The European Union and political behaviour: The shadow of the Great Recession

The symposium aims to analyse the politicisation of the European issue following the onset of the Eurozone crisis, in particular its impact on individual attitudes and voting both at the national and supranational level. By way of an introduction, we address the state of the art on the importance of the Eurozone crisis for EU politicisation, as well as outlining each article and its contribution. While our authors may sometimes focus on different dependent variables, they all speak to the question of whether the Great Recession made a lasting difference, and whether EU politicisation matters. Most articles are longitudinal, and test for changes due to the crisis (Dassonneville, Lewis- Beck and Jabbour; Ruiz-Rufino; Talving and Vasilopoulou; Jurado and Navarrete). But preoccupation with the Great Recession is also present in the articles assessing the political learning that unfolded from it (Ruiz-Rufino), or the ones which investigate whether EU effects can be detected during the post-crisis years (Talving and Vasilopoulou; Lobo and Pannico; Heyne and Lobo). Despite the diversity of approaches, and certain differences in findings, each article contributes to a major debate ongoing in the literature, especially three key debates which have arisen: the crisis’ impact on European party systems, economic voting, and the degree of legitimacy of democratic systems.     

Financial Recession and the Wages of the Czech Employees by Educational Attainment

The present paper deals with the development of wage distribution by educational attainment in the Czech Republic in the years of 2003-2012, analyzing 50 wage distributions as the object of research and the gross monthly wage in CZK （Czech Koruna） as the research variable. It examines the development of wage distribution in time and the gross monthly wage in relation to the level of educational attainment. It also pursues the development of the minimum wage in the monitored period. The author pays special attention to the lowest guaranteed wage levels classified according to wage classes and work capability assessment, comparing the minimum wage with the wage of subsistence. The forecasts of future wage distribution are an integral component of the research. Comparison of wage levels in the world and the position of wages of the Czech employees in the international context are included, too.     

Financial derivatives and the rise of circulation

The analysis argues that the outsourcing of production from the metropole generated problems of monetary connectivity that motivated the banking sector to develop and market a new species of derivative: the financial derivative. Virtually non-existent until 1973, such derivatives would soon become a 100 trillion dollar market. Making a market for these derivatives opened the door for speculative capital just as the attempt by this market to capture the risks embodied in local monetized relations led to emergence of a notion of abstract risk. The notion of abstract risk, embodied in the derivative and propelled by a self-expanding speculative capital, is globally significant because abstract risk functions as a social mediation, creating a new form of interdependence in the sphere of circulation even as circulation itself grows increasingly autonomous from production. We show that what makes the emergent culture of financial circulation historically new is that it is defined and determined through the objectification of abstract risk.     

政府在日本金融制度演化中的作用

作者认为,日本金融行政的思想滥觞于明治维新以来的近现代经济发展史,日本政府通过学习西方金融制度引导本国金融制度的变革方向,在制度实施过程中各种关系的博弈过程形成了日本金融制度演化的路径。这种依靠政府力量推动的金融制度演化方式是造成日本完成经济追赶后无法赶超的一个主要原因。     

WTO背景下的金融安全问题探讨

金融在一国经济中的命脉作用决定了金融安全是一个国家经济安全的核心 ;对金融安全区及其实现条件的探讨 ,有利于规避内在原因所导致的金融风险 ;一些重要措施的采取 ,可以保证更好地实现金融安全。     

Financial derivatives and the theory of money

Abstract

Financial derivatives are used and counted as money, but it is unclear exactly what sort of money they are. This article explores the monetary role of financial derivatives in securing the global financial system. It finds that derivatives commensurate the values of different forms of financial assets, and, in the process, they facilitate continuity across different forms of money. In this role they are a form of commodity money, but very different from conventional understandings of commodity money. In developing this idea, the paper engages recent debates in Economy and Society about the nature of money. In particular, it takes issue with Ingham's state theory of money, which cannot adequately engage exchange rate volatility and extra-national roles of money, and Lapavitsas’ approach to a Marxist theory of money, which relegates commodity money to a historical abstraction.     

Subprime catalyst: Financial regulatory reform and the strengthening of US carbon market governance

The 2008 financial crisis has had an important, but neglected, impact on carbon market governance in the United States. It acted as a catalyst for the emergence of a domestic coalition that drew upon the crisis experience to demand stronger regulation over carbon markets. The influence of this coalition was seen first in the changing content of draft climate change bills between 2008 and 2010. But the coalition's more lasting legacy was its role in shaping the content of, and supporting, the passage of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd–Frank bill) in July 2010. Although that bill was aimed primarily at bolstering financial stability, its derivatives provisions strengthened carbon market regulation in significant ways. This policy episode demonstrates new patterns of coalition building in carbon market politics as well as the growing links between climate governance and financial regulatory politics. At the same time, the significance of these developments should not be overstated because of various limitations in the content and implementation of the Dodd–Frank bill, as well as the waning support for carbon markets more generally within the US since the bill's passage.     

新自由主义与阿根廷金融危机

本文重点分析了新自由主义的实质以及它对阿根廷经济所造成的危害,提出了必须从本国国情出发合理利用国家的经济职能,而不能完全听任市场和外资去主宰本国经济的中肯建议.     

Financial industry mobilisation and securities markets regulation in Europe

The 2007–2009 financial crisis has led to considerable debate about the role of financial industry actors in global regulatory processes. This article seeks to contribute to this debate by assessing when and why financial industry actors mobilise in order to influence securities markets regulations. Do these mobilisation patterns suggest undue influence by a small set of powerful industry actors, or do they reflect the engagement of a more diverse set of actors representing broader public interests? It is argued that variation in mobilisation patterns is a function of: (1) institutional opportunity (the openness and accessibility of regulatory politics); and (2) demonstration effects (how crises increase the salience of regulatory issues). Empirical analyses suggest that the financial crisis diminished the diversity of mobilising actors. This trend, however, is reversed when the news media disseminate information about the costs of weak financial regulation and thereby increase the salience of regulatory issues.     

历史视野中的美国经济"双赤字"问题

多年来,美国经济发展中的一个重要特征是存在着高额的财政赤字和经常项目赤字.双高赤字起自上世纪80年代里根政府时期,可以说是"里根经济学"为取得成功所付出的代价.90年代的克林顿政府所采取的削减联邦财政赤字为主要内容的宏观经济政策获得了成功,而美国经济的持续繁荣则继续导致了美国贸易赤字的增长.小布什政府上台次年重新出现财政赤字,其后双赤字不断攀升,创下了历史最高记录.布什政府推行的减税计划造成政府税收下降和9.11事件以后美国政府开支的大幅度增加是联邦财政重现赤字的主要原因;美国贸易赤字居高难下并不断增加,从根本上说则是美国经济中消费和支出远远大于其产出的结果.双赤字对美国经济有利有弊,但归根到底弊大于利,同时也给世界经济增长蒙上了阴影,带来了诸多不确定因素.美国的双高赤字形势虽然可能会有所改观,但作为一种总体的状况恐会长期存在下去.     

Risk and Financial Armageddon in Ireland: The Politics of the Galway Tent

This article examines Ireland's financial crisis. Thus far explanation has focused on individual or collective administrative failure: the office(r) of financial regulation singularly failed to scrutinise the banks sufficiently: it was a matter of poor risk management. While this article would agree that the (mis)management of risk was important to how the crisis unfolded, I argue that an explanation of why the crisis emerged demands an altogether different focus. Put simply, after financial regulatory reform, a reconfiguration of risk in politics took place as the locus of decision‐making about financial risk shifted from the realm of the political/legal (Cabinet/Central Bank/Department of Finance) to the economic/legal (retail banks, shareholders/consumers). It was a critical development, one that mirrored events taking place in the UK, upon which Ireland drew experience, for now assessments about risk undertaken by the banks demanded that intervention could be justified only on an ascertainable risk, not a theoretical uncertainty (or spurious fear). The evidentiary bar for intervention was therefore raised, removing the precautionary instinct implicit in the prudential governance of Central Banks.     

Under pressure. Economic constraints,electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

Even when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis-struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open-ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross-country and cross-party, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal-typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.     

理性认识金融危机下我国中间阶层的作用

在全球性金融危机中,中国承受着巨大压力,一部分人认为,作为社会中流砥柱的中间阶层能够以其强劲的消费拉动中国经济,从而维护社会的稳定与发展。文章认为,在金融危机下,这不是一种理性的对待中间阶的态度,并从经济、政治和社会责任感三个角度,分析了在当前环境下这种观点是值得商榷的,随后,从不能正视中间阶层的现状,忽略中国社会发展的实情以及对中间阶层理解的偏差性等方面分析了持这种观点的原因。     

Family Shelter Entry and Re-entry During the Recession in Hennepin County: The Role of Race,Residential Location,and Family Earnings

This article examines the extent to which shelter entry and re-entry increased during the Great Recession (December 2007–December 2009) in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Among successive cohorts of families entering the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Black families were 23% more likely to enter shelter if they were in the 2008–2009 cohort and 28% more likely to enter shelter if they were in the 2010 cohort than if they entered SNAP in 2004–2005. In addition, families who left shelter in 2009 were 39% more likely and families leaving shelter in 2010 were 63% more likely to re-enter shelter than those leaving shelter in 2004–2006. Only a small part of the increases in shelter entry and shelter re-entry was explained by reductions in family earnings. This suggests that the increases in shelter entry and re-entry may have been caused by other factors, such as the decline in the availability of affordable housing.     

论金融诈骗的非法占有目的

非法占有目的是所有金融诈骗犯罪所必须具有的主观要件,认定行为人这一主观心态必须建立在正确理解“非法占有目的”的基础上,再针对刑法条文的不同规定区别对待。     

浅析全球金融危机下的中国经济机会

全球金融危机背景下,中国不可避免地受到了一定影响,但整体上仍保持着经济高增长的潜力。本文探讨了金融危机给中国经济在出口产业结构调整、能源价格机制改革、企业和金融机构海外市场的拓展,以及整个国家在世界经济中地位的提升所带来的机会。     

论高速公路全过程财务跟踪审计

首先论述了高速公路建设实施全过程财务跟踪审计的必要性包括用以加强项目资金管理、控制造价、规范管理等;实施跟踪审计的原则;并着重阐述了财务跟踪审计的主要内容,包括审查会计信息是否失真,审查资产、负债的真实性、合法性及增减变化情况审查;有无隐瞒、收入体外循环问题,审查业主单位提供对外担保是否符合规定等。     

金融体制改革中通货膨胀与通货紧缩的体制性原因

中国金融体制改革中出现了通货膨胀与通货紧缩现象,其原因主要在于体制改革的滞后和不到位。要克服这两种现象,需要通过包括金融体制改革在内的经济体制改革来解决。只有打破旧的体制,建立和完善新的体制,才能从根本上抑制通货膨胀和治理通货紧缩。