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Replication Data for: Structure, agency, and structural reform: The case of the European Central Bank

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Structure, agency, and structural reform: The case of the European Central Bank
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/58IXMM
 
Creator Braun, Benjamin
Di Carlo, Benjamin
Diessner, Sebastian
Düsterhöft, Maximilian
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description Monetary and financial integration has been shown to increase the pressure on states to liberalize social and labor market policies. If structures do not come with instruction sheets, how do monetary regime pressures translate into policy? Through a case study of the euro area, we show that central banks play an underappreciated role in this process. Using mixed methods to analyze a large amount of data, including the complete corpus of speeches, we trace the evolution of the European Central Bank’s advocacy for structural reforms between 1999 and 2019. To explain the ECB’s activism in a policy area beyond its mandate, we theorize the ECB as navigating a dilemma between governability and legitimacy. Handed a monetary regime under which flexible labor markets were seen as a condition for governability, the ECB saw no alternative but to push governments toward structural reforms, despite the reputational risks. The ECB ended its advocacy when increasing political backlash coincided with a structural regime shift from an inflationary to a deflationary environment.
 
Subject Social Sciences
monetary policy, central banks, structural reforms
 
Date 2024-01-26
 
Contributor Braun, Benjamin