Title:The capabilities approach as a bridge between animals and robots
Author(s):LAUKYTE, MigleDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:In this paper I argue that robots, understood as artificially intelligent and autonomous entities, may one day be regarded as subjects of rights. The argument is built by looking at Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, ...
Title:'All’s well that ends well' : the strategy of electoral (mis)behavior in competitive-authoritarian regimes
Author(s):LEVIN, InesDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:In competitive authoritarian regimes, formal democratic institutions and periodic elections are sponsored by the authoritarian ruler, but voting outcomes are sometimes manipulated to prevent government turnover. In this ...
Title:Labor force composition and aggregate fluctuations
Author(s):MENNUNI, AlessandroDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:Labor composition by gender, age, and education has undergone dramatic changes over the last forty years in the United States. Furthermore, the volatility of total market hours differs systematically between genders, age ...
Title:Lost in transmission : evaluating internet effects on citizens’attitudes towards the European Union in times of crisis
Author(s):BACCINI, Leonardo; SUDULICH, Maria Laura; WALL, Matthew T.Date:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:Previous studies suggest that citizens' attitudes towards the European Union (EU) are influenced by media coverage of EU institutions and policies. To date, empirical studies have investigated the effects of TV and newspaper ...
Title:Embedding "political consumerism" : a conceptual critique
Author(s):BALSIGER, PhilipDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:This paper develops a theoretically and empirically founded critique of the concept of political consumerism. In the course of the last decade, political consumerism was “discovered” as a new form of political participation, ...
Title:Simpler is better : how do simple unconditional central grants boost local own-source revenue in Benin ?
Author(s):CALDEIRA, Emilie; ROTA-GRAZIOSI, GrégoireDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:Intergovernmental grants design is an important issue in developing countries, where the decentralization process involves a huge vertical gap, i.e. an imbalance between the costs of local public competences and local ...
Title:Private law and the visible hand of EU regulation
Author(s):SVETIEV, YaneDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:A question that is central to current debates about the Europeanisation of private law is that of how to conceptualise the relationship between European law and national private law. And a key aspect of that question is ...
Title:Brain imaging as a diagnostic and as a communicative tool in disorders of consciousness
Author(s):BAGGIO, Giosuè; MORATTI, SofiaDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:Recently, a number of neuroimaging studies have been conducted, aimed at detecting signs of consciousness in patients with a diagnosis of vegetative or minimally conscious state. The contributions appeared during an ongoing ...
Title:Translating modernity : visions and uses of Europe in Finland
Author(s):NYGÅRD, StefanDate:2013Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:Translating modernity to the periphery is a recurring theme in the discussions on Europe at its geocultural margins. In small and young countries such as Finland, “Europe” has been mobilized for nation-building in terms ...
Title:An Empirical Study of Credit Shock Transmission in a Small Open Economy
Author(s):BEDOCK, Nathan; STEVANOVIC, DaliborDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:In this paper we identify and measure the effects of credit shocks in a small open economy. To incorporate information from a large number of economic and financial indicators we use the structural factor-augmented VARMA ...
Title:Raiffeisenism Abroad: Why did German microfinance fail in Ireland but prosper in the Netherlands?
Author(s):COLVIN, Christopher L.; MCLAUGHLIN, EoinDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:What was the recipe for the success of Raiffeisen’s banking model? What made it possible for imitations of this German rural cooperative microfinance institution to work well in some European countries, but fail in others? ...
Title:The Post-national Constellation of Industrial Relations Systems in the European Legal Order
Author(s):COMANDÈ, DanielaDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:This paper develops a new interpretation of the norms of the Treaty of Lisbon to find the juridical basis for an autonomous system of European industrial relations. In particular, the study explores the question of whether ...
Title:Air Traffic Management in the Single European Sky: Standardisation of safety and liability issues
Author(s):SIMONCINI, MartaDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:This paper aims to analyse the European system of Air Traffic Management (ATM) as a specific case study of risk regulation in the framework of the European integration process. At the present, the implementation of the ...
Title:The Englaro Case: Withdrawal of treatment in Italy from a patient in a permanent vegetative state
Author(s):MORATTI, SofiaDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:In 2009, the international media reported the case of Eluana Englaro, a 38-year-old woman in a Permanent Vegetative State (PVS) who died following the withdrawal of her feeding tube. By the time of her death, she had been ...
Title:Trends in Income Inequality, Intertemporal Variability, and Mobility Risk in Thirty Countries
Author(s):NICHOLS, Austin; REHM, PhilippDate:2012Type of Publication:Working PaperSeries/Report no.:EUI MWPAbstract:We apply a novel decomposition of panel data on individual incomes in 30 countries and find the US is exceptional in its increases of income risk over the last decades. Income risk is decomposed into long-run inequality, ...