Thèses sur le sujet « Capital market – Law and legislation – European Union countries »

Defence date: 11 September 2020 (Online)
Examining Board: Professor Stefan Grundmann (EUI, Supervisor); Professor Mathias Siems (EUI); Professor Nicoletta Rangone (LUMSA University); Professor Danny Busch (Radbound University)
The thesis examines whether the existing European retail investor protection legislation can be interpreted to be taking into account behavioural heuristics, biases, and norms that the average individual exhibits in their decision-making. In doing so, the thesis observes a clear general shift towards behaviourism in the interventions underpinning the retail investor legislation. The thesis aids this behavioural turn in investor protection legislation by compiling insights from studies on effective behavioural change interventions that can render behavioural investor protection more effective in influencing behaviour. The underlying argument is that the more effective the interventions the legislation incorporates for influencing behaviour, the more likely it is that such behaviourally-informed legislation can be effective in attracting more median retail consumer participation in the financial markets, helping in turn to mobilise retail investors’ cash savings into financial assets in Europe in light of the Capital Markets Union. The thesis concludes that this observed shift towards behaviourally-informed retail investor protection regulation is conducive to a functional, market-building, perspective in investor protection regulation. This is because market-building and market efficiency are not just pursued from the trust-conferring function of investor protection regulation, but also from a directly behavioural perspective, through nudging, biasing, and de-biasing. Thus, the thesis argues that in the behavioural turn of investor protection regulation the three main theoretical foundations for regulating for investor protection cited in the literature, namely: appeal to fairness; the pursuit of efficiency; and the acknowledgement of cognitive errors and limitations, are not only interlinked as the literature holds, but they also follow a hierarchical ordering with appeal to fairness and acknowledgement of cognitive limitations being functions of the pursuit of efficiency rather than self-standing foundations for regulating for investor protection. Such prioritization of market efficiency can potentially carry dangerous implications in the absence of a thoughtful moral examination.

La thèse est une collection de cinq articles académiques, chacun apportant une contribution originale à la connaissance et à la recherche scientifique dans le domaine de l’économie de l’imposition du capital et des sociétés. Les travaux empiriques de Gaëtan Nicodème se situent dans le contexte de la concurrence fiscale en Europe.

Le premier chapitre ‘Corporate Tax Competition and Coordination in the European Union: What do we know? Where do we stand? (Publié dans International Taxation Handbook) revisite la problématique de la concurrence fiscale dans l’Union Européenne, discute la littérature économique théorique et empirique sur la question et analyse les réponses politiques qui y sont apportées. Après avoir remis la problématique dans son contexte institutionnel, l’auteur compare les résultats provenant de la littérature avec les caractéristiques propres à l’Union Européenne, notamment en termes de l’étendue et des conséquences de la concurrence fiscale. Il passe ensuite en revue les questions théoriques et de mise en œuvre pratique que soulèvent une possible harmonisation et consolidation des bases fiscales de l’impôt des sociétés en Europe. Tout en gardant à l’esprit la diversité des solutions qui existent dans la mise en œuvre, il montre que l’harmonisation des bases fiscales est à même de générer des gains économiques. Le deuxième chapitre ‘Comparing Effective Corporate Tax Rates’ (à paraître dans Frontiers in Finance and Economics) passe en revue les méthodes de calcul de taux effectifs de l’impôt des sociétés. Le mérite de la contribution est non seulement d’offrir une typologie des ces taux mais également de montrer que leurs résultats sont très différents selon la méthode utilisée, que ce soit en niveau ou en classement des pays. L’auteur calcule également ces taux pour un échantillon de pays Européens avec une désagrégation sectorielle. Le troisième chapitre ‘Do Large Companies have Lower Effective Corporate Tax rates ?A European Survey’ utilise ces méthodes pour étudier s’il existe un lien entre les taux effectifs et la taille des entreprises. Utilisant de multiples méthodes d’estimation, l’auteur trouve un lien robuste et négatif entre le nombre d’employés et le taux effectif d’imposition des entreprises. Le quatrième chapitre ‘Foreign Ownership and Corporate Income Taxation :an Empirical Evaluation’ (co-auteur H. Huizinga et publié dans European Economic Review) constitue la première évaluation empirique pour l’Europe des théories d’exportation fiscale. Lorsque la mobilité du capital est imparfaite et que celui-ci est détenu par des actionnaires étrangers, les Etats ont un incitant à hausser la fiscalité pour exporter la charge fiscale sur ces actionnaires. L’étude empirique trouve une relation positive robuste entre le degré d’actionnariat étranger et la charge fiscale moyenne, validant ces théories. Le cinquième et dernier chapitre ‘Are International Deposits Tax Driven ?(Co-auteur H. Huizinga et publié dans Journal of Public Economics) analyse l’impact de l’imposition de l’épargne et de la fortune ainsi que de l’échange d’informations fiscales sur les dépôts bancaires internationaux. Utilisant des données bilatérales confidentielles de la BRI, l’étude montre que ces variables fiscales ont un impact sur ces dépôts, suggérant qu’ils sont en partie effectués pour éluder l’impôt.

Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Award date: 22 November 2017
Supervisor: Professor Stefan Grundmann, European University Institute
It is no secret that the financial crisis of 2008 has had a great impact on the regulatory landscape in the European Union (‘EU’ or ‘Union’). As a result of the deep economic impact the financial crisis, the EU has set out over the past years to pass a wide scale of regulatory reform in the financial sector that was meant to close loopholes in legislation and address weaknesses in the financial systems more recently however a shift in emphasis has taken place to not only restore investor confidence through regulatory repair of the legislative framework, but also to make the financial system more resilient, and focus on economic growth an important step in this process is the creation of a Capital Markets Union (‘CMU’) for the EU. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission (‘Commission’), introduced this project as an important policy in his agenda of political guidelines for his Commission this project would introduce a true and genuine single market for capital across all 28 Member States in September 2015, the Commission set out a wide range of legislative objectives in order to establish the CMU in building the CMU, the Commission revises existing legislation in order to harmonize standards, or introduces new legislative proposals. More recently, in June 2017 the Commission evaluated the CMU project in its mid-term review, and underlined the necessity of the CMU project once more, as well as its intention to continue and advance its CMU policy and law making.

Defence date: 17 June 2013
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
Examining Board: Professor Bruno de Witte (EUI Supervisor) ; Professor Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz, European University Institute ; Professor Niamh Nic Shuibne, University of Edinburgh ; Dr. Clemens Ladenburger, European Commission.
This thesis places the debate on the relationship between fundamental rights and the internal market outside the field of negative integration (where it is usually takes place) into the field of positive integration. It examines the extent to which there is an internal market competence to deal with fundamental rights and analyses new mechanisms for fundamental rights protection outside the Courts. Against this backdrop, this thesis analyses the existing harmonisation practice in the EU through the lens of four fundamental rights: (i) data protection, (ii) freedom of expression, (iii) fundamental labour rights [the right to collective bargaining and the right to fair and just working conditions] and (iv) the right to health. The research reveals that there is a considerable amount of internal market legislation dealing with fundamental rights (even pre-existing the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) but that most of it is not couched in fundamental rights terms. This thesis identifies the determinants, which account for the current prevalent conceptualisation and assesses the consequences of such approaches both for the substantive content of legislation and for its judicial review. The thesis provides a much more differentiated account of the EU's fundamental rights policy in and through the internal market than perhaps initially expected. It builds the case for a conscious approach to dealing with and enhancing fundamental rights protection in and through internal market legislation, and advocates a leading role for the legislator in the establishment of an internal market that is firmly based on respect for fundamental rights.

Defence date: 18 December 2009
Examining Board: Professor Christian Joerges, University of Bremen (supervisor), Professor Hans-W. Micklitz, European University Institute, Professor Roland Bieber, University of Lausanne, Professor Stephen Weatherill, University of Oxford
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis examines the relationship between fundamental rights and consumer protection in the European Union. Traditionally, consumer regulation has been applied as a onedimensional tool to achieve economic integration. In 2000, the Charter of Fundamental Rights broadened the scope of consumer law to include a social dimension; however, this initiative remains limited in practice, because of the abstract wording in the Charter, and because of the partly contrasting full-harmonisation strategy of the EU. Moreover, the Charter is not binding and it risks succumbing to traditional market-oriented policy tendencies. This thesis tries to build a bridge between the two approaches to consumer law - the market-oriented approach, and the fundamental-rights based approach. To do so, it suggests a new consumer concept, based upon the capability approach of the economist Amartya Sen. Such an approach enables the consumer to deal with the risks of increasingly integrated and complex markets, by focusing upon basic procedural rights. Three areas of consumer law have been gaining importance in recent times: credit agreements, telecommunications, and collective redress. Cases from these areas are considered here, as they exemplify the inter-action between fundamental rights, and participation in cross-border markets. First, cases in consumer credit illustrate the impact of fundamental rights on the provision of fair contractual conditions, and on access to responsible lending schemes. Second, the new telecommunication proposal highlights the importance of regulatory participation mechanisms for consumers, to ensure access to services of general interests and to ensure data protection in an increasingly privatised environment. Finally, collective redress mechanisms show how procedural innovations can improve judicial participation through the basic right of access to justice. The thesis concludes by proposing a new legal approach for consumer law in the EU, in order reach a compromise between social and economic demands.

Defence date: 3 June 2013
Examining Board: Professor Giorgio Monti, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Hans-W. Micklitz, European University Institute; Professor Andrea Biondi, King's College London; Professor Piet Jan Slot, University of Leiden.
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis is concerned with the legal concept of State aid under Article 107(1) TFEU. It was born out of the concern that EU institutions and practitioners alike refer to it as if this concept had been immune to the evolution experienced by the context in which it has been applied: the Internal Market. Against this seemingly static background, the thesis argues that the concept of aid is a 'living instrument' that has been applied in accordance with the main policy priorities of the European Commission, a fact that had been underexplored in the literature and the implications of this connection seldom studied. The thesis also contends, contrary to what has been affirmed before by other authors, that the evolution of this concept has been influenced by the broader advancement of the case-law of the Court of Justice in different periods of the integration process. Thirdly, the thesis submits that the study of the origins of subsidy control in Europe, of the legislative history of today's Article 107(1) TFEU, and of the policy and enforcement considerations that have affected the development of the concept of aid is not only enriching from an intellectual point of view but also useful to decide difficult cases. In this regard, the thesis provides criteria to interpret and discuss cases, e.g. Sloman Neptun, Philip Morris or Azores, beyond the analysis traditionally carried out in this field, too often limited to the compatibility of these cases with the effects-based formula traditionally followed to define aid. Indeed, the emergence of that formula, of the Market Economy Investor Principle test, the Adria-Wien test for selectivity, the ups-and-downs of the De Minimis rule in this field, or the exclusion of regulatory measures from the notion of State resources, cannot be understood only by looking at the economic or even the strictly legal reasoning behind the relevant judgments. Instead, historical, policy and enforcement considerations are useful interpretative tools to fully grasp these developments, a point that this thesis contributes to making.

Defence date: 23 May 2017
Examining Board: Prof. Hans-W. Micklitz, European University Institute (EUI Supervisor); Prof. Stefan Grundmann, European University Institute; Prof. Daniela Caruso, Boston University; Prof. Kim Talus, University of Helsinki and University of Eastern Finland
This thesis analyses the impact of the European Integration Project on private law. While the impact of EU law on private law throughout negative integration created European Private Meta-law, and throughout positive integration evolved to European Private law, this thesis claims that EU law has recently moved a step further in regulated markets by creating selfstanding European Private law. Self-standing European Private law is a normative system of rules at supranational level in which its semantically rigid legal norms suggests the intrusion of EU law into the private order of contractual parties with minor divergences within and among national legal systems. This analytical model explains the legal phenomenon of intrusion and substitution, which is different than the phenomenon of divergence, what has so far been the main focus of legal scholars in comparative private law and approaches to Harmonization. To define and identify self-standing European private law, this thesis proposes a systematic understanding of EU law from what H.L.A. Hart conceptualizes as the Internal Point of View. It contextualizes the private law dimension of EU energy law through a discussion of primary and secondary rules and, most importantly, the linguistic framework of analytic philosophy. In so doing, this thesis claims the constitutive element of self-standing European Private law takes shapes when EU law, through governance modes of lawmaking and enforcement at the EU level, creates a set of mandatory rules applied to private relationships, of which the semantic texture of its language leaves minor space for divergent interpretation and implementation by legal official and market actors. To prove the emergence of a self-standing European Private Law, EU energy Law is the blueprint to test the claim. The thesis pursues a socio-legal investigation on how the private law dimension of EU energy law has changed over three decades of market integration and affected two key market transactions in energy markets: transmission service contracts in electricity, and natural gas supply contracts.

Defence date: 18/05/2009
Examining board: Wladyslaw Czaplinski (Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw); Leigh Hancher (Tilburg University); Heike Schweitzer (EUI); Jacques Ziller (Supervisor, EUI)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In many EU countries, the infrastructure for supplying electricity and gas (electricity networks, gas pipelines, and storage facilities) are still properties of the so-called vertically integrated undertakings (VIU) responsible for the extraction or generation, supply, and transmission and distribution of the energy. While competition can be promoted in the generation/production and supply side of the vertical integration, transmission and distribution segments remain natural monopolies that hinder market mechanisms. Vertical integration simply raises the possibility for incumbents to favor their own divisions and to block new entrants. As a result, the Electricity and Gas Directives of the European Commission proposed several measures to foster competition in politically delicate structures of the electricity and gas markets. These measures involve non-discriminatory third party access to the gas and electricity infrastructure, independent regulation of the natural monopolies and the unbundling of the VIU. Unfortunately, my research shows that there are still many obstacles to fulfilling the potential of the internal market in electricity and gas. What is more since substantial delays have occurred in implementing the Directives, it is difficult to clearly evaluate what the final effect will be; nevertheless, it is possible to argue that the steps already taken are insufficient to create functional market.

Defence date: 1 February 2013.
Examining Board: Professor Marise Cremona, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Christopher Newdick, University of Reading (External Co-Supervisor); Professor Claire Kilpatrick, European University Institute; Professor Vassilis Hatzopoulos, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe.
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
Using theories of distributive justice as its point of departure, this thesis deals with the tensions created by the application of the Internal Market rules to the provision of health care services within the European Union (EU). The main aim of the work is to analyse the impact of the Internal Market rules on common values and principles shared by European health systems, such as universality, accessibility, equity and solidarity. Moreover, it also aims to contribute to a more comprehensive and balanced interpretation of the role of the provision of health services in the context of the Internal Market and European Union law. The analysis developed in this thesis is conducted using the specific issue of cross-border health care, which has been chosen to demonstrate how solid values guiding European health systems can be affected by EU law and libertarian ideas. The work is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is devoted to a literature review regarding the questions of the special moral importance of health care and of theories of distributive justice used to justify the allocation of this special good among individuals. The discussion about theories of distributive justice and health care also includes the argument concerning the role of the market in health care provision. The second chapter focuses on the development of social rights of citizenship and its relationship with the welfare state. This includes the analysis of the meaning of solidarity and the concepts of European citizenship, both at national and supranational levels. The third chapter concentrates on the provision of health services at the national level. It begins by presenting a historic overview of the development of welfare services in the field of health care in Europe. Then there is an explanation of the models for financing and delivery of health care as well as their guiding principles. The fourth chapter analyses the framework of health services provision at the European level. It includes the analysis of EU legislation, such as Treaty provisions and secondary legislation, as well as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on health services, as for example, cross-border health care and competition law cases. The fifth chapter looks at human rights law and documents in the field of health, outlining their relationship with theories of distributive justice and the provision of health care. Finally, the last chapter identifies the new paradigms and values introduced by the Internal Market rules in the field of health care, outlining their relationship with a libertarian view of health care. This chapter also examines how these new paradigms and values affect the principles of universality, accessibility, equity and solidarity at the national level, drawing conclusions about the role of the European Union in the realm of health care.

Defence date: 12 February 2007
Examining Board: Prof. Bruno de Witte (European University Institute); Prof. Giuliano Amato (European University Institute); Prof. Rachael Craufurd Smith (University of Edinburgh); Prof. Thomas Cottier (University of Bern)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The thesis presents in a comprehensive fashion European film policies in the context of both EU and international law. It relies on a broad survey of national and EU film policy measures, the EU practice in the areas of state aid, antitrust and merger law with respect to the sector and the application of international trade law to film policy instruments. These three different bodies of law are systematically analysed to assess how cultural policy considerations underlying film policy can be married to market forces. The EU experience is studied in depth as the book argues that it can effectively serve as a model to reconcile these sometimes conflicting goals in the global trade arena. This justifies the attention paid to the way in which cultural objectives of film policies are accommodated within the EU competition law framework. The thesis contributes valuably to the current debate on cultural diversity and free trade by providing a more harmonious if not a symbiotic vision of this relationship.

Defence date: 9 September 2000
Supervisor: Prof. Francis Snyder (European University Institute, Florence) ; Co-Supervisor: (Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 6 July 2011
Examining Board: Professor Giovanni Sartor, European University Institute (EUI Supervisor); Prof. Andrew Murray, London School of Economics and Political Science; Prof. Hans-W. Mickltz, European University Institute; Dr. Alfonso Scirocco European Economic and Social Committee
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In the context of the continuous advance of information technologies and biomedicine, and of the creation of economic blocs, this thesis is devoted to the analysis of the role data protection plays in the integration of markets, with a special emphasis on financial and insurance services. Moreover, it is also concerned with the identification of differences in the data protection systems of EU member states and with the development of common standards and principles of data protection that could help to build a data protection model for Mercosur, keeping in mind the need to establish a high level of data protection without creating unnecessary constraints for the flow of information. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first one deals with the evolution of the right to privacy, focusing on the last few decades, taking into account the development of new technologies. In this part an analysis of the European framework of data protection and of its standards developed is carried out. Then, in the second part, the interaction between data protection and the industries selected as case studies, namely insurance, bank and credit reporting, is discussed. This discussion concentrates on specific issues, such as generalisation and discrimination, adverse selection and the processing of sensitive and genetic data. The focus of the third part is the analysis of the legislation of three EU member states (France, Italy and UK). In order to perform this comparative exercise, some important issues are taken into account: the concepts of personal and anonymous data, data protection principles, the role of the data protection authorities, the role of the data protection officer, data subjects’ rights, the processing of sensitive data, the processing of genetic data and the experience of the case studies in processing data. Moreover, issues related to the specific member states are also considered. Subsequently to the comparative analysis, some recommendations are proposed for updating EU legislation on data protection, so as to reduce the barriers to the establishment of an internal market, mainly for financial and insurance services. Finally, the proposal of a model for data protection that could be adopted by Mercosur, taking into account the different levels of data protection that exist in its member states, is conducted in the last part. The thesis concludes by emphasising the important role data protection can play in the process of markets’ integration.