Institutional Moral Hazard in the Multi-tiered Regulation of Unemployment and Social Assistance Benefits. CEPS Special Report No. 137/April 2016 Wednesday, 27 April 2016

This paper studies eight countries in which the regulation of unemployment benefits and related benefits and the concomitant activation of unemployed individuals has a multi-tiered architecture. It assesses their experiences and tries to understand possible problems of ‘institutional moral hazard’ that may emerge in the context of a hypothetical European Unemployment Benefit Scheme.

Europeanization, Institutional Changes and Differential Empowerment

The issue of European integration is of utmost importance for contemporary Swiss politics, as underscored by the presence of three decision-making processes relating to bilateral agreements with the EU, and two additional processes with a strong European dimension (the telecommunication act and the immigration law), among the 11 most important processes of the early 2000s. Previous chapters have highlighted substantial differences between domestic and Europeanized decision-making processes in terms of institutional design and decision-making structures. Chapters 2 and 3 suggest that the peculiarities of the three decision-making processes relating to bilateral agreements go along with specific power configurations among political actors. Chapter 5 draws our attention to the impact of Europeanization on the specific decision-making structure at work in a given policy process.

Torn between state and market: Private policy implementation and conflicting institutional logics

Policy implementation by private actors constitutes a “missing link” for understanding the implications of private governance. This paper proposes and assesses an institutional logics framework that combines a top-down, policy design approach with a bottom-up, implementation perspective on discretion. We argue that the conflicting institutional logics of the state and the market, in combination with differing degrees of goal ambiguity, accountability and hybridity play a crucial role for output performance. These arguments are analyzed based on a secondary analysis of seven case studies of private and hybrid policy implementation in diverging contexts. We find that aligning private output performance with public interests is at least partly a question of policy design congruence: private implementing actors tend to perform deficiently when the conflicting logics of the state and the market combine with weak accountability mechanisms.

The Art of Enduring Contradictory Goals: Challenges in the Institutional Co‐construction of a ‘Good Death’

This paper focuses on the normative notion of ‘good death’, its practical relevance as a frame of reference for ‘death work’ procedures in institutional elder care in Switzerland and the ways in which it may be challenged within migrant ‘dying trajectories’. In contemporary palliative care, the concept of ‘good death’ focuses on the ideal of an autonomous dying person, cared for under a specialised biomedical authority. Transferred to the nursing home context, characterised by long-term basic care for the very old under conditions of scarce resources, the notion of ‘good death’ is broken down into ready-to-use, pragmatic elements of daily routines. At the same time, nursing homes are increasingly confronted with socially and culturally diversified populations. Based on ethnographic findings, we give insight into current practices of institutional ‘death work’ and tensions arising between contradicting notions of a ‘good death’, by referring to decision-making, life-prolonging measures, notions on food/feeding and the administration of sedative painkillers.

Whole of Government Approach for Institutional and Policy Coherence

The comprehensive structure of cooperation at domestic level reflects on bilateral, regional and global level.

Strengthening the Migration-Development Nexus through Improved Policy and Institutional Coherence

The complexity of migration issues is clearly reflected by states diverging national migration policy interests that exists within one state. In line with the Swiss Report on International Cooperation on Migration of the Swiss Federal Council , this complexity requires close coordination and cooperation between the governmental institutions and all offices. Only through a close and coherent cooperation between all governmental actors involved in migration issues the migration-development nexus can be strength. The present paper will suggest how intergovernmental cooperation can lead to better policy coherence in migration by interlinking all actors involved.

How Much am I Expected to Pay for my Parents‘ Firm? An Institutional Logics Perspective on Family Discounts

Recent evidence suggests that successors do not simply inherit their parents’ firm, but have to pay a certain price. Building on institutional logics literature, we explore successors’ family discount expectations, defined as the rebate expected from parents in comparison to nonfamily buyers when assuming control of the firm. We find that family cohesion increases discount expectations, while successors’ fear of failure and family equity stake in the firm decrease discount expectations. Higher education in business or economics weakens These effects. On average, in our study comprised of 16 countries, successors expect a 57% family discount.

A new institutional approach to Japanese firms' foreign direct investment under free trade agreements

This paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) under free trade agreements (FTAs) from a new institutional perspective. First, the determinants of FDI are theoretically discussed from a new institutional perspective. Then, FDI is statistically analyzed at the aggregate level. Kernel density estimation of firm-size reveals some evidence of "structural changes" after FTAs, as characterized by the investing firms' paid-up capital stock. Statistical tests of the average and variance of the size distribution confirm this in the case of FTAs with Asian partner countries. For FTAs with South American partner countries, the presence of FTAs seems to promote larger-scale FDIs. These results remain correlational instead of causal, and more statistical analyses would be needed to infer causality. Policy implications suggest that participants should consider "institutional" aspects of FTAs, that is, the size matters as a determinant of FDI. Future work along this line is needed to study "firm heterogeneity."

The future of the WTO and the international trading system: investigating the institutional crisis

Pierre Sauvé addressed the issue of the WTO’s institutional crisis at a workshop on "The Future of the WTO and the International Trading System" organized by the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee in Brussels on May 8th, 2012.

'Institutional Shopping' for Natural Resource Management in a Protected Area and Indigenous Territory in the Bolivian Amazon.

Focusing on an overlapping protected area and indigenous territory in the Bolivian Amazon, this article discusses how indigenous people continue to negotiate access to natural resources. Using the theoretical framework of New Institutionalism, ethnographic data from participatory observations, and interviews with Takana indigenous resource users and park management staff, we identified four phases of institutional change. We argue that under the current institutionally pluralistic setting in the overlapping area, indigenous users apply “institutional shopping” to choose, according to their power and knowledge, the most advantageous institutional framework in a situation. Indigenous users strategically employed arguments of conservation, indigeneity, or long-term occupation to legitimize their claims based on the chosen institution. Our results highlight the importance of ideologies and bargaining power in shaping the interaction of individuals and institutions. As a potential application of our research to practice, we suggest that rather than seeing institutional pluralism solely as a threat to successful resource management, the strengths of different frameworks may be combined to build robust institutions from the bottom up that are adapted to the local context. This requires taking into account local informal institutions, such as cultural values and beliefs, and integrating them with conservation priorities through cross-cultural participatory planning.

Institutional bases for control of nonpoint source pollution under the Clean Water Act, with emphasis on agricultural nonpoint sources /

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