Rachel A Epstein
Biographic Data
| ID | 4134675 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rachel A Epstein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rachel A |
| FAMILY NAME | Epstein |
| SIGNATURE | EPSTEIN R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Denver |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3964-5888 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 331 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Out of Many, Many: Variation in East Central Europe Financial Governance Despite the EU's Single Market
Following the global financial crisis, European financial authorities introduced a host of new initiatives intended to advance market integration, improve the quality of bank oversight and enhance both economic stability and prospects for growth. Earlier research found that the Banking Union and Capital Markets Union's potential to channel funding for growth to East Central Europe (ECE) markets was limited. We show further that within the framewo…
Speaking Science to Power: Responsible Researchers and Policymaking
Science has the potential to do much good. But it also can also be misused and cause harm. How can researchers mitigate risks and share their insights responsibly? The transmission of knowledge to policy is often assumed to be an unalloyed benefit, and at times it is. Under the right circumstances, scholarly engagement in public policies can improve real-world outcomes. But there can also be hidden challenges and risks. Thorny questions arise aro…
Introduction: Russia's War Against Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine has had devastating human consequences and destabilizing geopolitical effects. This roundtable takes up three critical debates in connection with the conflict: Ukraine's potential accession to the European Union; the role of Ukrainian nationalism in advancing democratization; and the degree of human rights accountability, not just for Russia, but also for Ukraine. In addition to challenging conventional wisdom on each…
Re-evaluating the East-West divide in the European Union
This introduction argues that the East-West divide in Europe continues to be politically salient since the fall of the Berlin Wall and two decades since the accession of most East Central European (ECE) countries to the European Union. We re-evaluate the nature of the East-West divide in the EU, consider its sources, and examine the interplay between political variation and cross-border economic inequalities. The fundamental question posed here i…
From Duterte to Orbán: The political economy of autocratic hedging
Stalled by design: New paradoxes in the European Union’s single financial market
Since the US financial meltdown in 2008 that sparked a Eurozone crisis, the European Union has introduced new financial market initiatives that were intended to advance integration, bring stability, and create shared prosperity for EU members. Innovations included Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, and the European Fund for Strategic Investments. We find, however, that tensions between supranationalization and retaining national control in ins…
Good and bad banking on Europe’s periphery: Pathways to Catching Up and Falling Behind
The research question here is two-fold. The article seeks to explain why bank performance varied so dramatically during and after the financial crisis on Europe’s periphery, both across states and also at times within them. The dependent variable used is bank performance in terms of credit provision and banks’ contribution to financial stability. The independent variable used is the particular mix at play between political/social purpose (the var…
Introduction: Peripheries in competition? Political and economic development in the EU
The aim of this special issue is to take a nuanced look at the political economy of development across the European Union since the financial crisis. In contrast to much of the literature on the EU since the financial crisis, which is largely concerned with macro-issues, and engages in normative critiques of EU policies, this issue focuses on multiple levels (including the micro-level of firms and banks), and the institutional make-up of member s…
International Political Economy meets the unexpected: Brexit, Trump and global populism
The political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union
This article examines the political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union in two stages. First it examines the accretion of political power to two European institutions – the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) – during the financial crisis, emphasising the ways in which the European Central Bank (especially under Mario Draghi) altered the relationship between principals and agents in the European institutional architectu…
Assets or liabilities? The politics of bank ownership
By 2014, there was significant variation across the global economy in the levels of domestic and foreign bank ownership among states.While major emerging and most advanced countries continued to protect domestic control over the bulk of their banking assets, a number of developing and transition economies had opened their banking markets to unprecedentedly high levels of foreign bank ownership.This introduction to a special issue on the politics …
Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East–West Divide
This introduction summarizes the findings of nine research articles that examine the consequences of the European Union's eastern enlargement ten years on. The volume reaches three surprising conclusions: since 2004, the EU's economic effects have been more far‐reaching than its political effects; all of the new Member States (NMS) have had problems with democratic consolidation; and, despite four years of intense crisis in the eurozone, both the…
Overcoming ‘Economic Backwardness’ in theEuropeanUnion
Long before the cold war and theIronCurtain's construction, theEuropean continent was marked by a developmental divide in which the east suffered relative economic deprivation compared to the west. This article revisits the sources of ‘economic backwardness’ in easternEurope and asks whether post‐communist states' membership in theEuropeanUnion (EU) upends the earlier structural conditions that had traditionally prevented east–west economic conve…
When do foreign banks ‘cut and run’? Evidence from west European bailouts and east European markets
Very high levels of foreign bank ownership in central and eastern Europe (CEE) gave rise to fears that the region would be vulnerable to ‘cutting and running’ during a financial crisis, whereby western parent banks would repatriate capital and liquidity to their home markets and abandon their CEE clients. Such fears were compounded by the economic nationalism of late 2008 and early 2009 in western Europe, as well as by west European bank bailout …
Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial ‘Crisis’: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts
In the context of transition, nine out of the 10 post-communist countries that ultimately joined the European Union reluctantly privatised the bulk of their banking sectors with foreign capital. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 therefore sparked fears that foreign banks would remove their operations from their Central and East European markets because of a ‘home bias’ in lending. Such fears were predicated on the widely held beliefs that banks' …
Uneven Integration: Economic and Monetary Union in Central and Eastern Europe
Although central and eastern European states widely adopted central bank independence in the 1990s, many later baulked at meeting the Maastricht criteria and adopting the euro. We employ two key variables – regime and institutional discontinuity at the domestic level and the credibility of international institutions' policies – to explain these different responses to the requirements of economic and monetary union
In Pursuit of Liberalism: International Institutions in Postcommunist Europe
Beyond conditionality: International institutions in postcommunist Europe after enlargement
According to the dominant incentive-based explanation, European Union (EU) conditionality has been particularly effective when the EU offered a credible membership incentive and when incumbent governments did not consider the domestic costs of compliance threatening to their hold on power. However, after the EU's eastern enlargement the influence of international institutions could then be expected to decrease in three different contexts: (i) the…
The social context in conditionality: Internationalizing finance in postcommunist Europe
When it comes to embracing the European Union's vision of building a fully integrated financial market, central and east Europeans have far out-performed their west European counterparts. This paper addresses not only why levels of foreign ownership in banks are on average so much higher in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) than in Western Europe, but also why there is variation among CEE states in how willing they have been to accept those high l…
Understanding the Limits of the European Union’s Power
Building States without Society: European Union Enlargement and the Transfer of EU Social Policy to Poland and Hungary. By Beate Sissenich. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. 252 pp., $80.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-7391-1222-8), $29.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7391-1223-6). Beate Sissenich's Building States without Society takes a refreshing, new look at the European Union's enlargement process. What is particularly novel and interesting about the book is that Siss…
When Legacies Meet Policies: Nato and the Refashioning of Polish Military Tradition
Polish military tradition has long revolved around the ideal of defending the country’s territorial, political, and cultural integrity. Given Poland’s history of partition, occupation, and foreign domination, however, the institutionalization of democratically accountable civilian control over the armed forces had never been an objective, let alone a reality. Thus, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization committed to expanding its membership …
Cultivating Consensus and Creating Conflict: International Institutions and the (De)Politicization of Economic Policy in Postcommunist Europe
In Central and Eastern Europe, economic reform consistent with Bretton Woods and European Union (EU) demands has replicated not only the rules and institutions that prevail in Western societies but also their patterns of consensus and conflict. Although central bank policy has been largely depoliticized in the 2004 accession states through the institutionalization of central bank independence, agricultural interests were mobilized—in some instanc…
The Paradoxes of Enlargement
Nato Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations
The second enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the end of the cold war fueled an ongoing debate over whether the alliance contributes to democratization in Europe. In the 1990s, critics warned that the 1999 NATO enlargement would cultivate a new cold war and prove irrelevant to democratic consolidation in central Europe. Events have not borne out these forecasts, however. In Poland, not only did NATO build a civilia…
Beyond conditionality: International institutions in postcommunist Europe after enlargement
According to the dominant incentive-based explanation, European Union (EU) conditionality has been particularly effective when the EU offered a credible membership incentive and when incumbent governments did not consider the domestic costs of compliance threatening to their hold on power. However, after the EU's eastern enlargement the influence of international institutions could then be expected to decrease in three different contexts: (i) the…
The political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union
This article examines the political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union in two stages. First it examines the accretion of political power to two European institutions – the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) – during the financial crisis, emphasising the ways in which the European Central Bank (especially under Mario Draghi) altered the relationship between principals and agents in the European institutional architectu…
Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East–West Divide
This introduction summarizes the findings of nine research articles that examine the consequences of the European Union's eastern enlargement ten years on. The volume reaches three surprising conclusions: since 2004, the EU's economic effects have been more far‐reaching than its political effects; all of the new Member States (NMS) have had problems with democratic consolidation; and, despite four years of intense crisis in the eurozone, both the…
Nato Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations
The second enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the end of the cold war fueled an ongoing debate over whether the alliance contributes to democratization in Europe. In the 1990s, critics warned that the 1999 NATO enlargement would cultivate a new cold war and prove irrelevant to democratic consolidation in central Europe. Events have not borne out these forecasts, however. In Poland, not only did NATO build a civilia…
The social context in conditionality: Internationalizing finance in postcommunist Europe
When it comes to embracing the European Union's vision of building a fully integrated financial market, central and east Europeans have far out-performed their west European counterparts. This paper addresses not only why levels of foreign ownership in banks are on average so much higher in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) than in Western Europe, but also why there is variation among CEE states in how willing they have been to accept those high l…
When do foreign banks ‘cut and run’? Evidence from west European bailouts and east European markets
Very high levels of foreign bank ownership in central and eastern Europe (CEE) gave rise to fears that the region would be vulnerable to ‘cutting and running’ during a financial crisis, whereby western parent banks would repatriate capital and liquidity to their home markets and abandon their CEE clients. Such fears were compounded by the economic nationalism of late 2008 and early 2009 in western Europe, as well as by west European bank bailout …
Overcoming ‘Economic Backwardness’ in theEuropeanUnion
Long before the cold war and theIronCurtain's construction, theEuropean continent was marked by a developmental divide in which the east suffered relative economic deprivation compared to the west. This article revisits the sources of ‘economic backwardness’ in easternEurope and asks whether post‐communist states' membership in theEuropeanUnion (EU) upends the earlier structural conditions that had traditionally prevented east–west economic conve…
Cultivating Consensus and Creating Conflict: International Institutions and the (De)Politicization of Economic Policy in Postcommunist Europe
In Central and Eastern Europe, economic reform consistent with Bretton Woods and European Union (EU) demands has replicated not only the rules and institutions that prevail in Western societies but also their patterns of consensus and conflict. Although central bank policy has been largely depoliticized in the 2004 accession states through the institutionalization of central bank independence, agricultural interests were mobilized—in some instanc…
Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial ‘Crisis’: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts
In the context of transition, nine out of the 10 post-communist countries that ultimately joined the European Union reluctantly privatised the bulk of their banking sectors with foreign capital. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 therefore sparked fears that foreign banks would remove their operations from their Central and East European markets because of a ‘home bias’ in lending. Such fears were predicated on the widely held beliefs that banks' …
Uneven Integration: Economic and Monetary Union in Central and Eastern Europe
Although central and eastern European states widely adopted central bank independence in the 1990s, many later baulked at meeting the Maastricht criteria and adopting the euro. We employ two key variables – regime and institutional discontinuity at the domestic level and the credibility of international institutions' policies – to explain these different responses to the requirements of economic and monetary union
From Duterte to Orbán: The political economy of autocratic hedging
Re-evaluating the East-West divide in the European Union
This introduction argues that the East-West divide in Europe continues to be politically salient since the fall of the Berlin Wall and two decades since the accession of most East Central European (ECE) countries to the European Union. We re-evaluate the nature of the East-West divide in the EU, consider its sources, and examine the interplay between political variation and cross-border economic inequalities. The fundamental question posed here i…
When Legacies Meet Policies: Nato and the Refashioning of Polish Military Tradition
Polish military tradition has long revolved around the ideal of defending the country’s territorial, political, and cultural integrity. Given Poland’s history of partition, occupation, and foreign domination, however, the institutionalization of democratically accountable civilian control over the armed forces had never been an objective, let alone a reality. Thus, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization committed to expanding its membership …
Introduction: Peripheries in competition? Political and economic development in the EU
The aim of this special issue is to take a nuanced look at the political economy of development across the European Union since the financial crisis. In contrast to much of the literature on the EU since the financial crisis, which is largely concerned with macro-issues, and engages in normative critiques of EU policies, this issue focuses on multiple levels (including the micro-level of firms and banks), and the institutional make-up of member s…
International Political Economy meets the unexpected: Brexit, Trump and global populism
Assets or liabilities? The politics of bank ownership
By 2014, there was significant variation across the global economy in the levels of domestic and foreign bank ownership among states.While major emerging and most advanced countries continued to protect domestic control over the bulk of their banking assets, a number of developing and transition economies had opened their banking markets to unprecedentedly high levels of foreign bank ownership.This introduction to a special issue on the politics …
Stalled by design: New paradoxes in the European Union’s single financial market
Since the US financial meltdown in 2008 that sparked a Eurozone crisis, the European Union has introduced new financial market initiatives that were intended to advance integration, bring stability, and create shared prosperity for EU members. Innovations included Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, and the European Fund for Strategic Investments. We find, however, that tensions between supranationalization and retaining national control in ins…
Good and bad banking on Europe’s periphery: Pathways to Catching Up and Falling Behind
The research question here is two-fold. The article seeks to explain why bank performance varied so dramatically during and after the financial crisis on Europe’s periphery, both across states and also at times within them. The dependent variable used is bank performance in terms of credit provision and banks’ contribution to financial stability. The independent variable used is the particular mix at play between political/social purpose (the var…
The Paradoxes of Enlargement
The Paradoxes of Enlargement
Nato Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations
The second enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the end of the cold war fueled an ongoing debate over whether the alliance contributes to democratization in Europe. In the 1990s, critics warned that the 1999 NATO enlargement would cultivate a new cold war and prove irrelevant to democratic consolidation in central Europe. Events have not borne out these forecasts, however. In Poland, not only did NATO build a civilia…
When Legacies Meet Policies: Nato and the Refashioning of Polish Military Tradition
Polish military tradition has long revolved around the ideal of defending the country’s territorial, political, and cultural integrity. Given Poland’s history of partition, occupation, and foreign domination, however, the institutionalization of democratically accountable civilian control over the armed forces had never been an objective, let alone a reality. Thus, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization committed to expanding its membership …
Cultivating Consensus and Creating Conflict: International Institutions and the (De)Politicization of Economic Policy in Postcommunist Europe
In Central and Eastern Europe, economic reform consistent with Bretton Woods and European Union (EU) demands has replicated not only the rules and institutions that prevail in Western societies but also their patterns of consensus and conflict. Although central bank policy has been largely depoliticized in the 2004 accession states through the institutionalization of central bank independence, agricultural interests were mobilized—in some instanc…
Understanding the Limits of the European Union’s Power
Building States without Society: European Union Enlargement and the Transfer of EU Social Policy to Poland and Hungary. By Beate Sissenich. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. 252 pp., $80.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-7391-1222-8), $29.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7391-1223-6). Beate Sissenich's Building States without Society takes a refreshing, new look at the European Union's enlargement process. What is particularly novel and interesting about the book is that Siss…
In Pursuit of Liberalism: International Institutions in Postcommunist Europe
Beyond conditionality: International institutions in postcommunist Europe after enlargement
According to the dominant incentive-based explanation, European Union (EU) conditionality has been particularly effective when the EU offered a credible membership incentive and when incumbent governments did not consider the domestic costs of compliance threatening to their hold on power. However, after the EU's eastern enlargement the influence of international institutions could then be expected to decrease in three different contexts: (i) the…
The social context in conditionality: Internationalizing finance in postcommunist Europe
When it comes to embracing the European Union's vision of building a fully integrated financial market, central and east Europeans have far out-performed their west European counterparts. This paper addresses not only why levels of foreign ownership in banks are on average so much higher in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) than in Western Europe, but also why there is variation among CEE states in how willing they have been to accept those high l…
Uneven Integration: Economic and Monetary Union in Central and Eastern Europe
Although central and eastern European states widely adopted central bank independence in the 1990s, many later baulked at meeting the Maastricht criteria and adopting the euro. We employ two key variables – regime and institutional discontinuity at the domestic level and the credibility of international institutions' policies – to explain these different responses to the requirements of economic and monetary union
When do foreign banks ‘cut and run’? Evidence from west European bailouts and east European markets
Very high levels of foreign bank ownership in central and eastern Europe (CEE) gave rise to fears that the region would be vulnerable to ‘cutting and running’ during a financial crisis, whereby western parent banks would repatriate capital and liquidity to their home markets and abandon their CEE clients. Such fears were compounded by the economic nationalism of late 2008 and early 2009 in western Europe, as well as by west European bank bailout …
Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial ‘Crisis’: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts
In the context of transition, nine out of the 10 post-communist countries that ultimately joined the European Union reluctantly privatised the bulk of their banking sectors with foreign capital. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 therefore sparked fears that foreign banks would remove their operations from their Central and East European markets because of a ‘home bias’ in lending. Such fears were predicated on the widely held beliefs that banks' …
Assets or liabilities? The politics of bank ownership
By 2014, there was significant variation across the global economy in the levels of domestic and foreign bank ownership among states.While major emerging and most advanced countries continued to protect domestic control over the bulk of their banking assets, a number of developing and transition economies had opened their banking markets to unprecedentedly high levels of foreign bank ownership.This introduction to a special issue on the politics …
Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East–West Divide
This introduction summarizes the findings of nine research articles that examine the consequences of the European Union's eastern enlargement ten years on. The volume reaches three surprising conclusions: since 2004, the EU's economic effects have been more far‐reaching than its political effects; all of the new Member States (NMS) have had problems with democratic consolidation; and, despite four years of intense crisis in the eurozone, both the…
Overcoming ‘Economic Backwardness’ in theEuropeanUnion
Long before the cold war and theIronCurtain's construction, theEuropean continent was marked by a developmental divide in which the east suffered relative economic deprivation compared to the west. This article revisits the sources of ‘economic backwardness’ in easternEurope and asks whether post‐communist states' membership in theEuropeanUnion (EU) upends the earlier structural conditions that had traditionally prevented east–west economic conve…
The political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union
This article examines the political dynamics behind Europe’s new banking union in two stages. First it examines the accretion of political power to two European institutions – the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) – during the financial crisis, emphasising the ways in which the European Central Bank (especially under Mario Draghi) altered the relationship between principals and agents in the European institutional architectu…
International Political Economy meets the unexpected: Brexit, Trump and global populism
Good and bad banking on Europe’s periphery: Pathways to Catching Up and Falling Behind
The research question here is two-fold. The article seeks to explain why bank performance varied so dramatically during and after the financial crisis on Europe’s periphery, both across states and also at times within them. The dependent variable used is bank performance in terms of credit provision and banks’ contribution to financial stability. The independent variable used is the particular mix at play between political/social purpose (the var…
Introduction: Peripheries in competition? Political and economic development in the EU
The aim of this special issue is to take a nuanced look at the political economy of development across the European Union since the financial crisis. In contrast to much of the literature on the EU since the financial crisis, which is largely concerned with macro-issues, and engages in normative critiques of EU policies, this issue focuses on multiple levels (including the micro-level of firms and banks), and the institutional make-up of member s…
From Duterte to Orbán: The political economy of autocratic hedging
Stalled by design: New paradoxes in the European Union’s single financial market
Since the US financial meltdown in 2008 that sparked a Eurozone crisis, the European Union has introduced new financial market initiatives that were intended to advance integration, bring stability, and create shared prosperity for EU members. Innovations included Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, and the European Fund for Strategic Investments. We find, however, that tensions between supranationalization and retaining national control in ins…
Speaking Science to Power: Responsible Researchers and Policymaking
Science has the potential to do much good. But it also can also be misused and cause harm. How can researchers mitigate risks and share their insights responsibly? The transmission of knowledge to policy is often assumed to be an unalloyed benefit, and at times it is. Under the right circumstances, scholarly engagement in public policies can improve real-world outcomes. But there can also be hidden challenges and risks. Thorny questions arise aro…
Introduction: Russia's War Against Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine has had devastating human consequences and destabilizing geopolitical effects. This roundtable takes up three critical debates in connection with the conflict: Ukraine's potential accession to the European Union; the role of Ukrainian nationalism in advancing democratization; and the degree of human rights accountability, not just for Russia, but also for Ukraine. In addition to challenging conventional wisdom on each…
Re-evaluating the East-West divide in the European Union
This introduction argues that the East-West divide in Europe continues to be politically salient since the fall of the Berlin Wall and two decades since the accession of most East Central European (ECE) countries to the European Union. We re-evaluate the nature of the East-West divide in the EU, consider its sources, and examine the interplay between political variation and cross-border economic inequalities. The fundamental question posed here i…
Out of Many, Many: Variation in East Central Europe Financial Governance Despite the EU's Single Market
Following the global financial crisis, European financial authorities introduced a host of new initiatives intended to advance market integration, improve the quality of bank oversight and enhance both economic stability and prospects for growth. Earlier research found that the Banking Union and Capital Markets Union's potential to channel funding for growth to East Central Europe (ECE) markets was limited. We show further that within the framewo…
Economics (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · European union (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Law (13 works) · International trade (11 works) · Political economy (11 works) · European Union Policy and Governance (10 works) · Global Financial Crisis and Policies (9 works)