Black power and state welfare policy

Conclusions The three strategies for the black movement are centered on black individual development resources, black capitalist resources, and political violence. The conflicts between the theorists of each strategy have been major. This study indicates that although black individual development, black capitalist, and black violence strategies are ideologically opposed, each one, nevertheless, has an influence on welfare policy. Black individual and violence resources influence Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments; black capitalist and violence resources influence the number of Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients. These results suggest that there are a variety of means to social change even though there are ideological disputes about the values of each approach.     

Does the welfare state increase welfare? Reflections on hidden negatives and observed positives

Summary The growth of the welfare state and the taxes required to finance it has affected aggregate economic welfare through several channels. Some of the impacts are negative; others are positive. This paper appraises the evidence on the magnitude of a dozen of these impacts, and concludes that for both the Netherlands and the U.S., aggregate gains exceed the losses. At the margin, however, the comparison is not so favorable and a strategy is suggested whereby the welfare state could be reoriented so as to preserve the gains while reducing the losses. This strategy is an alternative to simple retrenchment of the welfare state.I acknowledge the helpful and insightful comments on, and discussions of, the issues addressed here by Professors Victor Halberstadt, Jan Pen, Barbara Wolfe, and Dirk Wolfson.Revised version of the Tinbergen Lecture, given March 28th at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.     

Are immigrants really attracted to the welfare state? Evidence from OECD countries

This paper examines the impact of fiscal policies on both the size and educational levels of immigrants in destination countries. We find that whether or not a country’s policies are attracting highly educated immigrants goes beyond the issue of the “welfare state”. Immigrants are making important distinctions between the different benefits provided by a receiving country’s government. Health and education spending are found to have a positive impact on the education levels of immigrants while the reverse is true for unemployment and retirement benefits. Welfare programs are found to be insignificant once other government programs/taxes and other factors are taken into account. These results imply that countries should be less concerned about whether they are a “big government” with regards to attracting immigrants, and more concerned with what types of benefits they offer.     

Overshooting,reform and retreat of the welfare state

Summary The paper discusses various reforms that may lower the costs of the contemporary welfare state, including a shift from taxes to actuarially fair, although still compulsory, insurance premia; wider use of co-insurance,etc. It is also suggested that social security entitlements are made more robust against political interventions by moving them outside of the government budget. Freer competition is suggested in the provision of social services. Reform of the political process is also discussed to avoid an overshooting of the welfare state in the sense that imperfections in the political process result in excessive welfare state spending.Seventh Tinbergen Lecture delivered on October 1, 1993 at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam for the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. I Am grateful for comments on an early draft of this paper by Thorvaldur Gylfason, Torsten Persson, Agnar Sandmo, Karl Gustaf Scherman, Lars E.O. Svensson, Paul Söderlind and Lars Söderström.     

德国北威州旅游产业的发展与启示

德国北威州是德国重要的工业文化旅游和会展旅游中心。在当地政府的大力推动和支持下,北威州的旅游业获得了健康有序的发展。其发展经验:如通过产业结构调整和改造,大力发展工业文化旅游和会展旅游、积极创造优美洁净的环境条件等等,对我国旅游业的发展都具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Labour supply, the natural rate, and the welfare state in The Netherlands: the wrong institutions at the wrong point in time

This paper analyses the causes of the Dutch Miracle. Low wageincreases in The Netherlands compared to the rest of Europeare the main factor explaining the fast employment growth. Twofactors can explain wage growth lagging behind: the 1982 Wassenaar-agreementbetween trade unions and employers and the realignments in thewelfare state. A small macroeconomic model for the Dutch economyis estimated to analyse these issues. The residuals of wageequation do not show systematic negative residuals for the post-1982period. The generosity of the welfare state has a clear effect,but data do not allow the magnitude of this to be preciselyestablished. Furthermore, our model shows that the Dutch labourmarket adjusts rapidly to adverse shocks. In fact, the exceptionalperformance of the Dutch labour market in the early 1990s ispredominantly caused by its ability to adjust to shocks comparedto the rest of continental Europe.     

The welfare effects of liquidity constraints

We analyze the welfare implications of liquidity constraintsfor households in an overlapping generations model with growth.In a closed economy with exogenous technical progress, liquidityconstraints reduce welfare if the economy is dynamically inefficient.But if it is dynamically efficient, some degree of financialrepression is required to maximize steady-state utility, eventhough some generations are hurt in the transition. With endogenoustechnical progress, financial repression may increase welfareeven along the transition path, thus leading to a Pareto improvement.In this case the optimal degree of financial repression increasesas the economy grows.     

医疗保险的福利效应

本文考察在完全信息的市场经济条件下,医疗保险的进入对于社会总福利的影响。分析表明,保险公司的进入可能使得消费者为医疗服务付出更高的代价,但是会提高医院的利润,总的来说保险公司的进入会提升社会总福利。本文还发现,由于保险公司未考虑其合约设计对医院利润的影响,市场均衡的医疗保险水平仍低于社会最优水平。这些结论有助于澄清相关文献对医疗保险的一些负面看法。     

能动的制度换来活力员工

明基并购西门子手机部门宣告失败，在国际化并购舞台上留下了太多的遗憾。明基的后台掌控者、宏基创始人施振荣承认，不同国家之间的文化冲突，是导致明基并购西门子手机业务失败的主要因素。     

电荒——威胁电能过剩的中国

7年来最严重电荒将临中国发出了电荒来袭的红色警报。2011年5月17日,中国电监会办公厅副主任俞燕山称,＂最近一周,重庆、湖南、安徽等地出现拉闸限电;浙江、贵州、广东、湖南、江西等地实行错峰用电;从中西部青海、湖北、湖南等传统缺煤省份到山西、陕西、河南等产煤大省都出现了缺煤停机现象。＂2004年以来最严重的＂电荒＂即将来临。     

The Assessment: labour markets and welfare

Rapid and radical changes in the labour markets of developedeconomies have had profound implications for the welfare andwell-being of their citizens. This Assessment argues that thereis still considerable divergence in labour-market processesand outcomes across countries. This is likely to remain thecase. Nevertheless, there is a range of common problems. Importantamong these are what is happening to the rights of people atwork and how they should be protected. Views about appropriaterights have altered in recent years. In the future, debate aboutthis is likely to be even more closely linked to debate aboutlabour-market flexibility. The Assessment goes on to discussa variety of distributional problems related to joblessnessand low pay, and evaluates policy interventions designed totackle them. Although there has been progress in terms of policyeffectiveness, interventions are fragile in helping people toescape from cycles of repeated misfortune and long-term disadvantage.