Austria – FEPS Young Academic Network

Research and teaching associate at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

Interests : Economy Social Europe Inequality
Countries : Austria

Severin’s research is about the measurement of wealth inequality and intergenerational transfers. He is interested in improving the available evidence on the distribution of wealth and bequests. This includes unearthing new data and creating tools to make data from different sources and countries comparable.

Publications

Tightening welfare belts again?

To what extent do EU fiscal rules constrain governments' social and labour market spending? Exploring the critical cases of France and Italy, this policy study gathers evidence from two decades of interactions between national welfare priorities and EU fiscal rules and, through this comparison, sheds light on the mechanisms underlying recent recalibrations and what it means for the Social Pillar implementation.

Read the policy study

Political Mentor: Jonás Fernández, MEP S&D
Academic Mentor: Carlo d'Ippoliti, Associate professor of political economy at the Department of Statistical Sciences of Sapienza University of Rome.

Members

Alessandro Liscai

Researcher at the Astrid Foundation, and an Associate Research Assistant in the Economic Policy and Jobs & Skills Unit at CEPS.

Interests : Economy
Countries : Italy

Jan Bogusławski

PhD student at Sciences Po Paris

Interests : Economy Social Europe Inequality
Countries : France Poland

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Matilde Ceron

Affiliated Postdoctoral Researcher in the Horizon projects ActEU and PUSH*BACK*LASH

Interests : Economy Gender Equality
Countries : Italy

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Robin Huguenot-Nöel

Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI)

Interests : Inequality Economy
Countries : France Italy

Severin Rapp

Research and teaching associate at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

Interests : Economy Social Europe Inequality
Countries : Austria

Publications

14/05/2024

Tightening welfare belts again?

FEPS YAN Series

Halliki Kreinin

Senior Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) Helmholtz Centre Potsdam

Interests : Economy Climate
Countries : Austria

Dr. Halliki Kreinin is a Senior Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, in the Transforming Consumption and Provisioning research group.
She previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Münster and as a Research Associate at the Institute for Ecological Economics at the WU Vienna.
Her research areas include just transition, sustainable work, postgrowth welfare systems and ecosocial policies, as well as overcoming structural barriers to sustainability transformations.

Trade Unions and the multiple crisis of environment, society, economy and work

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Publications

Trade Unions

This policy study focuses on trade union approaches to the multiple crises in a sector critical for the sustainability transformation: aviation. Based on empirical research, the authors find that unions, under pressure to face contradictory and complex problems, take divergent positions on societal-environmental issues and their solutions - verging from social-ecological transformation-focused to defensive stances, also in their collaboration with social movements for change.

Read the paper:
Trade Unions and the multiple crisis of environment, society, economy and work

Political Mentor: EP Vice President and S&D MEP Evelyn Regner
Academic Mentor: David Bailey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Studies, School of Government, University of Birmingham

Members

Christian Koutny

PhD candidate Kingston University London

Interests : Social Europe Economy
Countries : Austria United Kingdom

Christian is a PhD student in economics at Kingston University London. He completed his BSc in economics at the Vienna University for Business and Economics and his MA in Political Economy at Kingston University London. He is interested in heterodox (neo-Kaleckian) macroeconomics and Marxist Political Economy. His research is both empirical and theoretical, although with an emphasis on the theoretical argument. Empirically, he specialises in simple time-series econometrics. Christian teaches economics and statistics at SOAS University and Goldsmiths University, respectively. In his previous FEPS YAN cycle he worked on the European Pillar of Social Rights. Christian is a member of the Labour Party, several trade unions, and some more grass roots organisations.

How to unlock the European Investment Bank’s potential: four reforms

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Publications

European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the EU’s multilateral development bank. In this FEPS YAN policy study, the authors suggest four reforms that would help progressive policymakers to utilize unlock the EIB’s potential to play a greater role in the EU economy and its transition to a more resilient, climate-neutral, and progressive economy.

First, the authors suggest the EIB adopts more comprehensive lending targets based on social and environmental criteria. Second, they highlight the need for a stronger focus on equity-like instruments rather than debt instruments, especially in the ongoing response to the Covid-19 crisis. Third, they propose to strengthen the EIB’s accountability towards the European Parliament to ensure a legitimate political direction and democratic control of its activities. Fourth, they propose to convert the EIB’s retained profits into paid-in capital, unlocking up to €110 billion of additional lending capacity. To simultaneously accomplish increased democratic accountability, the authors suggest converting the EIB’s retained profits into EU capital and thus making the EU an EIB shareholder.

Read the paper:
How to unlock the European Investment Bank’s potential: four reforms

Political Mentor: EP Vice President and S&D MEP Pedro Silva Pereira
Academic Mentor: Carlo d' Ippoliti, Associate professor of political economy at the Department of Statistical Sciences of Sapienza University of Rome.

Members

Christian Koutny

PhD candidate Kingston University London

Interests : Social Europe Economy
Countries : Austria United Kingdom

Twitter

Publications

25/01/2022

How to unlock the European Investment Bank’s potential: four reforms

Hendrik Theine

Post-doctoral researcher at the Vienna University

Interests : Economy Climate
Countries : Austria Germany

Hendrik Theine is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Heterodox Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business with extensive interest in progressive economic approaches. His current research involves critical political economy analyses in the areas of media, platform capitalism and climate change. Based on a pluralist perspective, he uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, for instance, discourse analysis, text mining and network analysis.

Taking the temperature of the EU Green Deal

Photo: @PamelaRußmann

Twitter Website

Publications

EU Green Deal

The European Green Deal (EGD) aims to make Europe climate neutral by 2050 while ensuring a just transition for all. However, the EGD’s high level of ambition and broad scope is not adequately reflected in member states’ commitments, and interest groups attempt to shape the EGD according to their preferences.

Given these circumstances, how can the promise of a green and just European Green Deal be realised? To shed light on this research question, the authors of this FEPS YAN Policy Study build on insights from political economy on the influence of interest groups in policymaking. Analytically, the authors propose a framework that integrates distinct sources of power (structural vis-à-vis instrumental) and a range of political strategies (quiet vis-à-vis noisy politics).

Empirically, they study two cases central to the EGD: the ‘EU Biodiversity Diversity Strategy for 2030’ to protect nature and ecosystems; and the ‘Hydrogen Strategy’ to power a climate-neutral economy. Based on lobbying activities with members of the European Commission and the European Parliament, the authors identify key stakeholders, their framing, and strategies. The findings have important implications for understanding the interplay of relevant actors and EU institutions and their influence on European policy.

Read the paper:
Taking the temperature of the EU Green Deal

Political Mentor: S&D MEP Delara Burkhardt
Academic Mentor: Robert Ladrech, Emeritus Professor of European Politics, Keele University, UK

Members

Publications

25/01/2022