Are the grand theories of integration still relevant today and capable of describing integration in the European Union? Have the general principles of the grand theories lost their ability to accurately describe European integration? For policy makers and scholars that rely on theories, the...

The U.K.'s decision to leave the EU and the voting in of the protectionist Donald Trump to the US presidency has drawn both the UK and the USA into the Nash Trap.U.S. mathematician John Nash (the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind') postulated that Adam Smith's declaration that ‘In competition,...

In the broad context of responsible management, and corporate responsibility, the present paper studies the general issue of conflicts between private investors, and governments, with a particular focus on the investor-state dispute settlement through international arbitration. On the grounds of...

This paper investigates the impact of the global economic downturn, its nature and impacts on the state of employment in the region of South East Europe. As the financial crisis spilled over into the real sector, its effects, with varying magnitude, ranging from relatively consequential to...

One view in the literature (Popov 2020) is that East Asian model is superior to other models in the Global South, at least in terms of catch-up development and possibly even in innovations beyond the technological frontier. Unlike economic models in Latin America and Sub-Sahara Africa, the East...

The Swedish policy response to covid-19 stands out as exceptional in international comparisons. The approach adopted is fundamentally determined by the Swedish constitution. Three articles of the constitution are central for this explanation. The first one guarantees the freedom of movement for...

In welfare states, collective saving has declined to a persistently negative level, while reduced fertility and increasing longevity are leading to increasing pension liabilities. Actuarial neutrality across generations is presented as a benchmark for designing pension reforms to meet the...

Preparations are underway to revise national accounting to implement actuarial recording of pension liabilities for corporations and government as an employer. This paper extends this to unfunded public pensions with the help of "implicit tax" in pension contributions. The clearest advantages of...

Should a subset of member states of a federation be allowed to form a sub-union on some policy issue? When centralization is not politically feasible, allowing an enhanced cooperation agreement among a subset of countries permits the latter to gain benefits which would otherwise be lost....

This paper reviews the U.S. welfare reform efforts over the 1990s and the effects of these reforms to date. Seven "lessons" of potential interest to European observers are discussed, with particular attention to the conclusions of more recent research. Such research indicates, for example, that...