in HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical literature regarding which actors support the most participatory democracy is surprisingly scarce. Discussing the core ideological features of populist and post-materialist-centred parties, we expect that these parties emphasise participatory democracy more than their competitors. Additionally, populist parties should embody a monist demand for greater participatory democracy, while post-materialist-centred (PMC) parties should advocate a pluralist understanding of it. Drawing on party electoral manifestos, we verify these assumptions in several national elections across Europe. Our findings show mixed support for the theoretical expectations. Both post-materialist and populist parties support participatory democracy more than other parties, and their principles diverge. More precisely, our data confirm that PMC parties advocate a pluralist understanding of participatory democracy. Yet populist parties show a fuzzier picture. While populist radical right parties exhibit a monist profile, radical left populist parties are much more in line with post-materialist arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at looking at governance instruments beyond managerial technicality. It intends to do so by analysing the impact of governance reforms on the universities autonomy assumed as a regulation instrument to politically steer systems and institutions. The regulation efforts undertaken at the European and national levels reflect a trend towards coordination of devolved governance processes (meta-governance). Although there is a wide consensus about awarding autonomy to universities and increasing self-governance, governments need to ensure that their goals are actually pursued, enhancing their regulation frames and meta-governance efforts. This paper focuses on how the governance reform interacts with institutional contexts. The changes promoted by the governance reform are an opportunity to understand how far these apparently contradictory forces operate in three selected Portuguese universities with regard to institutional autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent financial crisis has led to a loss of trust in the quality of corporate governance and the balance of the European financial market. These issues have also affected Germany. In Germany, financial companies' compliance with the German Corporate Governance Code represents a basic standard for 'good' corporate governance. We find that cooperation between management boards and supervisory boards, as well as monitoring by supervisory boards, must be improved. Improvement is also necessary for corporate governance reporting and the implementation of the 'pay for performance' principle. Our analysis supports the critical remarks by the European Commission (EC) in its current Corporate Governance Green Papers for the financial sector regarding the limited ability of the present corporate governance reporting to support stakeholders' decision making. Among other reforms, the EC intends to professionalize supervisory board members, reduce conflicts of interest by limiting multiple mandates of board members, and increase the significance of corporate governance reporting by supervision of the reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the upcoming Solvency II Pillar 3 disclosure regulation for the insurance industry, this paper explores the risk disclosure practices in annual reports of European primary insurers in the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Insurance Index between 2005 and 2009. On the basis of a self-constructed risk disclosure index, the study examines the relation between the extent of risk disclosure and insurance companies' characteristics such as size, risk, profitability, ownership dispersion, cross-listing, home country and type of insurance sold, to draw inferences regarding motives for enhanced risk disclosure based on positive accounting theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effects of tax and benefit systems on differences in income and incentives to earn income within couples in nine member countries of the European Union. The comparative perspective allows us to establish the relative effects of different policy regimes, given the characteristics of each national population, using a consistent approach and set of incidence assumptions across countries. We find variation in the extent of within-couple equalizing across countries and depending on whether the man or the woman has the larger market income. We find no evidence of tax-benefit systems reducing income differences at the expense of increasing disparities in work incentives within couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine current account sustainability for some European countries. However, instead of using classic approaches based on standard I(0)/I(1) procedures, we use other more recent techniques for unit roots along with fractionally integrated methods. Our findings can be summarized as follows: according to the Ng and Perron's (2001) procedure, exports and imports are non-stationary I(1) variables in most of the countries. However, using fractional methods, exports and imports are in most cases I(d) with d>1. With respect to the current accounts, the orders of integration are generally smaller than in the cases of exports and imports, in some cases even smaller than 1, though the unit root cannot be rejected in the majority of the countries. Therefore, we obtain little or no evidence of current account sustainability in the European countries examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]