Improving the political sustainability of Next Generation EU | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

Posted: 03 Nov 2020 04:04 PM PST

The EU can improve the political sustainability of Next Generation EU by making it a long-term structure

Björn Bremer, Theresa Kuhn, Maurits J. Meijers, Francesco Nicoli 04 November 2020

The EU member states' swift agreement to set up a far-reaching, albeit temporary, stabilisation capacity and to issue Eurobonds as part of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in July 2020 took many political observers by surprise (e.g. Corsetti et al. 2020, Garicano 2020, Giavazzi and Tabellini 2020). After all, in the aftermath of the euro crisis, policymakers were unable to make significant progress with fiscal integration, which is seen by many (e.g. Jones et al. 2016) as a necessary condition for ensuring the long-term stability of the euro area.

One important obstacle to fiscal integration has been the concern of national governments about a Eurosceptic and populist backlash of their voters. Are these concerns valid? Existing research suggests that policymakers have overestimated public scepticism towards fiscal integration of the EU (Daniele and Geys 2015). Substantial support for EU-level unemployment stabilisation existed well before the pandemic (Vandenbroucke et al. 2018); fiscal integration is well received by European citizens and 'spaces of agreement' are indeed possible (Beetsma et al. 2020); and Germans and Italians prefer some form of joint debt emission over a breakup of the euro area (Baccaro et al. 2020). These studies show that some form of fiscal integration is met with sufficient support from European citizens, under the right circumstances and when appropriately designed.

However, the political context of the pandemic as well as the design of the RFF fund will likely affect citizens' preferences for fiscal integration and risk-sharing. As such, existing research is not well placed to explain citizens' preferences towards the specific forms of the pandemic recovery fund. It remains to be seen what Europeans think about the pandemic recovery fund and which policy characteristics drive support and opposition.

Public support for a European pandemic recovery fund

To address these questions, we conducted a new experimental survey on public support for different designs of a European pandemic recovery fund as they were discussed by policymakers in July 2020. We fielded the survey in five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain) immediately before and after the decisive European Council summit. The sample in each country is nationally representative in terms of age, gender, education, regional distribution, and – to a slightly lesser extent – income and profession.

In our conjoint survey experiment, respondents were asked to compare and evaluate possible alternative programme scenarios for a European pandemic recovery fund. Respondents were presented with two such policy alternatives side by side, and asked to indicate their preferred scenario.

The content of these policy packages was randomised across a number of dimensions: (i) purpose of the programme, (ii) sources of financing, (iii) solidarity in repayment, (iv) distribution of the funds, (v) duration of the programme, and (vi) governance of the programme. While some of these features may sound technical and abstract, we put great care in ensuring that they were presented in the most simplified and concise way possible, adopting a language that is easy to understand.

To assess the average effect of each option on a given policy dimension on support for a programme alternative, we compute the average marginal component effect (AMCE) of each option on decreasing or increasing support (Figure 1). In other words, everything else being equal, the values in Figure 1 tell us to what extent a certain option increases or decreases support. We show the variation across countries in Figure 2, which displays the predicted probability to support a pandemic recovery fund scenario if it contains the policy option in question.

Figure 1 Estimated AMCEs of different dimensions of the pandemic recovery fund

Note: The figure shows the average component-specific marginal effect (ACME) of a change in the value of one of the six dimensions on the probability that respondents choose a package. Responses from the full sample are included and 95% confidence intervals are shown. Respondents saw three iterations of the experiment. N = 45,006.

Figure 2 Estimated marginal means of different dimensions of the pandemic recovery fund

https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/nicoli4novfig1.png

Note: The figure shows the conditional marginal means (MMs) and 95% confidence intervals for all levels of the attributes by country. MMs denote the predicted probability of support for package if it contains the level in question, irrespective of all other levels. As such, MMs display the level of favourability toward policy packages that share a particular policy level. N = 45,006.

Figures 1 and 2 show that in terms of the purpose of the RRF, citizens have a strong preference for accompanying healthcare measures with an additional goal: If an RRF policy package also aims at economic recovery, public support increases by 11 percentage points compared to the baseline. The 'green deal' version is also appreciated: if a pandemic recovery fund also aims at tackling climate change, support increases by seven percentage points with respect to a programme directed at supporting health care systems only. When it comes to financing, respondents are somewhat sceptical about the idea of joint European borrowing: on average, it decreases support by about four percentage points with respect to the alternative of repurposing existing resources. Importantly, this effect is negative in all countries, including Spain and Italy, but the magnitude of this effect is small. Similarly, the average effect of joint repayment (through grants) is also slightly negative and decreases support by three percentage points. On this dimension, however, differences between countries are starker, with Spaniards and Italians strongly supporting grants, while citizens of other countries favour loans (see Figure 2). On all other dimensions, public opinion in all countries is far more similar and there is a clear pattern: citizens prefer distribution on the basis of financial need rather than on size, permanent duration rather than temporary, and Council decision-making rather than Commission or autonomous national decisions.

While Figures 1 and 2 are informative about how individual design choices impact public opinion, they only tell part of the story. In particular, they do not reveal to what extent specific combinations of policy options find public support. Using respondents' ratings of each RRF scenario as an additional dependent variable, we present the aggregate levels of support for four alternative packages in Figure 3: the least-liked package; the most-liked package; the RRF as it was agreed in the Next Generation EU programme; and a permanent version of the RRF, which we label 'Permanent Next Generation EU' (see Table 1).

Table 1 Scenario composition of three selected European pandemic recovery fund scenarios

https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/nicoli4novfig1.png

Note: The Next Generation EU scenario is operationalised here as being administered by the European Commission. In practice, the Council can request a 'brake' on the Commission's assessment, which the Commission is unlikely to ignore.

Here, we provide two estimates: a conservative estimate that counts neutral views of a recovery fund scenario as opposition, and the standard view in which we only include those who have negative or positive views of a package (excluding those who had expressed neutral views). Support for the least-liked package varies from a minimum of 33% of respondents (in the conservative estimate) to a maximum of 56%. Support for the most liked package varies from a minimum of 57% in the conservative estimate to well over 80%. The picture for the actual RRF agreement (measured as a scenario with healthcare and economy focus, joint debt, grants rather than loans, distribution dependent on need, temporary duration, and Commission governance) is less clear-cut, with support varying from 47% in the conservative estimate to about 69%. However, if policy-makers were to move towards a permanent RRF, this would render the agreement certainly politically sustainable, with support varying from a minimum of 50% to about 72%.

Figure 3 Estimated levels of support for different versions of the pandemic recovery fund

Note: The figure shows the predicted level of support for four selected packages; 95% confidence levels are shown. Respondents were asked to rate packages on a scale from one to five. The 'conservative estimate' counts people who chose three as opposed to the package; the other model drops all respondents who chose three.

The road from the euro crisis to the EU's first attempt at creating a fiscal capacity has been a long one. Importantly, we find that support for a joint European fiscal instrument is high and that the RRF agreed under 'Next Generation EU' is a well-tailored instrument for the purpose, at least according to citizens in the five countries studied. While citizens are not enthusiastic about common debt, this issue is not important enough for citizens to negatively evaluate the programme as a whole. Transforming the RRF into a permanent fund to deal with future crises would provide a clear pathway to even further political sustainability – ensuring widespread political support among European citizens.

References

Baccaro, L, B Bremer and E Neimanns (2020), "Everyone Thinks that Germans Oppose "Coronabonds": Our Research Shows How They're Wrong", Washington Post Blog Monkey Cage, 20 April.

Beetsma, R, B Burgoon, F Nicoli, A de Ruijter and F Vandenbroucke (2020), "After polarisation: Stable consensus on European mutual assistance is possible", VoxEU.org, 21 August.

Daniele, G and B Geys (2015), "Public support for European fiscal integration in times of crisis", Journal of European Public Policy, 22(5): 650–670.

Corsetti, G, A Erce and A Garcia Pascual (2020), "Perpetual bonds are not the best way to finance the European Recovery Fund", VoxEU.org, 14 May.

Garicano, L (2020), "Towards a European Reconstruction Fund", VoxEU.org, 5 May.

Giavazzi, F and G Tabellini (2020), "Covid Perpetual Eurobonds: Jointly guaranteed and supported by the ECB", VoxEU.org, 24 March.

Jones, E, R D Kelemen and S Meunier (2016), "Failing Forward? The Euro Crisis and the Incomplete Nature of European Integration", Comparative Political Studies, 49(7): 1010–1034.

Vandenbroucke, F, B Burgoon, T Kuhn, F Nicoli, S Sacchi, D Van Der Duin and S Hegelwald (2018), "Risk Sharing when Unemployment Hits: How Policy Design Influences Public support For European Unemployment Insurance", University of Amsterdam: AISSR Policy Report Nr 1.

Yestermorrow - N-Europe

Posted: 04 Nov 2020 06:49 AM PST

Review: YesterMorrow

Posted 04 Nov 2020 at 14:28 by Dennis Tummers

Having the power to go back in time, I'm sure that is something we have all wished for at some point in our lives.Writer's note: The review version of YesterMorrow we played has several performance issues like stutters, framedrops, graphical and audio glitches. After contacting the developers, they have stated that they are aware of the issues, and a patch which will improve performance and fix several softlocks and glitches, is ready to go live a couple of days after the release of the game on the Nintendo eShop. The current state of the game has been taken into account of the review as you can read below. We expect performance to increase after the patch arrives which may lead to a higher final score.

Having the power to go back in time, I'm sure that is something we have all wished for at some point in our lives. It does become reality for Yui, a little girl and daughter of a Timekeeper, who at the start of the game YesterMorrow is preparing to celebrate the village's festival.

Dark forces disturb the festival however, leaving the village destroyed, and Yui's father presumed dead. Fast forward to the future, where an older Yui is still struggling with the past events, and the village is still wrapped in darkness. It does not take long though for Yui (being the daughter of a Timekeeper) to learn to control the power of Everlight, and with that comes the power to travel back and forth in time using portals scattered around the land.

Yes, you can pet the dog (and other animals!) in YesterMorrow.

From that moment on, it is up to Yui to save the world from darkness, stop the Neverending Night, and bring back light to your world. To do so, you must travel through different lands, make your way through temples, collect more Everlight skills, and vanquish corrupted bosses.

The mechanism of travelling through time is very promising, with near endless possibilities. It is unfortunate that this mechanism is not coming to full fruition in YesterMorrow. Most of the time this means that a pathway is cut off either in the past or present, with a conveniently placed portal closeby. Or you would have to press some switches in the past to activate platforms in the future. It is not the butterfly effect you may have expected.

Luckily, there is enough to do besides travelling through time. On her journey, Yui will pick up a number of abilities besides time travelling. Using the power of Everlight, she can learn to throw bombs, double jump, do a ground pound, and more. Nothing groundbreaking there, as we have seen it all before in games such as Ori and the Blind Forest. But the moves work, and Yui moves around mostly fluidly.

I say mostly, because unfortunately the game does not run buttery smooth. I encountered some graphical glitches in the early parts of the game, which were annoying, but not game breaking. There are quite some noticeable stutters and hiccups as well, mostly when saving at an altar or when a number of enemies pop up. The game also seems to struggle with lighting, as the framerate drops off when you enter areas with a lot of lit lanterns in it. Also in a busy boss battle or a gauntlet do these drops happen, occasionally leading to a missed jump or a hit. You will die plenty in this game, and if it is because of your own skills, that's no problem, but if it is due to performance issues that is a bad thing indeed. I had a feeling it happened more often in handheld mode than in docked mode. Here's hoping these flaws can and will be patched out.

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G-glitch! Luckily this kind of glitch only happens occasionally, and a patch is on the way.

Because, as said, there are good things to say as well about YesterMorrow. The general atmosphere is very pleasing, with an ambient soundtrack to accompany it. The graphical style reminds me somewhat of the Sonic games, especially how the ground is made up with the little squares in it. It has a very pleasing aesthetic to it.

Some platforming bits are challenging and creative, and there are even some harder optional trials you can take on, leading to collectibles that fill in the lore. Boss battles are a highlight; although frustrating at first, they revolve around learning attack patterns, knowing when to strike, and what ability to use. And there are dozens of animals scattered in the world, who are waiting for you to pet them. Just finishing the game will take around 7-8 hours, and after that (or before triggering the final scene) you can spend some extra hours completion hunting.

These creatures of darkness are giving off a serious Ridley Scott's Alien vibe.

There are a couple more things off, though. Aside from the previously mentioned stutter, there are segments where it feels like the sound effects are timed wrong. Moving stones and platforms make a scraping sound that somehow comes earlier or later than the actual movement. This is quite confusing in a specific temple that is focused on timing and rhythm. I also came across several moments, when I was backtracking a bit, where an old dialogue or cutscene retriggered. Further, there were a number of other glitches like switches not working (having to reload a save state), or places where I glitched through a wall or floor. These take away from the feeling of polish and overall immersion in the world that the Slovakian studio Bitmap Galaxy have created, and may be a sign that the game could have used a couple of extra weeks to clean up.

N-Europe Final Verdict

Indie games have come a long way, and with games like Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, and Shovel Knight on the market, you may forget how impressive it is to make an indie game with a relatively small team. Truth is, though, that these games have raised the bar, even for small devs, and that it is getting harder and harder to develop an indie game with that wow factor. YesterMorrow has quite some potential, and despite its shortcomings, I kept wanting to push on and finish it. As a platformer, it definitely has its good moments. But it has not left a lasting impression, and there are too many flaws to justify a higher grade.

Gameplay3
Playability2
Visuals3
Audio3
Lifespan3

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