Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The European dimension of the pension challenge
- 2 National pension regimes, supranational harmonization efforts
- 3 The sources of pension reforms in Western Europe
- 4 Informal signaling and EU-level bargaining
- 5 Agenda setting and the single pension market
- 6 The German position on EU pension policies
- 7 The British position on EU pension policies
- 8 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Informal signaling and EU-level bargaining
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The European dimension of the pension challenge
- 2 National pension regimes, supranational harmonization efforts
- 3 The sources of pension reforms in Western Europe
- 4 Informal signaling and EU-level bargaining
- 5 Agenda setting and the single pension market
- 6 The German position on EU pension policies
- 7 The British position on EU pension policies
- 8 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At first glance, the governance of pension funds across borders may seem like a simple target for EU harmonization efforts. The potential benefits seem sizeable: more integrated capital markets, fewer barriers to labor mobility and substantial savings in administrative costs for corporations. However, a single pension market requires institutional changes in sensitive policy areas. Member states must agree on the harmonization of investment, social, and supervisory regulations.
Since the mature pension fund culture and liberal investment regulations in Beveridgean states fits well with EU pension directives, these countries face fewer adjustment costs and are therefore expected to support the creation of a single pension market. Countries with a Bismarckian pension system, however, face higher adjustment costs because a single pension market requires drastic changes in investment regulations, risk coverage, as well as waiting and vesting periods. These regulations, in turn, have a major impact on economic interactions between governments, workplace pension plan sponsors, and beneficiaries. Concerns that EU harmonization efforts might destabilize established patterns of labor relations makes cooperation in this policy area problematic. In this chapter, we ask why negotiations over pension market integration failed in the early 1990s, but succeeded in 2003. Any theory should explain both bargaining breakdown and success.
We argue that the key to understanding negotiation failure and success is the process of informal signaling between the member states.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Europeanization of Workplace PensionsEconomic Interests, Social Protection, and Credible Signaling, pp. 48 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013