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ABSTRACT & RÉSUMÉ & ZUSAMMENFASSUNG : Dark clouds over the EU-Africa Summit 2021 in view of Brexit and Corona ---- Every three years, the AU-EU summit reunites African and EU leaders to outline the future direction of cooperation. The 6th summit had been to reaffirm and renew the partnership between the two blocks already in October 2020, but it was pushed back to the first quarter of 2021 or even later due to COVID-19 crisis. Besides, Brussels had to deal with its own post-Brexit situation and its repercussions on EU-Africa relations, excluding the UK. African states, for their part, wanted to renegotiate the EU-Africa partnership and to balance it with new promising Post-Brexit visions of the British premier Johnson about increased economic ties with the African Angloshere. China and other global players compete with the EU and its member states in the new scramble for African resources. Given that Africa is increasingly courted by other partners it could be inclined to successively limit its relations with the EU and see it as a mere provider of aid and security against Islamic terrorism. This trend was reinforced by the fact that the new EU-Africa strategy still hasn't been approved by EU member states. And a timely replacement of the Cotonou Agreement, which expires in November 2021, is open to question. ___________________________________________________________________________ RÉSUMÉ : Tous les trois ans, le sommet UA-UE réunit les dirigeants africains et européens pour définir l'orientation future de la coopération. Le 6e sommet devait réaffirmer et renouveler le partenariat entre les deux blocs déjà en octobre 2020, mais il a été repoussé au premier trimestre 2021, ou même plus tard, en raison de la crise du COVID-19. En outre, Bruxelles a dû faire face à sa propre situation post-Brexit, compte tenu l'exclusion du Royaume-Uni, et à ses répercussions sur les relations UE-Afrique. Les États africains, pour leur part, souhaitaient renégocier le partenariat UE-Afrique, et l'équilibrer avec les nouvelles visions post-Brexit prometteuses du Premier ministre britannique Johnson sur le renforcement des liens économiques avec l'Anglosphère africaine. La Chine et d'autres acteurs mondiaux sont en concurrence avec l'UE et ses États membre dans la nouvelle ruée vers les ressources africaines. Étant donné que l'Afrique est de plus en plus courtisée par d'autres partenaires, elle pourrait être encline à limiter successivement ses relations avec l'UE et à la considérer comme un simple fournisseur d'aide et de sécurité contre le terrorisme islamique. Cette tendance a été renforcée par le fait que la nouvelle stratégie UE-Afrique n'a toujours pas été approuvée par les États membres de l'UE. Et un remplacement opportun de l'accord de Cotonou, qui expire en novembre 2021, est sujet à caution. _____________________________________________________________________ ZUSAMMENFASSUNG : Alle drei Jahre bringt der AU-EU Gipfel afrikanische und EU-Staats- und Regierungschefs zusammen, um die künftige Richtung der Zusammenarbeit zu skizzieren. Der 6. Gipfel hatte sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die Partnerschaft zwischen den beiden Blöcken bereits im Oktober 2020 zu bekräftigen und zu erneuern, er wurde jedoch aufgrund der COVID-19-Krise auf das erste Quartal 2021 verschoben. Davon unabhängig mußte sich Brüssel erst einmal über seine eigene Situation nach dem Brexit und dessen Auswirkungen auf die Beziehungen zwischen der EU und Afrika klar werden. Die afrikanischen Staaten ihrerseits wollen die Partnerschaft zwischen der EU und Afrika neu verhandeln und sie mit den vielversprechenden Visionen des britischen Premierministers Boris Johnson über verstärkte wirtschaftliche Beziehungen zur afrikanischen Anglosphäre in Einklang bringen. Zudem konkurrieren China und andere Global Player mit der EU und ihren Mitgliedstaaten im Kampf um afrikanische Ressourcen. Angesichts der Tatsache, daß Afrika zunehmend von anderen Partnern umworben wird, könnten seine Führer dazu neigen, ihre Beziehungen zur EU sukzessive einzuschränken und die EU auf ihre Funktion als Anbieter von Hilfe und Sicherheit gegen den islamischen Terrorismus zu begrenzen. Dieser Trend wird noch dadurch verstärkt, daß eine gemeinsame EU-Afrika-Strategie von den EU-Mitgliedstaaten noch nicht einmal verabschiedet wurde. Selbst der rechtzeitige Ersatz des Cotonou-Abkommens, das im November 2021 ausläuft, ist fraglich.

Purpose – The COVID-19 has brought with it valuable opportunities for the retail sector. Notably, online channels have assumed a key role for businesses that can rely less on physical channels due to the pandemic’s restrictions. Within this context, the study aims to identify the main antecedents leading to the formation of the male and female customers’ continuance intention of using online food delivery services (OFDS) in the restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach – A web-based self-completion survey and a subsequent structural equation modelling have been employed on a sample of 360 participants. Findings – Findings reveal that perceived healthiness, quarantine procedures, perceived hygiene, perceived ease of app use and attitude significantly influence continuance intention. Moreover, the moderator analysis corroborates that male consumers’ continuance intention is mainly influenced by perceived healthiness, quarantine procedures and perceived hygiene. Conversely, female customers’ continuance intention is predicated on perceived healthiness and attitude. Research limitations/implications – Although the adoption of a sample of young customers (18–29 years) guarantees good research internal validity, findings are not generalizable. Practical implications – The study provides valuable contributions for restaurants related to the (1) creation/management of their own OFDS platforms; (2) selection of the right third-party platforms. Originality/value – The paper is one of the first studies examining the predictors impacting on customers’ OFDS continuance intention in the COVID-19 context by also focusing on gender differences.

There is an intrinsic and mutualistic dependence between the bio-economic performance of banks and that of enterprises. This supposition is supported by correlations identified in a comprehensive analysis of the Italian banking sector, which reveal particularly strong relations between financial intermediaries and smaller enterprises. Concentrating on developments within the bank-enterprise system (and by extension, in households), we discuss the positive effects, including on macroeconomics, generated when the banking sector supplies funding to productive infrastructure to understand how the industry remains healthy and efficient. The negative effects produced by the disappearance of such a cycle are also considered. This paper thus presents a mathematical argument through dynamic modelling to evaluate the structural trends in bank and company populations that result from more and less expansive credit strategies assumed by banks. Empirical observations of this data also reflect the critical stress factor of the (micro)enterprise population that allows it to generate positive economic variations as financial leverage decreases. The ensuing assessment of stable and unstable points of equilibrium as well as bifurcations and their irreversibility (hysteresis) reveals that banks have stagnating profits and increasing numbers of non-performing loans. Finally, we investigate the possibility of an optimal minimum level of credit leverage and how to improve the stabilizing measures that are conferred to the system itself, especially given the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In times of increasing digitization, the protection of individual data privacy becomes more important than ever before. To craft privacy policies that do not only meet legal requirements, but also address the public’s concerns, understanding individual privacy attitudes is key. Previous research suggests that privacy attitudes depend on a set of parameters related to the data type, data collector and other situational characteristics. However, the importance of single situational characteristics may possibly be altered by changes in the environment. This circumstance becomes apparent and even more important with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic constitutes an exceptional situation in which individuals may be willing to transmit more personal data than usual for the sake of public health and safety. In this study, we analyze how attitudes towards acceptable data use shift in times of crisis. In July 2019, long before the pandemic, we conducted a survey in Germany in which we measured respondents’ acceptance of the collection and use of health data for public health purposes including preventing the spread of a virus. As the pandemic set in, we replicated this survey in the spring of 2020 to investigate changes in respondents’ willingness to share data for public health purposes in response to the crisis. Using data from 3,502 respondents, we demonstrate and quantify the shift in privacy attitudes with situational characteristics. Public acceptance of the use of personal health data to combat an infectious disease outbreak increased notably, while acceptance of personal data use in several other scenarios barely changed over time. We conclude that policymakers need to carefully consider the intended purpose of and appropriate limitations on data use for public health and argue that the design of data collection tools should meet both public health and privacy concerns.

We elicited incentivized and stated measures of risk and time preferences from a sample of undergraduate students in Athens, Greece, as part of a battery of psychological, behavioral and economic measures and traits that could be later matched with data from laboratory experiments. Data collection for these measures was first initiated in 2017 and the exact same battery of measures was administered in 2019 and early 2020 to students of the university that had voluntarily enrolled to participate in surveys/experiments. About halfway through the 2020 wave, our study was re-designed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We re-launched our study on March 23, 2020, coinciding with a general curfew imposed by the government, and invited back all subjects that had participated in the 2019 and the early 2020 wave. The exact same sets of incentivized and stated measures of risk and time preferences were administered to the invited subjects and the wave duration was extended until a few weeks after the opening up of the economy and restart of business activity that followed the curfew. We then estimated structural parameters for various theories of risk and time preferences from the incentivized tasks and find no effect between the different waves or other key events of the pandemic, despite the fact that we have about 1,000 responses across all waves. Similar conclusions come out of the stated preferences measures. Overall, our subjects exhibit intertemporal stability of risk and time preferences despite the very disruptive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy.

Für die heutige Weltwirtschaft ist eine globale Arbeitsteilung charakteristisch. Dabei hängt die Produktion von globalen Supply Chains ab, bei der die Logistik das Rückgrat dieser verteilten Wertschöpfung darstellt. Aufgrund der COVID-19-Pandemie kommt es jedoch zu erforderlichen Lock-Downs in den einzelnen Ländern. Durch die zeitversetzten Stillstände der Wirtschaft gerät die global abhängige Produktion ins Ungleichgewicht. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist das Wissen über die Situation der Lieferanten für die Unternehmen von herausragender Relevanz. Die Situation erfordert einen Einblick, in welcher Art und Weise ihre Supply Chains durch die Pandemie betroffen werden und wie ein Wiederanlauf der Produktion nach einem Lock-Down erfolgreich aufzubauen ist. Nur so können zusätzliche wirtschaftliche Verluste vermieden werden. Es werden die Herausforderungen der Pandemie aufgezeigt und entsprechende Handlungsempfehlungen für den Wiederanlauf gegeben. Als unterstützendes Tool für relevante, aber kurzfristigen Entscheidungen stellt eine Simulation eine geeignete Möglichkeit zur realitätsnahen Abbildung der Supply Chain und die Auswirkungen bei Änderungen in der Supply Chain dar. Anhand einzelner Szenarien im Kontext der Pandemie werden resultierende Implikationen unter Einbeziehung von zeitabhängigen Wechselwirkungen für die Bewertung und Planung von Wiederanlauf-Szenarien erläutert. Dieses Whitepaper entstand im Rahmen eines mit Eigenmitteln der Fraunhofer Gesellschaft geförderten Forschungsprojekts als Beitrag zur Überwindung der wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie.

The present research conducts a formal analysis of the interactive decisions concerning the enterprise of COVID-19 vaccination on the part of governments and citizens. It specifically constructs a non-cooperative static game with complete information between the citizen and the government encompassing the strategies of vaccination and no vaccination with regard to the former and the strategies of direct imposition, subsistence restrictions, luxury restrictions and no imposition with regard to the latter. On account of its payoff structure the present analysis finds that the game in question presents one sole and strict pure strategy Nash equilibrium, being that of strategies no vaccination and no imposition, respectively. The core rationale is that the citizen accepts COVID-19 vaccination only if his survival is placed at risk, because of the inherent unlawfulness presented by COVID-19 vaccination, itself due to foetal exploitation and potentially adverse effects, thereby prompting the government not to impose it, lest individual integrity and societal rights be violated as well. It furthermore shows that the exogenous elimination of the no imposition strategy on the part of the government transforms the Nash equilibrium into that of strategies vaccination and direct imposition, respectively, as materially come to pass. It finally determines that the unlikely addition of the revolution strategy on the part of the citizen in the presence of the elimination of the no imposition strategy on the part of the government likewise admits one sole and strict pure strategy Nash equilibrium, either in strategies vaccination and direct imposition or in strategies revolution and direct imposition, respectively.

This study examines the knowledge, attitudes, and perspectives of the public towards COVID-19 immunization in Pakistan. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a well-structured questionnaire and distributed through internet means. The results showed that socio-economic variables such as age, gender, education level, and wealth are essential predictors of vaccination uptake. Highly educated, wealthy, and urban residents have a positive attitude towards vaccination. The media plays a critical role in distributing information and shaping attitudes. Effective communication and availability of information also significantly contribute to illness susceptibility and prevention behavior. The study suggests that the government and healthcare system can improve public awareness and adopt preventive behavior to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper analyses the interindustry spillover effects of bilateral trade conflicts using the example of the 2018-2019 China-USA bilateral trade war. Empirical results are produced using a new heuristic method based on hypothetical extraction and substitution in an International Input-Output model. This model tracts a series of direct and indirect sectoral effects and provides an intuitive and computationally tractable way of mapping the potential gains and losses affecting other trade partners. It sheds light on some intricate inter-industry implications that are not obvious when considering traditional trade models. A large share of the negative impacts may be felt by third countries through two separate trade channels. Firstly, because the production of a final product in one country relies on importing intermediate goods from other trade partners, who may be negatively impacted by the trade destruction effects of the trade embargo. Secondly, because trade embargoes lead to trade substitution in order to fill the gaps left by embargoed products, and to trade deflection. Deflection occurs when the trade belligerents redeploy their unsold exports towards third countries, increasing competition for market shares. This situation is an additional threat for the Multilateral Trade Governance as large-scale trade deflection may induce a cascade of Tit-for-Tat protectionist measures, in a situation where the COVID-19 pandemics has fanned the industrial nationalism, trade protectionism and geo-political tensions which were already perceptible since the global crisis of 2008-2009.

Durch den pandemiebedingten Lockdown im Frühjahr 2020 waren zahlreiche Betriebe des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes von schweren Einschränkungen betroffen. Sie mussten ihre Produktion teilweise oder vollständig herunterfahren. Einige davon hatten sich bereits im Herbst 2020 wieder von diesen schockartigen Eingriffen erholt und produzierten wieder wie vor dem Lockdown. Allerdings waren dies bei weitem nicht alle Betriebe. Die Fähigkeit, unvorhersehbaren Störereignissen, die negative Folgen mit sich bringen, vergleichsweise unbeschadet zu überstehen, wird in der Forschung als Resilienz bezeichnet. Seit der Pandemie war dieser ursprünglich psychologische Fachbegriff auch in den Wirtschaftskolumnen häufiger zu lesen. Diese Fähigkeit, sich möglichst widerstandsfähig gegenüber solchen Störereignissen zu erweisen, wurde für Betriebe zu einem entscheidenden Faktor. Plötzlich konnte von der Resilienz das Überleben des ganzen Produktionsstandorts abhängen. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt sich die Frage, welche Betriebe des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes die COVID-19 Pandemie besonders gut überstehen konnten und weshalb diese eine höhere Resilienz gegenüber den Einschränkungen als andere Betriebe aufwiesen. Die Analysen dieser Studie zeigen, dass sich kleine und mittelgroße Betriebe häufiger als resilient erwiesen. Deutlich wird auch, dass bei den pandemiebedingten Verlusten eine klare Polarisierung zwischen Branchen besteht. Zudem beeinflussen die Bereitschaft zur Industrie 4.0 und der Einsatz von Lean Management-Konzepten die Resilienz der Produktionsbetriebe in Deutschland in der COVID-19 Pandemie maßgeblich.