Blockchain Papers

Marcus Wunsch

No abstract is available for this record.

Arya Ganendra, Neva Dian Permana, Muhammad Faiz, H. B. J. Clifford

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) proposes a paradigm shift towards a democratized financial ecosystem governed by its users. This vision of decentralization is predicated on the distribution of governance tokens. However, the verity of this claim lacks rigorous empirical validation, raising concerns about a potential "decentralization illusion." This study quantitatively investigates the concentration of governance power within leading DeFi protocols to empirically test this narrative. We employed a multi-faceted quantitative triangulation framework using on-chain data from three archetypal DeFi protocols, selected to represent the core sectors of the ecosystem: a lending market (ProtoLend), a decentralized exchange (ProtoSwap), and a yield aggregator (ProtoYield). Our methodology integrates: (1) Empirical Network Analysis based on on-chain voting power delegation to map the topology of influence; (2) Economic Inequality Metrics, including the Gini Coefficient and Lorenz Curve Analysis, to quantify the distribution of governance tokens; and (3) Systemic Risk Assessment via the Nakamoto Coefficient to determine the minimum number of colluding actors required for a 51% governance attack. The empirical network analysis revealed a distinct core-periphery topology across all protocols, indicative of highly centralized influence structures. This was substantiated by extreme economic inequality, with Gini coefficients of 0.91 for ProtoLend, 0.95 for ProtoSwap, and 0.89 for ProtoYield. Lorenz curves visually confirmed that a minuscule fraction of holders controls the vast majority of voting power. The Nakamoto coefficients were critically low, calculated at 8 for ProtoLend, 5 for ProtoSwap, and 11 for ProtoYield, exposing profound vulnerabilities to collusion and capture. In conclusion, our findings provide robust, triangulated evidence of a pervasive "decentralization illusion" within DeFi. Governance power is not distributed but is instead highly concentrated, replicating the plutocratic power dynamics of traditional finance. This concentration poses significant systemic risks and fundamentally challenges the core value proposition of the DeFi ecosystem.

Witold Srokosz, Paweł Lenio, Grzegorz Sobiecki

Sections 5.1–5.4 feature detailed considerations of capital market law, payment service law, anti-money laundering law, tax law and budget law. These are necessary, because public law is less flexible than private law, and creates the most significant legal risks for the financing of long-term and capital-intensive investments using distributed ledger technology. This analysis is completed in Sections 5.5 and 5.6 by in-depth reflections on important legal issues for the modern world, especially in a global context, i.e., the legal aspects of the implementation of the sustainable development goals and analysis of the legal aspects of personal data protection (including the EU digital identity).

Nicolin Decker

The Doctrine of Anchored Decentralization constitutes the first comprehensive constitutional and statutory framework capable of reconciling decentralized digital architectures with the legal, regulatory, and jurisprudential structure of the United States. Developed within the broader scholarly series <i>The Republic’s Conscience</i>, this thesis represents the second installment in that corpus—building directly upon the constitutional and structural principles articulated in the inaugural paper and extending them into the domain of digital-asset governance, administrative delimitation, and federal statutory coherence.This work advances the nation’s first universal, architecture-based commodity-versus-security classification framework designed for deployment across American constitutional, statutory, and judicial systems. By replacing rhetorical claims of decentralization with empirically verifiable and legally cognizable structural tests, the Doctrine furnishes courts, Congress, and administrative agencies with a coherent, adjudicable methodology capable of withstanding scrutiny under established Supreme Court jurisprudence, including <i>Howey</i>, <i>Reves</i>, <i>Forman</i>, <i>Marbury</i>, and the post-<i>Chevron</i> administrative landscape.The Doctrine challenges the prevailing assumption that blockchain-based ecosystems may operate as “stateless” economic systems while still participating in markets governed by constitutional law. Through sustained analysis of constitutional text, statutory construction, cryptographic system design, and post-Chevron administrative jurisprudence, the work demonstrates that decentralization cannot acquire legal legitimacy unless it remains anchored to the Chain of Consent — the constitutional requirement that all economic power be traceable to accountable authority.Drawing upon Article I, § 8 (monetary and commercial power), Article I, § 9 (appropriations and fiscal discipline), and the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Doctrine establishes that most contemporary decentralized systems operate within a constitutional vacuum: they perform value transfer, economic coordination, and pseudo-monetary behavior without satisfying the representational prerequisites of the American constitutional order. This analysis is further grounded in <i>Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward</i>, <i>Gibbons v. Ogden</i>, <i>Wickard v. Filburn</i>, <i>United States v. Lopez</i>, <i>NFIB v. Sebelius</i>, and the post–<i>Loper Bright</i> landscape of statutory interpretation, revealing how modern digital governance architectures strain the boundaries of jurisdiction, accountability, and enforceability.At the systems-engineering level, the Doctrine reframes decentralization not as a monetary phenomenon but as a cryptographic lineage derived from Haber and Stornetta’s foundational timestamping architecture. This lineage demonstrates that Bitcoin’s core innovation was not the creation of new money, but the operationalization of a distributed verification engine. The work therefore distinguishes decisively between decentralization as architectural substrate and cryptocurrency as asset behavior, establishing that most digital tokens cannot qualify as commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act absent a constitutionally anchored framework for origin accountability, managerial neutrality, and market integrity.The Doctrine exposes structural defects in modern legislative approaches — including H.R. 3633 — demonstrating how contemporary statutory efforts misapply classical commodity theory, create jurisdictionally unanchored digital entities, and institutionalize anonymity architectures that undermine due process, enforcement capacity, and market legitimacy. In response, this work develops the Anchored Decentralization Test, the first system-level doctrine to allow Congress, courts, and regulators to classify digital assets based on verifiable architectural behavior rather than semantic self-description.The Doctrine further introduces the novel concept of Autonomous Commodity Primitives (ACPs) — a sovereign-grade digital infrastructure class designed not as speculative instruments but as immutable, cryptographic attestations of real-world sovereign reserve assets. ACPs are engineered to function as Treasury-grade verification rails, enabling real-time auditability, ledger-level integrity, and constitutionally compliant Asset-Backed Digital Currency (ABDC) architecture. Unlike cryptocurrencies, ACPs do not manufacture value; they attest to value that already exists within sovereign reserve systems.To harmonize privacy with constitutional accountability, the Doctrine integrates Zero-Knowledge Proofs, privacy-preserving audit layers, and non-custodial verification mechanisms, allowing digital systems to preserve Fourth Amendment-equivalent privacy while maintaining lawful traceability through institutional channels. This design restores the Chain of Consent without creating surveillance architecture.The Doctrine concludes that decentralization without accountability constitutes a structural form of constitutional evasion — an economy operating beyond representation. By restoring constitutional anchoring to distributed architectures, the Doctrine preserves innovation while reaffirming the Republic’s foundational principle: that economic power is legitimate only when traceable to those whom the Constitution recognizes as sovereign.Ultimately, The Doctrine of Anchored Decentralization provides a constitutional roadmap for the next century of digital infrastructure. It is <i>not a rejection</i> of decentralized technology, but a <i>restoration</i> of its lawful purpose: to function as a verifiable architecture of trust, anchored to the constitutional principles that have sustained the United States for more than two centuries.

Majlinda Velçani, Natasha Hoda, Parashqevi Draci

The local government has the right and the ability to regulate and administer an essential part of public affairs under their responsibility and in the interest of the community and the right to plan, finance and organize the exercise of a function.One of the main aspects is the support of local government in finding possible solutions for the financing and implementation of capital investment projects, also through policy improvements at the local level advocated by local government associations.In our legal framework, it is provided that the financing of the local self-government units is made from the revenues provided by taxes, fees and other local revenues, from funds transferred from the State Budget and funds that come directly from the allocation of taxes and national taxes, local borrowing, donations, as well as other sources provided for in the law.On the other hand, this paper will highlight the importance of implementing the principle of equality from the central to the local level, so that the latter can fulfill its functions where one of these functions is the expansion of financing sources.The implementation of local government investment projects depends on their ability to find the necessary funds by combining their own resources and external financing.Debt financing enables municipalities to carry out more infrastructure projects in a short period of time compared to financing from their own funds.

Biyan Mienert

No abstract is available for this record.

Aneta Spendzharova

Drawing on an integrated analysis of the latest European Union (EU) economic and financial governance reforms in the 2020s, we glean a new European economic governance paradigm. This article unpacks the main features of this new form of European gouvernement économique. The article focuses particularly on the set of policies adopted by two key actors in European economic and financial sector governance – the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) – to advance the ‘green transition’ toward a carbon neutral EU economy by 2050. The new EU gouvernement économique aims to steer the Union towards a ‘net zero’ emissions economy by 2050, albeit important recent studies (European Court of Auditors 2023) have raised concerns that this ambition may not be realistic. It has larger financial means at its disposal considering the ‘traditional’ EU budget, combined with newly set-up supranational investment funds available through the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) programme. Moreover, it unfolds in a more complex polycentric system of EU economic governance (Ostrom 2010; Schmidt 2023; Vogler 2020; van Zeben and Bobic 2019) than envisioned in the older gouvernement économique blueprints of the 1990s. Faced with ‘wicked’ policy problems in this decentralized governance setting, such as the climate crisis, a global public health crisis and war at its doorstep, the EU institutions have to resolve the tension between multiple policy objectives, such as pursuing economic growth and ensuring low inflation. Table 1 provides an overview of the main distinctive features of the EU's ‘new’ gouvernement économique, focusing particularly on features that show a clear contrast in the 2020s, compared to the earlier blueprints from the 1990s. Financial instruments (EU level) Prevailing mode of governance Centralized, Commission in the lead. Decentralized, Commission as an orchestrator, together with other EU institutions, such as the ECB In short, this article argues that the European ‘green economy’ to support the green transition has superseded the older concept of gouvernement économique as an organizing principle of contemporary EU economic and financial sector governance. An integrated analysis of the recently adopted EU economic and financial sector governance policies and reforms as well as the (new) financial instruments launched in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic yields three important findings summarized below, which form the axes of this article. First, the European Commission has reinforced and expanded its leading role in steering European economic governance through a mission-oriented policy approach (Mazzucato 2018), especially considering its leading role in the European Green Deal (EGD). Its leadership was shown by issuing the NGEU ‘corona recovery’ bonds and by monitoring the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in the member states, now integrated in the European Semester. Second, now the Commission has substantial financial means which it can steer toward achieving the Union's long-term green transition. These expanded financial means become evident when we consider in an integrated way the traditional EU budgetary instruments in the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) 2021–2027, supplemented with the new EU investment mechanism NGEU to fund the green transition, foster the Union's economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the special financial assistance instrument European Stability Mechanism albeit outside the ‘regular’ EU decision-making framework. In fact, the EU is projected to become the fifth largest bond issuer by 2025, compared to the individual EU member states (European Commission 2023a). Third, the Commission works closely with the member states and with other EU institutions, such as the ECB, as an ‘orchestrator’ in the contemporary complex polycentric system of EU economic and financial sector governance. In contrast to earlier EU economic governance blueprints, the current approach does not seek further centralization and a hierarchical organization. Rather, it entails transferring more responsibility to and demanding more commitment from the member states in order to accommodate diverse national growth models, developmental trajectories and preferences (Ban and Helgadóttir 2022; Blyth et al. 2022; Hodson and Howarth 2023; Mertens et al. 2021). The Commission's interaction with the ECB is particularly important to unpack, as the ECB has taken a firm stance to support the transition to a carbon-neutral economy while, of course, staying within its policy remit of keeping prices stable and banks safe. Furthermore, inflationary pressures have become a challenge for citizens and businesses alike during 2021 and 2022. Rising inflation has negatively impacted citizens, while the rising interest rates to tame inflation have generated unintended consequences for bank balance sheets and, ultimately, for the stability of the European banking sector. These developments have prompted further actions by the ECB to reconcile the policy objectives of financial and economic stability, on the one hand, and price stability, on the other hand, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 (Quaglia and Verdun 2023). The next sections elaborate on each of these three axes in turn. It is, of course, important to note that the concept of an EU gouvernement économique has a rather polarizing track record in European political economy. The earlier blueprints from the 1990s reflect heavily French economic thinking at the time, for example, former French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy's proposals. These blueprints aimed for more coordinated fiscal and economic policies of the EU member states through the Stability and Growth Pact and the annual macro-economic policy evaluation cycles conducted by the Commission, which offered an unprecedented insight into national economic thinking and planning (see Howarth 2002 and Verdun 2000 for the role of French policymakers in this debate; Dyson 2002). However, critics of the concepts emphasized the contested adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, evoking connotations of supranational dirigisme, driven by a Commission detached from the member states' national economic priorities and concerns, even threatening to stifle vibrancy and innovation, thus potentially damaging the competitive edge of the ‘Northern core’ economies (Dyson 2002; Howarth and Verdun 2020). Since the early 2000s, the aptly named ‘post-functionalist’ turn (Hooghe and Marks 2009) has only given rise to a more polarized public opinion in the EU member states, greater Euroscepticism and more contestation regarding the place and the role of the EU in coordinating and guiding member states' national economic policies (Börzel 2016; Halikiopoulou 2018). Let us now take stock of the distinctive features of the recent EU economic and financial sector reforms to foster the green transition. To begin with, the European Commission has reinforced and expanded its leading role in steering European economic and financial sector governance, especially through leading the implementation of the EGD, issuing the NGEU corona recovery bonds and monitoring the implementation of the RRF, now integrated in the European Semester. It is notable that the Commission has opted not to work through hierarchical governance modes, such as centralization and maximum harmonization, which are increasingly seen as politically controversial, especially for the member states. To the contrary, in guiding the green economy transition, the Commission gives more space to the member states to choose their national economic policies in the RRFs, tailored to their own developmental priorities and objectives. The Commission has opted for a more accommodating approach in monitoring and guiding the implementation of the RRFs in the European Semester, perhaps reflecting criticisms of excessive dirigisme and top-down steering during earlier cycles, especially during the eurozone crisis (Schelkle 2017). Recognizing the threats posed by climate change and environmental degradation, the Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen launched the EGD in 2020, with the ambitious mission to make the EU ‘the first climate-neutral continent’ by 2050 (European Commission 2021). While this goal still echoes the so-called ‘Lisbon agenda’ to modernize the European economy and ensure its global competitiveness as well as social inclusion, the EGD displays the features of mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP) approach (Mazzucato 2018). The EGD seeks to achieve no net emissions of greenhouse gases in the EU by 2050 and a shift toward a new economic growth model decoupled from resource use, inviting the active participation and contribution of the private sector and citizens (European Commission 2021). The Commission has explicitly relied on Mazzucato's (2018) ‘mission-oriented approach’ for the EU economy to navigate economic change in contemporary capitalism, considering the magnitude of the policy challenge to deliver on the EGD. According to this approach, coordinating public and private sector policies on a massive scale is necessary to radically change the mechanisms that govern the (economic) value distribution. New types of MOIP collaborations, especially public–private partnerships, are particularly important. This is visible in contemporary EU economic governance when we consider the ‘industrial policy’ component of the EGD. For example, the Commission (2021) has stressed that ‘the Green transition presents a major opportunity for European industry by creating markets for clean technologies and products’. It recognizes that the legislative and policy proposals implementing the EGD affect entire value chains in sectors, such as energy and transport, agriculture, construction and renovation, and have the potential for new, and more sustainable, job creation in the member states in these sectors through a more pro-active industrial policy. Especially since the mid-2010, there has been a clear rise and renewed attention given to EU industrial policy as well as greater integration of different industrial policy functions at the supranational EU level (Bulfone 2023; Di Carlo and Schmitz 2023). The interplay of functional, cultivated and political spillovers, driven especially by the Franco-German backing of more pro-EU industrial policy positions since 2016, explains the timing of the rise of this more ambitious and far-reaching EU industrial policy (Di Carlo and Schmitz 2023). Nevertheless, the nature of the policy area and related externalities explain why some areas, such as ‘clean’ energy production, have advanced faster than others (Di Carlo and Schmitz 2023; Prontera and Quitzow 2022). Second, now the Commission has substantial financial means, which it can mobilize to achieve the long-term green transition objectives of the Union. These expanded financial means become evident when considering in an integrated way the traditional EU budgetary instruments in the MFF 2021–2027 with the new EU investment mechanism NGEU to fund the green transition and foster the Union's economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The start of the implementation of NGEU in 2021 means that EU bonds are already here, even though both public opinion and key member states remain divided on the desirability (and viability) of common EU bonds as a ‘solidarity’ financial instrument to raise capital and pay up for common EU policy objectives. In fact, the Commission's (n.d.) recent rhetoric on debt issuance stresses that ‘it [the Commission] is a well-established name in debt securities markets, with a strong track record of successful bond issuances over the past 40 years’. Importantly, the recently adopted NGEU package marks a radical departure from previous EU economic and financial policy constrained by the ‘balanced budget’ rule at the EU level, with deficit spending precluded by the EU treaties. The Commission now has temporary powers to borrow from the international financial markets in order to finance NGEU and, consequently, implement the EGD (for more on the EGD, see Dyrhauge and Kurze 2023; Eckert 2021). In general, EU borrowing is executed using multiple instruments, including EU Bonds, EU Bills and NGEU Green Bonds (European Commission n.d.). There are precedents for joint EU borrowing with a very limited remit, for example, for Euratom, SURE (the EU's programme to finance short-term employment schemes across the EU and keep people in jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic) and the Macro-Financial Assistance+ programme for Ukraine, but NGEU Green Bonds scale up this borrowing considerably. In fact, the amount is such that the EU as an entity is projected to become the Union's fifth largest bond issuer by 2025, placed immediately after the four largest eurozone bond issuers, namely, France, Italy, Germany and Spain (European Commission 2023a). Furthermore, through issuing up to €250 billion of ‘green bonds’ as part of NGEU funding plans, the Commission will become the largest issuer of green bonds globally (European Commission 2023a). This significant development regarding the EU as a borrower further substantiates Braun and Gabor's (2020) findings about the growing ‘infrastructural entanglement’ of the EU (economic) institutions in financialization. Whereas Braun and Gabor (2020) unpacked how the ECB has ‘advocated and actively promoted, for monetary policy purposes, the development of shadow banking and shadow money’, this article extends their argument, showing that, furthermore, the Commission plays a leading role as an issuer of green bonds on behalf of the EU, deepening the EU's infrastructural entanglement with global financial markets. The financial backing to implement the EGD intersects in important ways with the EU's Covid-19 recovery fund, NGEU. At least one third of the investments from the NGEU financial package and the EU's 7-year budget (the MFF 2021–2027) have been pledged for financing the EGD (European Commission 2021). Loans from the European Investment Bank will also be mobilized. Taken together, the MFF 2021–2027 and NGEU have raised a total €2.018 trillion to implement the EU's policy priorities over the next 7 years, which is an unprecedented financial resource available at the EU level. The EU's regular long-term budget, the MFF, accounts for €1.210 trillion of the total amount and NGEU accounts for €806.9 million to supplement the regular EU budget. Furthermore, NGEU funding has been earmarked to top up the following MFF budgetary headings (in order of magnitude of the contribution): ‘Cohesion, Resilience and Values’ – €426.7 million (+ €776.5 from NGEU); ‘Natural Resources and Environment’ – €401 million (+ 18.9 from NGEU); and ‘Single Market, Innovation and Digital’ – €149.5 (+ €11.5 from NGEU). Third, the Commission now works closely with the member states and with other EU institutions, such as the ECB and EU agencies as an orchestrator in the contemporary complex polycentric system of EU economic governance. The orchestration analytical framework (Abbott et al. 2020) helps understand the new role of the Commission and the ECB in the EU's contemporary more complex system of polycentric economic governance. Orchestration is a form of indirect governance. The orchestrator works through the intermediary to influence the governance target, and it is ‘soft’ because the orchestrator often lacks authoritative control over the intermediaries and the targets in a classical principal-agent delegation sense (Abbott et al. 2020, p. 21). An orchestration approach may be desirable in contemporary EU economic governance to mitigate the effects of growing public opinion polarization and Euroscepticism, as the Commission relinquishes direct ‘control’ and seeks instead to co-create the national economic programmes together with the member state governments, allowing much more space for national discretion and national economic priorities. 1 On the one hand, the contemporary EU economic governance system is complex, polycentric and more decentralized simply because there are more relevant venues of policy-making in the multi-level EU governance system, considering also the EU's embeddedness in global governance (see also Schmidt 2023). On the other hand, complexity and polycentricity are magnified by the types of contemporary economic policy problems that the EU faces. These tend to be wicked policy problems, such as the climate crisis, that have multiple interconnected dimensions, and the solutions of one may the of solutions to policy and The Commission's interaction with the ECB is particularly important to unpack, as the ECB has taken a firm stance to support the transition to a carbon-neutral while of staying within its policy remit of keeping prices stable and banks 2022). On the one hand, inflationary pressures a challenge for citizens and businesses alike in the of 2022. On the other hand, rising bank interest rates to in inflation generated unintended consequences for balance sheets and, ultimately, for the stability of the European banking sector. Let us the tension between the economic growth policy and the low inflation policy especially from the of the Commission and the of the Union's economic and financial policies in that the Commission is more on economic especially in the implementation of the member states' green transition At a EU emphasized that the EU economy strong and growth between and and in after the Covid-19 pandemic. also stressed that ‘the fiscal stance of the past three years, with the monetary was to support the area economy we be of these and the economy’ (European Commission This is why the Commission's as part of the European the for a more fiscal but ‘the investments that are for common (European Commission the ECB has been with the of the economic growth policy and the low inflation The tension between these two policy objectives visible when we consider some of the key of the ECB during 2021 and 2022. Since the of the the ECB and the ECB have been very clear that the policy is to keep eurozone inflation below, but it was seen as a departure from the when the ECB in after a of its monetary policy that ‘it inflation the of the 2021). The ECB also it direct more its bonds to mitigate climate change p. thus globally as one of the main of bank climate in a global banking (see also 2023; 2022). For example, the ECB into climate change when one of the main to borrowing and economic as part of its economic the ECB (2021) that it that have to their carbon At the time, it is that the ECB the main decision-making has not been on how to a balance between the different policy objectives of the of the ECB are in of the new monetary and For example, of the Central has been a of ECB climate and a when the different policy objectives, such as keeping inflation in while financial stability and economic growth in the Union Bank 2023). of the Bank of France, has and member of the ECB has stressed that ‘the main banks their attention to climate change is the it will affect their to achieve their 2021). of the ECB have been more For of the between and 2021 and a member of the ECB for the ECB to its spending eurozone inflation of control and 2021). also that climate change and climate outside the remit of in three as was set to that in the in the ECB monetary policy to inflation and even the ECB policy to financial stability and the during the eurozone crisis and 2021). as inflation in the in in the ECB to from the economic growth policy to the low inflation In the raised the key ECB interest rates for the first in more than a to an to an of policy rates the ECB its interest in the eurozone interest since the global financial The ECB has to monetary policy since interest rates and its at an unprecedented to inflation towards the These actions the eurozone inflation to in but still in the ECB the so-called a to support the of monetary policy. to by the ECB the can be for of securities by eurozone member states that in financing not by to to the it is important to note that on the of the monetary policy and the amount of the is not the ECB a of discretion in the scale of the ECB a renewed on eurozone inflation in a in in 2022. that some EU such as the three states, unprecedented inflation rates to the of for example, war in Ukraine, energy chains and of that banks have to on their to their to ensure price stability will have to raise rates to that will deliver inflation in the ECB also to the low inflation policy by a to the bond and stressed that fiscal support for the eurozone economies be and This article stock of the recent policies adopted in the by two key actors in European economic and financial sector governance – the European Commission and the ECB – to advance the green transition toward a carbon neutral EU economy by 2050. that the new EU gouvernement économique of the can into larger financial means to support the green the traditional EU budget with newly set-up supranational investment funds available through NGEU. the mode of governance is polycentric and the Commission and the ECB as to the policies and actions of the member states and other EU and reconcile different policy objectives, such as economic growth and low inflation. At a on the of climate Pierre of the Bank of emphasized that climate policy an part of economic it is to public 2023). the of the Commission and the ambitious policies to advance the green transition will on in national economic policy and backing by the EU the and and the in the on of in at the of and the for their and on an earlier of this article. also to the in on of European for the and with concepts in European economic governance that we often take for

Adrian Kuenzler

This note outlines three key areas of transformation that competition law has gone through in the past few decades and considers the direction it should take from here. The idea is to juxtapose the role of ex ante regulation with ex post competition law interventions in getting to grips with novel types of harms that the digital economy has brought about and that increasingly pertain to consumers, the market, and society as a whole. There are essentially two debates around the role of competition that have influenced the manner in which the law contends with data-driven markets. One relates to the goals of competition law.1 Much legal doctrine has assumed that we need one single theory to make competition policy consistent—we may refer to this as first-generation competition law. Another relates to the means by which competition law achieves its goals.2 Here, legal doctrine has focused predominantly on entitlements and market structure—we may call it second-generation competition law. The issues underlying these debates have recently been catalysed by several high-profile empirical investigations that observed rising concentrations of corporate power3 and the associated claim that competition law should be employed to restructure markets, by breaking big technology companies up or by divesting them into separate units.4 Regardless of whether one leans towards ex ante regulation or ex post competition law interventions in dealing with problems of concentration and their harmful economic and social effects, the result of these debates is a set of shared assumptions which have produced the coding structure that has become the node between theory and practice. Analysts have internalized these assumptions, although different camps put their own normative twists on them. The problem is that competition law’s coding structure has become redundant: it no longer represents the deep-seated realities of data-driven markets. In highly concentrated marketplaces, competition law and regulation inevitably work together, depending on and colliding with one another, but neither entirely holds sway. Against this backdrop, competition theory and doctrine can no longer serve one single goal nor can they continue to rely exclusively on entitlements or market structure. And yet much legal scholarship still turns upon these debates.5 The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is perhaps the most pertinent example of this trend.6 Data-driven markets require a distinct frame for conceptualizing novel types of harms—third-generation competition law. This is especially relevant for stalwarts of ex ante regulation who steadfastly maintain that issues around product quality in digital markets are outside the purview of competition law. By insisting that competition law pursues one single goal—usually in terms of low price (and high output)—this perspective severely prejudices any potential reflection as to how the law contends with issues posed by markets with a zero price and frustrates the ability to arrive at an effective resolution of such issues. Apologists of ex post competition law interventions must also adjust their views. There are good reasons behind their belief that decentralization matters; however, they frequently insist on an increasingly antiquated notion of how competition operates, in that the only disciplining mechanism in terms of leading actors’ behaviour consists in affording consumers an ‘exit’ option, that is, an opportunity to switch between different alternative offers. The image of the perfectly competitive market, for instance, is exit-centred to the extent that sellers are unable to displease their customers because consumers will swiftly shift from one supplier to another if they are dissatisfied with the products and services they receive. And if switching turns out to be impossible or unworkable, second-best alternatives such as separations or divestitures are thought to reinstate the ability of consumers to switch, pushing concentrated power out to the ends of the Internet and defying any consolidated arrangement involving small groups of dominant undertakings, as though no alternatives prevailed. This note will briefly survey these debates, but the emphasis is on what lies ahead—what ought competition theory and doctrine to resemble in the digital economy? Without a doubt, any answer to this question is unlikely to assume the sophistication and precision that have marked previous debates; however, this is precisely the point of this note. Disputes around data-driven markets regularly turn upon the major Internet platforms’ illegal acquisition of small competitors, their character as monopolies, and their preference for their own related products through network algorithms, resulting in harm to competing producers. Moreover, there are concerns around the platforms’ size and reach, which highlight the risk of suffocating progress, intensifying inequality, and exacerbating social and political polarization.7 To address these harms, policymakers regularly maintain that competition law should be employed to break the companies up or to divest them into previously acquired entities. Proposals such as these, however, contain a complex tension: because the dominant platforms’ activities present risks in economic and non-economic terms, competition law either needs to be repurposed, to deal with a broader set of values, or is required to refrain from contending with non-economic issues altogether—issues that are better dealt with by laws designed specifically to target privacy, data security, fake news, and so forth. The problem with this view is that distrust in the sheer size of big technology platforms, and the reach of their activities, obscures the network benefits that these platforms generate and that they may augment by expansion in the future.8 The tension is in large part a consequence of the debate around the goals of competition law: whether competition law needs to be focused exclusively on consumers, competitors, or both, or whether it should also attend to the social and political harms of market power. First-generation competition law cannot adequately capture the realities of digital markets that implicate seemingly non-economic values such as privacy, diversity, or editorial integrity. It presupposes claims that are based upon price and output when in fact these claims relate mostly to (various types of) product quality.9 Bringing competition theory and doctrine up to date would require theorists to acknowledge that competition law cannot be understood as an avenue to promote one single set of values. Instead, it should be seen as a practical device to underpin consumers’ calls and to align the economic goals of leading actors with the views of their own customers. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that competition authorities and courts should focus on one single goal because they lack the required knowledge to make rules that can govern unknown future circumstances in dynamic settings. In the digital economy, however, decisions taken by authorities and courts inevitably affect the policies adopted by dominant incumbent actors, thereby shaping the broader legal and economic landscape. For this very reason, authorities and courts with limited knowledge may adopt instead a blend of different enforcement strategies available—because they are sometimes ignorant. Although this may at first seem counterintuitive, adopting a blend of different enforcement strategies enables authorities and courts to confront incentives to rule broadly while at the same time working towards greater convergence of different pertinent values such as privacy, diversity, editorial integrity, and competition.10 First-generation competition law inexorably collides with this point. That is precisely why stalwarts of regulation and apologists of decentralization regularly pit the values of competition against those associated with special purpose regulation. The camps’ common supposition is that we need regulation or competition, and the mere issue that persists is to assess which realm a particular problem is best associated with. And while debates around the goals of competition law may have shifted our perception as to whether a particular issue belongs to regulation or competition, these debates have barely influenced the manner in which we contemplate the workings of concentrated markets. These quarrels notwithstanding, with the newly enacted DMA, ex ante regulation and ex post competition law interventions now govern together in a space that has relentlessly been negotiated and contested. Contrary to what stalwarts of regulation would suppose, the DMA does not mean that regulation will prejudice competition, that it will impinge upon the continued application of Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to the behaviour of big technology platforms or that competition law will gradually become redundant. Nor does it mean, as apologists of decentralization would maintain, that we should no longer be required to reconsider the assumptions of first-generation competition law. The DMA creates a regulatory regime that is aimed at ensuring fairness and contestability and when it regulates it does not hold unfettered sway any more than competition law wields unencumbered control when it is engaged.11 To be sure, as an ex ante regulatory instrument governing core platform services offered by entities that qualify as ‘gatekeepers’, the DMA reigns supreme, but in effect, it creates a space of regulatory overlap in which the actual choice is not between ex ante regulation or ex post competition law interventions; rather the choice is both as well as and, and this assumes some significant degree of common ground that accompanies that interdependence.12 Digital markets arguably distort the classic distinction between production, distribution, and consumption. Decisions taken by consumers in the digital economy are increasingly made passively, through implicit or explicit product matching and personalized recommendations rather than through active search. Take artificial intelligence-based algorithms as an example. Such algorithms recommend and purchase products based on spoken, written, or inferred requests obtained from users of digital platforms or devices such as mobile phones, speakers, and smart assistants.13 These algorithms benefit consumers in that they facilitate swifter and more complex transactions, and diminish consumers’ search and transaction costs. But they also work to entrust the ability of consumers to actively search—including their capacity to pick and choose—to big technology firms themselves and place consumers’ decision-making power into the hands of producers. This creates opportunities for misaligning the preferences of consumers with the goods and services actually sold, causing harm to customers, competitors, and the market (including society) as a whole.14 To remedy such harms, competition law usually ensures that consumers have an opportunity to choose between different alternative options. This is the equivalent of the conventional idea in which efficient markets afford consumers an ability to switch between distinct providers so that they can pursue their own commercial transactions at their individual discretion. But in concentrated markets, consumers typically are no longer able (or indeed willing) to choose effectively between alternatives. This is why, in theory at least, competition law is supposed to break big technology companies up—to reinstate the ability of consumers to choose between different alternative offers. Second-generation competition law grew out of its fixation on consumer switching as the only disciplining mechanism in terms of market actors’ behaviour. Even in highly concentrated markets, most of the time, there are thought to be alternatives, particularly where competition by other actors is just one click away. If switching nonetheless ends up being impracticable or turns out to be ineffective, competition law requires structural separation, to reinstate consumers’ choices, and to lessen the adverse effects of dominant incumbent actors on competitors. The main cognates of this account are regulatory arrangements that seek to preserve consumer switching through data portability or interoperability measures.15 Such measures seek to make it easier for participants to compete and to restore the autonomy of consumers, including their ability to choose. As to the predominant role that switching plays in promoting competition, second-generation competition law has not attained a middle ground in the debate around ex ante regulation and ex post competition law interventions; instead, most policy proposals fit into two groups. One is about entitlements: regulation should afford consumers a right to switch—an ability to choose between different options, put in place by mandated interoperability or established rights to data portability, which are geared towards both animating rivalry/lowering barriers to entry, and allowing new firms to compete. The other is about market structure: policymakers are concerned that the marketplace itself does not provide consumers with adequate opportunities to switch. The solutions they present almost inevitably involve forcing big technology companies to separate from (some of) their essential services to reinstate consumers’ choices and to lessen the adverse effects of dominant incumbent actors on other players. Both approaches seek to re-establish competition, by rendering users’ data portable and competing firms’ services interoperable. Portability provides consumers with an entitlement to switch; structural separation and/or interoperability afford consumers the ability to choose between different alternative offers by dint of adjustment to market structure. As with the shared assumptions underpinning first-generation competition law, second-generation competition law is difficult to square with the realities of data-driven markets. It rests on the notion of outright regulation or sheer and an perception of how data-driven markets As concerns the and structural are not the only at not the most for consumers to In concentrated marketplaces, consumers are most to have their by some in leading actors’ decision-making as to the on which those actors or their Here, consumers’ preferences can best be put into if users and their in this a to leading actors’ product The of such typically through an avenue of it ensures that in concentrated consumers can a of market to a significant second-generation competition law has the notion that entitlements and market structure are what most for data-driven markets, law in fact that competition authorities and courts work to consumers to leading actors’ product For in the into the that the most effective to competition and consumers’ not to break the up but to require to into the users to out of the data In a the European in upon the to that competing services no than its own its search of consumer preferences into leading actors’ has also been to be adequate in to claims against the to or and are with to dominant As the fact that second-generation competition law does not account for the manner in which data-driven markets it is to that in data-driven markets, and to consumers to from to Take the in In this the understood that been and that has in a of digital companies on consumers’ from platforms to As a separation of the would only have opportunities for entities to compete in and to confront the underlying incentives that the an alternative avenue of it consumers to of terms and of forcing the platform to control of the and of data to consumers, consumers in a to control the of data Second-generation competition law has the that of consumer of its focus on entitlements and market it has not any space for consumers to some control product and sellers by to them. If we the coding structure of second-generation competition law, competition theory and doctrine would be required to what may be the of an extent of manner in which authorities and courts and effectively the policies of leading actors on of consumers, and thereby work to consumers’ views into the market when other of are or In the DMA itself a of to the behaviour of that not only to promote consumer switching but that also to this regulatory overlap and are thought to be the rule rather than the law, for its will have to put emphasis on entitlements and market structure and more on of consumer the role consumers in shaping leading actors’ policies from their rather than to the part they in them from does the DMA for competition theory and The DMA an emphasis on the regulatory but the is more In effect, the DMA that the time is to the that has arguably the of competition theory and competition law. This is an issue that legal scholarship has yet to for both and normative In terms, stalwarts of regulation and apologists of decentralization have been in a the and benefits of but they have on one single between means and Both camps have supposed that competition goals and that the most problems are best exclusively by of regulation. That turns out to be The DMA has what most theorists thought to be the part of the debate around regulation and This is because competition law also a regulatory this holds for and As concerns the competition law a significant structural role in that a of in Articles and DMA from behaviour that competition authorities and courts previously and that relate to that is best understood in terms of Here, competition law regulates in that it is in the is competition law ensures that the DMA DMA that the may a market for the purpose of whether one or more services the digital should be to the of core platform services in DMA or for the purpose of that the contestability of core platform services or that are and which are not effectively by the in its the any relevant of Articles 101 and 102 digital markets well as any other relevant market investigations DMA may some in new in with the the DMA that competition law will a role in its and new rules are and are the result of Here, the in which an issue relates either to ex ante regulation or to ex post competition law interventions ends up being than previously been the DMA (and new will continue to in part on that around of market that is, around how to a significant role in governing markets is for consumers as a Moreover, competition law assumes a role in of the new The in for made it that a extent of market concentration inexorably incentives for services to be towards the and from the preferences of consumers, the market, and society at these leading search social and may through their algorithms and the of other actors, with in terms of product production, and In to be the not only to adjust the and but it also the manner in which policymakers and theorists the underlying It this on of consumers and decision-making on the of the to the for the on in and related and and and/or adopted by in different The DMA several in which by consumers, put in place through has been to ex post competition law interventions with ex ante regulation to contestability and fairness in digital markets. and in concentrated are difficult to they need to be and from through authorities and courts on of consumers as the of the of new laws those and The DMA that taken by authorities and courts can break ground for novel policies that leading actors to consumers’ views into their when and have gradually become more taken on of consumers does not require a debate of issues on an but a in a and in are out through a mechanism of in which and reasonable is such a opportunities for by the law, are in terms, and the main actors are and that their views ex The between and their is distinct from that which authorities and courts on of consumers ex that in is based on the of a rather than on mere assumptions or And it is for consumers to a more perception of how the policies of leading actors work in especially in of the and of data-driven markets. who to with a view to a through are to have a better of the circumstances of a and they may hold of a broader of Moreover, consumer may in in to behaviour and in to new so that authorities and courts can consumer more than the in a competition law also more ends in of the on its the of regulation groups of actors with different of knowledge and from those in competition law including of of and the focus of regulation is typically on that are from the effects of based on actual the are for the most part they are on from past investigations and are up by the shared and of authorities and courts that seek to in a manner that is for incumbent actors to In this the DMA to a of good in markets, that core platform services offered by are to of the arrangement that the DMA is based upon by and large from law that has been put in competition law. It the of consumers in the of leading actors’ to incentives and to underpin consumers’ calls rather than to promote one single set of values. One that the why there are different camps is that different camps hold distinct of how markets That to the point as to why competition law calls for a need to the camps competition law is different from what either but it is also different from what either significant The DMA offers to a middle ground between the camps in to As the DMA, investigations by competition authorities and courts will a Although the DMA in to on competition law is also to the regulatory This is where competition law and the DMA are to in and to different law may not be but it will also be for shaping the new is where the digital economy and competition law will Such may the of entirely new or a towards different market And where it is that market investigations DMA will to the of new core services and of competition are the competition investigations the for new most significant that need to be understood they are taken into the regulatory law is not or by instead, competition law To be sure, there are concerns the application and of the in the DMA But for of the such from competition law and thereby its stalwarts of regulation nor apologists of decentralization are to view this arrangement as But nor will either be to the DMA represents a to debates around data-driven markets. these to the competition theory and doctrine need to be in them are a of assumptions that no longer the realities of data-driven markets. In such markets, regulation and decentralization are neither the DMA nor competition law instead, they govern for about a of this has entirely been by competition theory and It is time to them up to date with the of competition law.

Violeta Vulovic

Due to widespread decentralization of spending responsibilities, increasing revenue power and borrowing capacity of sub-national governments, sub-national borrowing has become an increasingly important source of sub-national finance. While there are arguments for and against giving sub-national authorities room for raising their own financial resources, appropriate sub-national borrowing regulatory framework can reduce chances of defaults and fiscal crises. This dissertation investigates the effectiveness of sub-national borrowing regulations in maintaining fiscal sustainability. More precisely, it tests the hypothesis that is sub-national borrowing is restricted to financing capital investments (the “golden rule”), and if the sub-national governments are provided with some measure of revenue autonomy, then the sub-national borrowing should not endanger fiscal sustainability. Based on the sub-national government panel data for 57 countries between 1990 and 2008 and applying the system GMM estimator and the survival analysis, this dissertation provides support for this hypothesis. The results suggest that the “golden rule” is effective in maintaining fiscal sustainability at both general and sub-national government level. Sub-national tax autonomy, however, seems to have positive but very small marginal effect on fiscal sustainability. The obtained results also emphasize the risk of the soft budget constraint and the moral hazard. Significant central government financing may give encouraging signs to the sub-national governments to over-borrow and to expect being bailed out by the central government. The results obtained in this dissertation imply following policy recommendations. First, sub-national government borrowing does not have to endanger fiscal sustainability if the borrowing regulation framework is well designed and according to specific country circumstances. Second, reducing fiscal dependence on central government financing reduces the risk of moral hazard and improves the effectiveness of borrowing control in maintaining fiscal balance at the sustainable level.

Franz Peter Lang, Malte Pehl

\nAt the end of 2021, the freight rates for container ships were USD 16,000 per 40-foot container. The same container cost only about $2000 two years earlier. This is good for shipping companies, but importers need to be able to bear such freight costs. This is currently leading to considerations of reorganizing the supply chains and thus the spatial structure of the international production facilities (the international division of labour).\n&#13;\n\nHowever, this in turn must also take into account the expected effects of China's “Belt and Road Initiative” and the European Union's “Global Gate Way” initiative. This paper focuses on concepts, the similarities and the differences of this initiatives and their possible effects on the changes in the world economy in the future. Their chances of realization are also critically examined. Both initiatives will have enormous problems financing their ambitious programs. Planning, political and organizational problems will arise. Primarily due to the complexity of the decision-making apparatus in China and in the European Union. In the first case, caused by the high degree of centralization and the autocratic political structures. In the second case, due to the extreme decentralization and the low political power of the decision-makers on the European level\n

Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal

No abstract is available for this record.

Domagoj Karačić, David Krmpotić, Marija Ileš

The budget revenues of cities in the last few years have not been constant and are largely dependent on a number of factors such as: uncertain trends in the local and world economy, uneven criteria for urban development and numerous perennial legislative changes. A lot of legal changes have been made in the Republic of Croatia relating to budget planning and defining the sources of financing of cities, moreover, the Personal Income Tax Act has been amended six times in the period from 2014 to 2019, and the Act on the Financing of Local and Regional Self-Government Units has been amended several times, with a new law on local taxes being introduced in 2018. The reasons for numerous legal changes are twofold and partially stem from the adjustment to the relief of the Croatian economy, and partially from the state's efforts to further relieve the tax burden on labour and income taxation. These changes reflected on, and significantly affected, the fiscal capacity of the revenues of large cities. Recommendations are aimed at greater fiscal autonomy of large cities and are aimed at further implementation of fiscal decentralization, especially in the area related to tax revenues.

F Mattassoglio

Within the new domain of the crypto-asset – which can be described as a ‘digital asset that may depend on cryptography and exists on distributed ledger’ – initial coin offerings (ICOs) have attracted the attention of financial authorities and regulators worldwide. Over the last two years, legislative initiatives regarding this phenomenon have proliferated within the European Union member states and are now driving the European Commission to act. This action is based on the common opinion that ICOs should present remarkable peculiarities and potentialities among the alternative forms of financing for small and medium enterprises. In this regard, this paper proposes an innovative and ad hoc regulatory approach for all ICO categories, including ones that issue tokens considered to be securities. This research is based upon the recognition that the traditional legal framework was not designed to face the specific needs and risks posed by these instruments, neither from the perspective of consumer protection nor from the view that serious operators need rules regarding.

Catherine Gamper, Claire Charbit

The share of public investment spending at sub-national level has been slowly but steadily increasing over the past two decades across OECD countries. Degrees and forms of decentralization in infrastructure vary widely across countries, but all governments share a common objective, that is to mobilize authorities along shared infrastructure policy objectives. This involves managing a complex web of vertical (across levels of government) and horizontal (across sectors and across the same levels of government) interdependencies, which require substantial coordination among actors to ensure policy alignment and quality investments. Asymmetric information, multiple principal-agent relationships and significant differences in capacities across levels of government in financing and implementing infrastructure investments have posed important political economic obstacles to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public investment outcomes. This paper will look at persisting coordination challenges more closely by using the results of a recent OECD questionnaire and case studies. It will identify remedies OECD and some selected non-OECD countries have found that work to address coordination issues. This paper will demonstrate that ultimately systematic collection and sharing of information is the key to making coordination work.