Juan Andrés Piedra Peña’s Post

just out, with E. Erittu, G. Francisci, A. Natalini in European Policy Analysis. Policy networks should not be assumed to exist a priori. We propose an analytical strategy to empirically test their existence and we apply it to administrative reform in Italy https://lnkd.in/dwGiGCpZ

Is Massachusetts staying competitive with other states? The recently released, first annual Massachusetts Competitiveness Index presented by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation will provide an in-depth look at how we compare across 26 metrics. Join us for this free event on October 9 to learn more about their findings and hear our panel discussion on actionable strategies for improvement. https://lnkd.in/eBDBNkKN Read the full Massachusetts Competitiveness Index Report now: https://lnkd.in/e7cvpui5

📢 Upcoming Event on September 10th! 📅 Louise Fromont and Arnaud VAN WAEYENBERGE are organising a keynote session : Spending Conditionality : Overcome Dissensus over European Values. Following the Covid-19 crisis, the European Union has developed a strategy to ensure rule of law compliance in certain Member States based on economic and budgetary mechanisms – such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Conditionality Regulation 2020/2092, and the European Semester. Those mechanisms use “spending conditionality”: to benefit from European fundings and in the managing of European funds, Member States have to respect European values, in particular the rule of law. To put it differently, economic and budgetary mechanisms are a means for the European Union of ensuring that reforms and investment implemented at the national level improve the respect for European Values despite a dissensus on them in certain Member States. The Consolidation Citizen Forum will therefore explore how economic and budgetary mechanisms are used to promote liberal democracy. It will bring together citizens, researchers and experts, including EU and Member States representatives and civic leaders active in the promotion of European Values. Participants will discuss innovative economic governance practices by focusing on four of them: equality and non-discrimination, solidarity, justice, and democracy. Registration : https://lnkd.in/edFejR_x

Some thoughts about progress and conservation in politics and a call for talking about progress again, in a chapter I wrote for this volume edited by FEPS Europe and Renner Institute (on pp. 214-230): bit.ly/ProgressiveAmbition bit.ly/ProgressiveAmbition

🔴 Do you wish to go deeper into what happened in EU Affairs and beyond thsi month? 👉 The ninth issue of our newsletter "The Finder" is out! You can read it here 👇

Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn and Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira to participate in Ghent ministerial meeting within the framework of the European Public Administration Network (EUPAN). The meeting of Ministers culminates in the signature of The Ghent Declaration, continuing the work towards a modern public administration that fosters an inclusive and attractive work environment and continuing cooperation between the administrations of EU Member States. Commissioner Ferreira is also delivering a presentation on the latest developments on the #ComPAct, a Communication launched by the Commission in October 2023 which will accompany EU Public Administrations in their reform journey to a civil service that is ready to tackle current and future challenges. It will also help shape the European Administrative Space. #eu2024be

I am happy to share that the background paper I co-authored with Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Santiago Lago-Peñas on the effects of intergovernmental grants for the OECD is now available at: https://lnkd.in/diiYmzwu Our policy note provides an overview of the potential side effects that policymakers should consider when designing intergovernmental grants. These side effects range from tax policy and expenditure decisions to fiscal stability, behavioral choices, and political economy (Lago et al. 2024). Our note aims to inform policymakers about recent methodological advances and the critical role of data quality in designing effective policies. Future research should delve deeper into our understanding of incentives, causal mechanisms, and the scale of changes in subnational revenue generation.

Delighted to see a new article from my European Research Council (ERC) project CONSULTATIONEFFECTS out in the Journal of European Public Policy! We analyse the dimensionality of the policy space of the European Commission's online public consultations. Our findings underscore the challenges and opportunities of using public consultations as instruments of information gathering and preference aggregation, and the difficulty of identifying stable majority equilibrium in bureaucratic policymaking. https://lnkd.in/dzsJV_w4

The next meeting of the Economic Policy Strategy and Governance Study Group will take place at 17.30 on Thursday 3 October at the National Liberal Club in London. The agenda for the meeting is: (1) To review and assess some key themes arising from the last week's RPI annual conference in Oxford, which featured sessions on government production of statistics, planning reform, electricity sector reforms, water sector strategic planning and investability, and governance reform. Examples include policy sequencing and the absence of a strategic policy development capacity in UK government. (2) To take a first pass at identifying potential strategic objectives for a politically signalled 're-imagination' of the health and social care system. As for the July meeting (which covered the Rumelt strategy schema and a case study of Polish policy strategy at the end of the 1980s), there will drinks and an opportunity for discussion at the end of the formal meeting. Anyone wanting to be put on the mailing list for the study group should contact catherine.yarrow@rpieu.org.

Join IGP’s Professor Henrietta Moore at the Institute for Government's Public Services Conference 12th November, 15:20 - 16:20 On 30 October, the new government will announce spending plans for 2025/26, with a spending review covering 2025/26 to 2027/28 due to be published in the spring. What are the implications of these spending plans for public service performance in 2025/26? What options should the spending review consider for raising revenue and boosting productivity? How can the government improve public services when funding is tight? On the panel: Professor Henrietta Moore, Founder and Director of the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity Rupert Harrison, former Chief of Staff to George Osborne and Chair of the UK’s Council of Economic Advisors (2010–15) Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Rachel Sylvester, political columnist at The Times and Chair of the Times Health Commission Find out more and register to watch free online: https://lnkd.in/endgR8Hq #PublicServices #SpendingReview