Think Tank Library

This study by Moldovan think tank IDIS Viitorul looks at Moldovan democracy. Among the many issues, it looks at citizenship, elections and civil society.

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This study by Sergiu Lipcean of Moldovan think tank IDIS Viitorul looks into the financing of political parties in Moldova. This study was conducted as part of the project “Promoting an Informed Vote in 2010 General Elections” implemented with the financial support of the East-European
Foundation from the resources provided by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the Ministry of External Affairs of Denmark / DANIDA, and the National Fund for Democracy (NFD).

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This study by Moldovan think tank IDIS Viitorul and OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) looks into the legislation regarding political parties in Moldova.The author of the paper is Dr. Igor Munteanu.

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In this second publication of the Early Warning Report, IDIS include articles that approach very topical subjects for the Republic of Moldova. The issue of borders between the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, the relationship between Chisinau and Comrat, establishment of a committee of scientists to convict the Communism, amendment of the Electoral Code and amendment of the Constitution, moral crisis of the audiovisual system and the economic recovery program of the Government - these are the topics mostly approached in this compilation. All these subjects were selected due to their crisis generating potential and the stress they regularly induce into the society. The main objective was to describe the alarming situations, occurred in the Moldovan society and place the discussions within a rational framework as to help find proper solutions.

The crises they are talking about in this issue are different in terms of substance, but they risk dissolving the Moldovan society, whose skeleton is quite fragile. They also speak about the crisis in the negotiations between two neighboring countries, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, which could worsen significantly Moldova’s situation on the internal and external arena, and also about the crisis between center and periphery, generated by the tense state of the relationship between Chisinau and Comrat. At the same time, special attention is paid to the moral crisis arising in relation to communism conviction and the situation of the audiovisual. The stagnation in the social area also reaches the critical point and it can’t be ignored in the present compilation.

IDIS Viitorul is a research, education and outreach organization which activates in the field of economic analysis, governance, law, political sciences, strategic and organizational science. IDIS is also a common platform that brings together young intellectuals who are concerned with the success of transition towards the free market and the open society. Consistent with this mission, IDIS has forged several linkages between the academic and policy-making environments, generating policy analysis and recommendations for various areas of public interest, creating and disseminating of the best practices, good governance, and economic analysis.

To help alleviate the crisis of confidence in Britain’s liberalised energy market, Knowledge is power sets out a number of options to improve transparency for consumers and the market. As we enter an age of increasingly expensive energy, better consumer information is essential if we are to secure public support to meet the challenges of security of supply and decarbonisation. Whilst better market transparency for energy companies, especially new entrants, will help maintain competition and allow the lowest prices possible to be delivered to consumers.

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Blame for the economic crisis should not be put on greedy bankers, careless regulators, lax credit rating agencies; nor on excessive borrowing by the public. For they were all victims of a Myth: that low inflation would bring economic growth and financial stability. Lack of clarity between the necessity and sufficiency of inflation targets was compounded by the fact that the wrong type of inflation was being measured. The Myth led bankers to lend more, traders to risk more, regulators to relax more, homeowners to borrow more. But when the Myth collapsed, it took us all down with it.

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The London stock market has always performed poorly under Labour Governments, But its performance under this Labour Government has been worse than ever before, falling by 26% in real terms since 1 May 1997. This is (barring Japan) the worst performance of any of the world’s major stock markets over the period. John Littlewood shows how, in 1997, Gordon Brown benefited from a golden inheritance. But in 2007, he passed on a poisoned chalice. For his Government’s policies have created unsustainable government deficits, undermined UK competitiveness, allowed asset bubbles to develop and permitted irresponsible risk-taking by banks to go unchecked. The prospects for the economy, and the stock market, are bleak.

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Online advertising accounts for almost 9 percent of all advertising in the United States. This share is expected to increase as more media is consumed over the internet and as more advertisers shift spending to online technologies. The expansion of internet-based advertising is transforming the advertising business by providing more efficient methods of matching advertisers and consumers and is transforming the media business by providing a source of revenue for online media firms that compete with traditional media firms. The precipitous decline of the newspaper industry is one manifestation of the symbiotic relationship between online content and online advertising. Online-advertising is provided by a series of interlocking multi-sided platforms (also known as two-sided markets) that facilitate the matching of advertisers and consumers. These intermediaries increasingly make use of detailed individual data, predictive methods, and matching algorithms to create more efficient matches between consumers and advertisers. Some of their methods raise public policy issues that require balancing providing consumers more valuable advertising against the possible loss of valuable privacy.

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Government attempts to prop up the UK banking sector have destroyed the foundations on which private capitalism is built. By refusing to allow market mechanisms to play a part in solving the crisis, the Government has (with the consent of the Opposition) ended private sector banking and with it a fi nancial structure which has prevailed in Britain and the West for 300 years. The State now controls the market; one of the many consequences will be slower economic growth for many years to come. This need not have happened. There was an alternative. Andrew Lilico, economist and international expert in financial regulation, shows how the crisis should have been handled – and suggests where we should go from here.

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