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With over one million people arriving in Germany to seek asylum since 2013, entering the labour market remains a key aspect for a successful integration process. In their attempt to attain employment, the recently arrived refugees face multiple challenges. One aspect that offers great potential to support them in finding suitable jobs and enhance their employability are Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs). This includes measures such as job-counselling, vocational training and direct placement in public or subsidised employment.
This research explores the extent to which ALMPs meet the needs and aspirations of recently arrived refugees with regard to entering the labour market. By means of conducting interviews with members of the target group, this research aims to gain insights into the accessibility, relevance and overall suitability of ALMPs from the perspective of the study participants themselves.
The study shows that the participants ALMPs as relevant in terms of responding to their employment needs and aspirations. However, they perceive the accessible range of activation measures to be limited to a large degree. Certain activation measures were perceived as highly irrelevant, while some were even perceived to be obstructive to their pursuit of employment. Most notably, the participants felt supported by the employees of Public Employment Services (PES) when it comes to receiving short term training. However, when it comes to long-term training, they felt discouraged or even obstructed. This illustrated a perceived conflict between the participants' long-term aspirations, which included a focus on long-term development, and the PES’s emphasis on short-term arrangements and a quick path into employment.
Addressing Systemic Risk in Europe during Covid-19: policies, limitations, and challenges ahead
(2021)
This work examines the impacts which the Covid-19 pandemic brought to the stability of the European financial sector. Lockdowns, businesses unable to operate and uncertainty about how the pandemic would evolve fueled a sharp recession. From the lessons learned in the global financial crises and the Eurozone debt crises, there’s an increasing role of macroprudential policies, especially the regiments of the Basel III framework and the monetary policy toolkit. Alongside macroprudential regulation, the European Central Bank provided substantial monetary policy easing, for instance the release of capital buffers and other capital requirements, expanding the TLTRO III and Pandemic Emergency Program which facilitated monetary policy transmission. Authorities also deployed strong fiscal policies which encompassed from tax holidays to direct transfers to households and firms. The combination of fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policy was unprecedented and helped the economy during the shutdown moments. As a result, indicators of systemic risks in the banking sector during the pandemic remained relatively stable. Nevertheless, some challenges might emerge in the medium-term when policies are phased-out, namely the increasing size of non-performing loans and the sovereign doom-loop. Thus, in the final part of this text a stress test is conducted to evaluate the possible future impacts of the pandemic in the banking sector.
This Master’s thesis examines the impact of heterogeneity on the assessment of systemic risk in the context of the German banking sector. Precisely, it is questioned whether currently employed, official systemic risk indicators are able to account for the German banking sector’s heterogeneity and to signal systemic risk reliably regardless of different bank types’ individual characteristics. For the assessment, a two-step procedure is employed. First, currently employed, official risk indicators are applied to bank-type-specific data for six different bank types from 1990 until 2018 and benchmarked against crises that occurred during the assessment period. Second, the implications of sectoral characteristics on systemic risk are assessed. The findings suggest that indicators are indeed able to account for the German banking sector’s heterogeneity, issuing different signals for various bank types. Moreover, the indicators allow for the identification of individual bank types’ behavior and their role in the accumulation of systemic risk. Yet, they are only partially able to signal crises correctly and behave more like thermometers than barometers of risk. Lastly, structural features of the German banking sector amplify the risk of individual institutions and thus their contribution to systemic risk at large.
Bangladesh has been experiencing tremendous GDP growth for a long time and is now one of the fastest-developing economies in the world. Recent CDP report on eligibility and suitability for graduation to a middle-income country from a least developed country indicates that she is on the right track to achieving development status. In her development, all her development partners have contributed on a large scale in different aspects. Currently, China is the largest trade and reliable strategic partner for Bangladesh. It has a substantial attribution on the growth and development perspectives, but the trade deficit, concentration of FDI, and bitter experiences on debt in many countries have created suspicions. Simultaneously, the Chinese greater appearance in Bangladesh has raised the contention among other regional and global partners. They have active participation in several development endeavors to restrain Bangladesh from absolute Chinese influence. As an alternative development partner, China has enhanced better bargaining power for Bangladesh and introduced a greater dilemma to uphold her neutral foreign policy. Nevertheless, Bangladesh still has succeeded in diversifying her development partners on whom she depends on foreign direct investment, debt, trade, technology, and financial support. In general, her development approach is dependent on all rather than exclusive to one, and she needs to be rigid and transparent about her development objectives and policies.
The debate over a European Green Deal has contributed to emphasize the need to reduce environmental cost and the urgency of decarbonizing the road transport sector. Therefore, the thesis operationalizes the materialist state theory to distinguish between competing hegemony projects in the struggle over the EU’s mobility transition, in order to identify the driving forces in the European road transport sector. By empirically analyzing the power relations behind the Energy Taxation Directive and the CO2 emissions for passenger cars, the results indicate two dominant hegemony projects that are contesting the implementation of the green transition: 'the authoritarian neoliberal project' and 'the green capitalist project'. None of these projects will be enough to decarbonize the transport sector without shifting emissions and environmental costs elsewhere, nor will either project move away from a car-dependent system.
Digitalization as an attribute of many western countries developed in the 19th century. As a driver of technological change, digitalization has encouraged the developments and production of derived technologies such as internets, computer, smart phone etc. Software applications such as zoom, blue-button etc. are proves that distance is no longer a barrier for communication. Overall, digitalization and technological change are a fundamental foundation for today’s economic growth. There has been rapid increase in new businesses due to creativity and innovation. While this is evident, the present increase in low wage, non-standard work, working poverty and skill shortages are a concern on how digitalization impact employment pattern and social life. The objective of this paper is to provide evidence on the rise of precarious employment and to express the extent at which digitalization impact skill shortages in the German labour market. Structural labour market problems such as skill shortages (continuous demand for high skill individuals) and rise in precarious employment are a major concern that needs to be tackled in the German labour market.
This thesis raises the question and will identify the macroeconomic implications associated with the erosion of the collective bargaining system and how these can potentially be stabilised. It is analysed whether an erosion of the collective agreement system is accompanied by a reduced coordination of wage setting and whether this has a destabilising effect on the entire national economy and beyond. This applies to the contribution of wages to price stability as well as the distribution of income and its consequences. In addition to the instruments and possibilities already under discussion to strengthen the collective bargaining system, potentials for stabilisation can also be derived with a view to France and the Netherlands.
Historically high and rising level of external debt raises concerns among policymakers and academics around the globe. This master thesis proposes to examine several questions. Firstly, the paper attempts to provide the analysis of the current status quo of external debt in developing and emerging countries. Secondly, it attempts to determine the risks attached to low-quality debt structure. Lastly, the paper attempts answer whether expanding debt market through regional integration of local currency bond markets can increase financial stability and reduce “original sin”.
The thesis discusses financialization and secular stagnation in the U.S. economy since the 1980s. The theoretical part outlines the historical approach of the main scholars who have discussed secular stagnation before and since the emergence of financialization.
It illustrates the shortcomings of the current mainstream debate. Furthermore, it then focuses on the relationship between the two phenomena on the basis of heterodox approaches. Both Marxian and Post-Keynesian researchers consider financializaion to be responsible for producing stagnation tendencies. They agreed about the temporary counteracting role of financial expansion in addition to its role in producing bubbles and contradictions. They agree about the channel of accumulation but each of them views it in a different way. Further, they agree also on the impact of income inequality but again each of them recognizes this in a different way. However, they differ in describing the structure of financialization and in how they explain the relationship between policy and that structure.
The thesis finds that the Steindlian model finds some common ground between the two paradigms. The data presented illustrates the validity of the model. It is found that the stagnation trend before crisis was pushed by decreasing accumulation in capital stock and increasing inequality. However, despite the existence of increasing inequality household expenditure increased since the compensating factor, “household debt”, was increasing. After the crisis Stagnation tendencies reemerged because of the slowing down of household expenditure. Household expenditure was therefore negatively influenced by increasing inequality and this post-crisis fall in debt. The accumulation channel also contributed to stagnation since the increase in investment was small.
Fintech is an innovative tool that applies technology to improve financial services.
Mobile Baking is the most common product of Fintech and has vast prospects to
improve access to financial resources for the previously unbanked populations. The role
of Fintech in providing inclusion is especially vital in developing countries- where the
proportion of the financially excluded remains high. This study focuses on the role of
M-Banking in serving mentioned populations, and identifies the factors influencing
adoption and usage of Fintech services. The last part also introduces the case of
Azerbaijan-a former USSR country, and concludes by drawing the potential paths of its
Fintech-inclusion development.
After the breakdown of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Kyrgyz Republic started its transition period. During the Soviet Union Kyrgyzstan was one of the fifteen states having planned economic system which was later transited into the market driven mechanism. Consequently, Kyrgyzstan like a number of Commonwealth Independent States (CIS) suffered from primary drastic decline in economic development as well as from considerable transformation in the whole economic system. There was a severe increase in the unemployment situation, rising inequality and poverty and decrease in real wages. In spite of the fluctuations in the economic system, stagnation involving poverty and inequality lasted till 2000s. Therefore the national government had to undertake a number of reforms destined for economic recovery. Moreover, Kyrgyz government stated attracting international donors to help with the situation. The transition period was especially hard for kyrgyz women. There were not equal number of employment opportunities for women compared to men. Also, wage disparities resulted in income inequality for women. It is important to note that due to the more popularised beliefs of patriarchal values in the country, women were obliged to stay at home and do child care rather than pursue their career in social, economic or political spheres. The data is taken from national and international organisation’s sources.
This master thesis examines global value chains and more specifically the creation and distribution of value in the case of baby-care product business. As the world economy and linkages between participants of international trade are changing and becoming more complicated, the research project addressing at bringing an applicable prototype and model of a global value chain and outlining the distribution of value-added in the chain from both organizational and geographical perspective. In addition, the study includes an analysis of the value chain structure of the case company Kindoh in terms of GVC governance and tries to find out the main strategy of Kindoh for making a profit.
This study assesses how horizontal inequalities between Israeli settlers and Palestinians living in the West Bank cause grievances among Palestinians transforming to violence towards the Israeli citizens. A scoring model tailored to Hebron's case is introduced to evaluate the line of argumentation by estimating the level of violence in the designated area. This method is based on expert interviews containing pre-surveys and a theoretical review. In a second step, the estimated level of violence is tested through data of Palestinian attacks against Israelis based on the Global Terrorism Database (1976-2018). A historical review of the Israeli settlement policy since 1967 substantiates the research. The results suggest that the applied mechanism of horizontal inequalities increases Palestinian grievances and encourages violence in Hebron. Thus, the thesis strengthens theoretical research of horizontal inequalities, grievances, and violence and offers a new direction in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
This Master’s thesis aims to explain the causes of rapidly increasing prices in Venezuela and establish whether the current episode can be considered to be of hyperinflationary nature from the post-Keynesian theoretical approach. The chosen approach highlights the role of distributive conflict, indexation mechanism, balance of payments constraint, devaluation expectations and gradual rejection of national currency in favour of foreign currency. We argue that the root cause of the precarious economic situation in Venezuela lies in the long term failure to implement structural changes ensuring industrial diversification and lessening the dependency on oil exports. The symptoms of the Dutch disease are observed in the prolonged currency overvaluation during the high oil revenue periods. In the face of growing external constraint the authorities introduce severe foreign currency rationing (and/or devalue the exchange rate) which ignites inflation due to external bottlenecks since many sectors face supply constraints as they depend on imports of inputs of production. This leads to a regressive distribution of income, which contributes to the growing distributive conflict and fuels inflation further, as workers oppose to the lowering of real wages. Moreover, the currency rationing puts pressure on the black market for exchange as the devaluation expectations increase, leading to a parallel market devaluation-inflation spiral, which threatens to turn into hyperinflation. Nevertheless, we argue that hyperinflation, according to the proposed post-Keynesian framework (the flight to foreign currency), does not materialise despite skyrocketing prices because of the particular institutional setting – the exchange controls, which have been in place since 2003, prevent full currency substitution.
This thesis looks at the potential role of the IG Metall, the biggest German trade union, in the Green Transition of the German automobile sector. The IG Metall’s power and influence in the political, social and economic sphere will be analysed based on the Power Resource Approach by Dörre and Schmalz (2014). The analysis will show that there are two tendencies within the union: a conservative and a progressive approach, differentiated by their goals. Consequently, both wings have different ways to approach the transition and are each relying and focusing on certain power resources. The result is a tightrope walk of the IG Metall, balancing both tendencies within one union in an environment that is as torn as the union itself.
Is an Interest Rate Cap Warranted in Kenya? An Assessment Through a Vector Error Correction Analysis
(2018)
This paper investigates whether policy rates have an impact on bank lending rates and whether bank lending rates have an impact on credit to the private sector in Kenya. The analysis is based on a vector error correction model (VECM) on a data sample for Kenya over 1996-2016. This investigation was motivated by the recent interest rate capping law that necessitated the reexamination of this channel of monetary transmission. The empirical evidence shows a significant and robust long-run relationship between the policy rate and the bank lending rate. The short-run relationship is significant though less
robust. Similarly there is a significant and robust long-run relationship between credit and the lending rate; the short run relationship is also significant but less robust. These results
indicate that monetary transmission from policy rates to credit is effective in the long run but less so in the short run. Therefore, the interest rate capping law may somehow be justified as a means of containing the cost of credit to stimulate access to credit.
This paper investigates whether macroeconomic policy regimes contributed to the emergence and shifts in macroeconomic demand and growth regimes in the core Euro Area before and after the Eurozone crisis. Against the background of Post-Keynesian/ Kaleckian theory, it is argued that financialisation has led to higher income inequality, lower investment in capital stock, an increase in the potential for debt- and wealth-based consumption as well as high current account imbalances. These four characteristics entailed the emergence of unstable and extreme macroeconomic demand and growth regimes, in particular the export-led mercantilist and the debt-led private demand boom type, in financialised economies. In a qualitative analysis based on quantitative data, it is assessed by which regime type eleven core Eurozone economies were characterized in the periods 2001-2009 and 2010-2019. In a second step, the main transmission channels of economic policies, namely of fiscal, monetary and wage policies, as well as open economy conditions on aggregate demand are examined, and placed in the European policy context. Building upon findings of the first empirical part, the macroeconomic policy mix of four prototype and major Eurozone economies is analysed for the period before and after the crisis. It is found that macroeconomic policy regimes contributed to the emergence and shifts in macroeconomic demand and growth regimes in core Eurozone economies during the considered period.
Necessity or Habit? A post-Keynesian Analysis of Rising Household Debt: The Case of Housing Market
(2021)
Fiscal policy is back in the academic and policy discussion as a tool to stabilize business cycle fluctuations and to stimulate output, which in turn has resulted into a new generation of fiscal multiplier estimates. Recent research shows that the macroeconomic effects of
fiscal policy are country-specific and potentially dependent on the state of the business cycle. Building upon the empirical literature on time-varying fiscal policy, I estimate the magnitude of public investment effects on output for 7 Eurozone countries, using a Bayesian time-varying parameters vector autoregression (TVP-VAR). The results show that public investment shocks have a positive effect on output growth in all countries; while the effect remained constant over time in Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, it exhibits time-variation in Italy, Spain and Portugal. The empirical evidence also suggests that public investment effects might not necessarily depend on the state of the business cycle, as they could also remain stable over time or vary due to other macroeconomic factors.