The ratification of the Paris Agreement by the European Union has determined its trajectory and set in motion the green transition of the European economy. Even though the European climate...Show moreThe ratification of the Paris Agreement by the European Union has determined its trajectory and set in motion the green transition of the European economy. Even though the European climate ambitions seem political of nature, the European Central Bank has recently shown its willingness to support the Union’s climate ambitions within its institutional capacity. European policy research organisations put forward new ideas on greening policy instruments, which also touch upon other institutional characteristics of the ECB. However, the monetary authority is de jure independent of exogenous actors in determining its policies and strategy. Recently though, under Lagarde's presidency, the ECB has for the first time opened up to ideas from civil society, think tanks and academia when defining its new long-term "green" strategy. While the new strategy is still on the drawing board, theories from discursive institutionalism assert that ideas resonate the ECB’s communication strategy, through discourse. When juxtaposing and comparing the results from two qualitative research methods, the study concluded that specific, programmatic ideas are not significantly represented in the ECB's discourse. Instead, more a general and normative ideational shift has taken place where a stronger and more decisive change in tone has become visible in the ECB’s discourse on its green strategy that can rather be explained by other exogenous events and factors.Show less
This thesis aims to chronologically reconstruct the official gold supply of a small province at the frontier of the Roman empire: Germania Inferior. For this purpose a dataset of over 1,250 Roman...Show moreThis thesis aims to chronologically reconstruct the official gold supply of a small province at the frontier of the Roman empire: Germania Inferior. For this purpose a dataset of over 1,250 Roman gold coins were analyzed from the Southern Netherlands, Northeastern Belgium and the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. The result is a detailed overview of the amount of gold that was available thoughout the Roman period.Show less
This thesis has conducted an analysis of economic policy by the Harding administration during the 1920-1921 depression. Free market economists have pointed to this episode in American history as...Show moreThis thesis has conducted an analysis of economic policy by the Harding administration during the 1920-1921 depression. Free market economists have pointed to this episode in American history as proof of the beneficial effects of laissez-faire fiscal and monetary policy during economic crises. This thesis has examined whether federal fiscal and monetary policy was in fact laissez-faire and what impact this had on economic recovery. First of all, trade policy was protectionist, though the Emergency Tariff was found to be too insignificant to impact the conclusions of this study. Taxation policy was decidedly laissez-faire as there were significant reductions in income-tax rates, the end of the Excess Profits tax and multiple smaller regressive taxes were lowered or scrapped. This thesis has found that taxation measures positively impacted economic recovery indirectly through the phenomenon of ‘regime certainty’. Furthermore, federal government spending was reduced substantially without negatively impacting economic growth. Government policy on wages, prices and unemployment was decidedly non-interventionist, resulting in substantially lower wages and prices. Finally, the Federal Reserve refrained from implementing any significant monetary stimulus, both through discount rate lowering or open market operations and the money supply decreased strongly throughout the crisis and economic recovery.Show less
