Fighting Deflation: Would QE work in the euro area? CEPS Commentary, 9 October 2014

With inflation in the eurozone stubbornly remaining on a downward trajectory, pressure is growing on the ECB to do “something” to prevent outright deflation. But, given the financial structure of eurozone countries, would the preferred "something" – quantitative easing – actually do the trick?

DG CONNECT’s Stakeholder Engagement Strategy. IES Policy Brief Issue 2013/03 • April 2013

Summary. How do we ensure that public policy represents the interests of all, rather than a select few? How will we ensure it draws upon the best insights and talents of key stakeholders? The European Commission’s DG CONNECT recently announced the results of its Stakeholder Engagement Survey, which is designed to ‘provide empirical results and feedback about existing practices and signal gaps and challenges for action in the area of stakeholder engagement.’ (Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Stakeholders Unit D4, 2013, p.4). The survey launched a new round of reflection on the Commission’s relations with its stakeholders by asking respondents to reflect on the way in which they interact with DG CONNECT. The strategic objective is to see how ICTs can be used in novel ways to enhance support for policymaking from stakeholders in the EU. The Stakeholder Engagement Survey makes a start at answering critical questions about use of ICT as a tool to build ‘smarter policy’ as part of DG CONNECT’s wider step toward defining a strategy for stakeholder engagement. This IES Policy Brief welcomes this current work-in-progress, and outlines some of the challenges that may await the European Commission as it seeks to exploit the full potential of ICT in stakeholder engagement. It provides an initial analysis of the results of this first Stakeholder Engagement Survey, and concludes that whilst many things have changed with regards to tools that policymakers can use to elicit input into policymaking, certain challenges have remained very much the same.

Minding and not minding your own business: What justifies attempts to assess the democratic quality of political systems? IHS Political Science Series No. 139, May 2015

Founded in 1963 by two prominent Austrians living in exile – the sociologist Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the economist Oskar Morgenstern – with the financial support from the Ford Foundation, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, and the City of Vienna, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) is the first institution for postgraduate education and research in economics and the social sciences in Austria. The Political Science Series presents research done at the Department of Political Science and aims to share “work in progress” before formal publication. It includes papers by the Department’s teaching and research staff, visiting professors, graduate students, visiting fellows, and invited participants in seminars, workshops, and conferences. As usual, authors bear full responsibility for the content of their contributions.

Measuring progress in eco-innovation. CEPS Working Document No. 409/June 2015

Eco-innovation has been identified as one of the key drivers of change that need to be harnessed for a sustainable future. Given the complexity of eco-innovation as a concept, there are various challenges to measuring its progress. This paper briefly explores the evolution of the concept of eco-innovation and emphasises its role in the EU 2020 strategy. It then provides an overview of the different measurement approaches and challenges associated with identifying and using indicators for measuring progress in eco-innovation. Within this context, the paper describes the added value and key features of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way in which policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for green economy and eco-innovation. The web tool was developed on the basis of a systematic overview by the NETGREEN research team of the large and fragmented body of work in the field of green economy indicators. The paper concludes with a number of messages for policy-makers in the field of the green economy.