TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alesina,Alberto
AU  - Angeloni,Ignazio
AU  - Schuknecht,Ludger
TI  - What Does the European Union Do?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8647
PY  - 2001
Y2  - December 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8647
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8647.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alberto F. Alesina
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center 210
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-8388
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: aalesina@harvard.edu

Ignazio Angeloni
European Central Bank
Postfach 16 03 19
D-60066 Frankfurt am Main
GERMANY
E-Mail: ignazio.angeloni@ecb.int
AB  - We construct a set of indicators to measure the policy-making role of the European Union (European Council, Parliament, Commission, Court of Justice, etc.), in a selected number of policy domains.  Our goal is to examine the division of prerogatives between European institutions and national ones, in light of the implications of normative models and in relation to the preferences of European citizens.  Our data confirm that the extent and the intensity of policy-making by the ED have increased sharply over the last 30 years.  Such increase has taken place, at different speeds, and to different degrees, across policy domains.  In recent times the areas that have expanded most are the most remote from the EEC's original mission of establishing a free market zone with common external trade policy.  We conjecture that the resulting allocation may be partly inconsistent with normative criteria concerning the assignment of policies at different government levels, as laid out in the theoretical literature.
ER  -