The Crowding-out Effect of Mandatory Labour Market Pension Schemes on Private Savings. Evidence from renters in Denmark. CEPS Working Document No. 389, February 2014

This paper aims to estimate the crowding-out effect of the Danish mandatory labour market pension reforms begun in 1993 on the level of total household savings for renters. The effect is identified via a large panel of individual administrative records utilising the differences in speed, timing and sectoral coverage of the implementation of the reform in the period 1997 to 2005. Little substitutability was found between current mandatory labour market pension savings and private voluntary savings. Each euro paid into mandatory labour market pension accounts results in a reduction in private savings of approximately 0 to 30 cents, depending on age. This low rate of substitution is only, to a minor extent, explained by liquidity constraints. The results point to mandatory pension savings having a large effect on total household savings. Thus, pension reforms that introduce mandatory savings have macroeconomic implications.

The fall-out from the Brussels terrorist attacks. EPC Commentary, 16 June 2016

On 22 March, Belgium got a brutal wake-up call. In a coordinated attack, two nail bombs exploded in the departure hall of the Brussels National Airport. A little over an hour later, a third bomb exploded inside a metro train passing through Maelbeek station. 32 civilians lost their lives, while more than 300 people were injured. The Islamic State (IS) network, which was responsible for the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015, claimed responsibility. The arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the Paris attacks, on 18 March, seems to have made IS expedite the Brussels attacks following a claim from the Paris prosecutor that Abdeslam would cooperate with the French Justice Department over the Paris attacks.

Has the European ICT sector a chance to be competitive? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 14/2006

In this paper we try to present the main trends of evolution of the ICT sector. Its dynamics, supported by a constant technical progress in ICs, compounded with “non convexities” such as network effects and high sunk costs, may either lead to a Schumpeter Mark I or Schumpeter Mark II competition regime. This means that in some segments, the market will be more competitive (Mark I), while in other it will be more monopolistic (Mark II). But a key trend is also the so called “convergence”. But digitization makes it cost effective to integrate different communications, information processing and entertainment systems and devices. Hence, Schumpeter Mark II grows at the core where software production dominates, while Schumpeter Mark I is established at the periphery. In this context, the European ICT industry is potentially smashed between two forces: the cost advantages of Asian countries on one hand, the inventiveness and dynamism of the US industry on the other hand. The way out of this very difficult situation is to create in Europe the conditions of restoring knowledge accumulation in a key sub-sector of ICT, that is software production. To do this, Europe can rely on its tradition of cooperation and knowledge sharing and on a set of institutions that have shown their ability to stimulate inter-regional cooperation. By concentrating on an ambitious project of open source software production in embarked systems and domestic networks, Europe could reach several objectives: to make freely accessible an essential facility, to stimulate competition, to help reaching the Lisbon objectives and to restore the European competitiveness in ICT.

Social Democracy, Globalization and Governance: Why is there no European Left Program in the EU? CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 00.6, April 2000

This paper addresses globalization and governance in the EU by attempting to generate some plausible hypotheses that might explain the policy choices of the 12 out of 15 European democratic left governments. With all of the discussion in recent years of a democratic deficit, and then need to maintain a "social Europe," why have these governments not produced more explicit left-wing policies? It suggests three possible hypotheses to account for this apparently mysterious outcome. Hypothesis #1: They want to but they can't. Hypothesis #2: They don't want to because they aren't really left anymore. Hypothesis #3: They could, but they all are suffering from a fundamental failure of imagination. The paper explores each of these hypotheses in two ways. First it examines the initial years of the Schröder government in Germany apparently, pursuing each of these three hypotheses and different times during this period. Then it looks more systematically and comparatively and each of the three hypotheses by including analysis both of Germany and several other EU member states. The larger goal of this work is to provoke discussion and research on what role left political movements can actually play. Is it even reasonable to expect such a group of nation states to develop innovative forms of cross-national governance? Or are new and/or revised forms of representation and governance beyond traditional nation-state models.

The EU deal to avoid Brexit: Take it or leave. CEPS Special Report No. 131/February 2016

Beyond the drama of the European Council summit of 18-19 February 2016, what became clear was the fundamental desire on the part of the leaders of all 28 EU member states to agree a deal on the British government’s demands for a renegotiated settlement on the UK’s relationship within the European Union. The deal has provided David Cameron with the political capital he needed to call a date for the in/out referendum and to lead a campaign for the UK to stay in the EU. Yet, for all the technical reforms packed into it, the deal is neither a crowd pleaser nor a vote winner. It does, however, mark a watershed acknowledgement that EU integration is not a one-directional process of ‘ever closer union’. In this CEPS Special Report, Stefani Weiss and Steven Blockmans analyse the substance of the “Decision of the Heads of State or Government, meeting within the European Council, concerning a New Settlement for the United Kingdom within the European Union” and shed light on its legal character. They contextualise this EU deal to avoid Brexit, and draw on the conclusions reached in a simulation of European Council negotiations between representatives of think tanks in the European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN), conducted by CEPS and the Bertelsmann Stiftung in October 2015.

Larry Summers’ interest rate conundrum. CEPS Hi-level Brief, 16 January 2014

Larry Summers has attracted much attention recently for invoking old theories of secular stagnation to explain the persistence of low interest rates in the recent past. The German economist Carl Christian von Weizsäcker has pointed to a retirement savings glut as the cause for low rates. In the view of Thomas Mayer, however, as expressed in this High-Level Brief, these theses lack both theoretical and empirical support and he offers as an alternative explanation the fall-out from the recent credit boom-bust cycle.

Why is Europe lagging on next generation access networks? Bruegel Policy Contribution ISSUE 2015/14, September 2015

Why is Europe lagging on next generation access networks? Fibre-based next generation access (NGA) roll-out across the European Union is one of the goals of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda strategy, however, there remains considerable uncertainty about how the roll-out goal can best be achieved. The underlying differences between the economics of copper-based and new fibre-based broadband infrastructures should lead to a revision of the regulatory framework for telecommunications markets. While the current regulatory measures have been useful in the past decade to sustain competition and facilitate entry into a market with already-existing infrastructures, the need to create new, much faster broadband networks calls for a rethink of the scope and strictness of regulation.

A historic reminder, an ever-present dilemma? - Assessing Brexit’s potential consequences for European security. EPC Commentary, 18 May 2016

On 9 May 2016, in a further attempt to discourage the British public opinion from opting for their country’s abandonment of the European Union (EU) in the ‘in/out’ referendum on 23 June, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the UK has regretted "turning its back" on Europe in the past, and that the EU had "helped reconcile" countries and maintain peace on the Old Continent.