Daniel F. Schulz-Bianco

• Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences (EUI)
• Policy Advisor at Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Berlin

The literature on the comparative political economy of taxation often links consumption taxation to the welfare state. It argues that the expansion of consumption taxation paid for the expansion of welfare states and that bigger welfare states therefore tax consumption more heavily. We challenge this perspective by looking at the introduction of th...

The European Union (EU) – and its Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in particular – is often criticized as a predominantly market-oriented project. We analyse to what extent such claims can be substantiated by focusing on one key aspect of the EU’s post-crisis framework for economic governance: the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) that the E...

As Brexit removes the Nordic countries' most powerful ally from the EU, what does this imply for their approach to European affairs? The literature on small states within the EU suggests that they can counterbalance limited bargaining capacities by entering two types of alliances: strategic partnerships with bigger member states and institutionalis...

The euro crisis has sparked changes in the EU's economic governance framework and a crisis of legitimacy across the union. While the institutional repercussions of the crisis have been studied before, the democratic impact at the national level has received much less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap, focusing on the procedural changes th...

Zusammenfassung Der Wirtschaftsstabilisierungsfonds (WSF) ist eines von mehreren staatlichen Unterstützungsinstrumenten, die zur Bekämpfung der Folgen der Coronakrise aufgelegt wurden. Der WSF wurde für Unternehmen mit besonderer (volks-)wirtschaftlicher Bedeutung konzipiert. Dabei verfügt der Fonds über ein breites Spektrum an eigenkapitalähnliche...

Macro-economic policy coordination remains a challenge in the EU. The European Semester was designed to help facilitate more coordination. In the area of wage policies, it encourages Germany and the Netherlands to support stronger wage growth, while Italy and Portugal have been told to exercise wage restraint. This paper analyses how domestic inter...

In 2010 the European Semester was created to better coordinate fiscal and economic policies within Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union. The Semester aims to tackle economic imbalances by giving European Union (EU) member states country-specific recommendations (CSRs) regarding their public budgets as well as their wider economic and social policie...

The euro’s problem-ridden second decade has made crisis management and economic reform across the European Union (EU) the priority of high politics. Despite the prominence of high-level intergovernmental summits, however, many studies identify EU policymaking elites as influential or even causal factors determining the EU’s crisis response. This co...

For all its powers, we know little about how the European Central Bank (ECB) makes its decisions and why. In light of its ever-increasing importance in European governance and the criticism this has attracted, this is particularly regrettable. Often a welcome scapegoat, the ECB has been accused of doing first too little, then too late. Compared to...

Spätestens seit der Überwindung des Ost-West-Konflikts 1989 spielt der Liberalismus als Forschungsparadigma in den Internationalen Beziehungen (IB) eine führende Rolle. Nicht zuletzt das Unvermögen des Realismus, das Ende des Kalten Krieges vorauszusagen, führte zu einem Wiedererstarken der liberalistischen Ansätze, die ursprünglich im Kontext der...