Unemployment duration and the interactions between unemployment insurance and social assistance

Existing studies suggest that reforms that reduce the generosity of the unemployment benefits should lower unemployment. Despite the large number of such reforms implemented in Europe in the past decades, evidence from various data sources shows very little correlation with the evolution of unemployment. This paper suggests that the scant success of these labour market reforms can be explained by the interactions between unemployment insurance and other social assistance programmes. Evidence from the European Community Household Panel shows that recipients of unemployment insurance who are also eligible for other welfare schemes are indeed less sensitive to changes in the level and the duration of their benefits.     

Out of Welfare: Functioning of Income Support in Torino

This paper explores the opportunities provided by a file of longitudinal data regarding income support benefits for able bodied poor in order to understand the functioning of the local social assistance system in Torino. The features of this system, its selective-categorized character and the differences from universalistic systems are analyzed. In this framework, the duration of the periods users receive benefits has been studied by means of event history analysis. The probability of exit from welfare is related to socio-demographic characteristics of recipients. In particular we observe a lower propensity to exit for female headed households and households with children. The probability of exit appears to be affected also by labour market conditions, being higher when these are more favourable. The exit rate does not decrease as time elapsed in welfare moves on. We observe the existence of different styles of assistance among the different social services within the city. Difficulties related to the interpretation of the empirical results, given the selective-categorized features of the social assistance system, are emphasized. Finally, we discuss some theoretical issues about evaluation of income support policies.All the sections of this paper are the result of the cooperation of the authors. Nicola Negri has coordinated the various steps of the work and has written Section 5 with Contini. Nicoletta Bosco has mainly worked with Nicola Negri to prepare the data archive and has written Sections 2 and 3. Dalit Contini has discussed with Negri and Bosco the model of empirical analysis and has implemented it; she has written Sections 4 and 6. All authors share Section 1 and 7.     

中外救助及失业人员再就业政策比较研究

就业是摆脱贫困的主要出路。近年来,欧洲许多国家的社会救助方案正在发生转变,从以社会福利为导向转移到以激活就业为导向,逐步减少了被救助人的收入,同时,增加了就业补助、教育培训、工读课程和语言学习,目的是使受助者重新回到劳动力市场。从救助及就业的角度,对国外就业激励政策和措施进行效应分析,并结合北京市的相关情况提出一些相关思考和建议。     

Targeting and political support for welfare spending

This paper investigates the political support for social assistance policies in a model in which incomes are stochastic (so that welfare policies have an insurance benefit) and unequal ex ante (so that welfare policies have a redistributive effect). With self-interested voting, narrow targeting may so reduce the probability of receiving benefits for the majority that the majority prefers to eliminate benefits altogether, even though the cost of narrowly targeted benefits is close to zero. In contrast, a majority of self-interested voters always supports positive welfare benefits when the policy is targeted sufficiently broadly. If voters are somewhat altruistic, the impact of targeting on political support for welfare spending diminishes but does not disappear. Received: July 1999 / Accepted: May 30, 2000     

Conditional empirical likelihood estimation and inference for quantile regression models

This paper considers two empirical likelihood-based estimation, inference, and specification testing methods for quantile regression models. First, we apply the method of conditional empirical likelihood (CEL) by Kitamura et al. [2004. Empirical likelihood-based inference in conditional moment restriction models. Econometrica 72, 1667–1714] and Zhang and Gijbels [2003. Sieve empirical likelihood and extensions of the generalized least squares. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 30, 1–24] to quantile regression models. Second, to avoid practical problems of the CEL method induced by the discontinuity in parameters of CEL, we propose a smoothed counterpart of CEL, called smoothed conditional empirical likelihood (SCEL). We derive asymptotic properties of the CEL and SCEL estimators, parameter hypothesis tests, and model specification tests. Important features are (i) the CEL and SCEL estimators are asymptotically efficient and do not require preliminary weight estimation; (ii) by inverting the CEL and SCEL ratio parameter hypothesis tests, asymptotically valid confidence intervals can be obtained without estimating the asymptotic variances of the estimators; and (iii) in contrast to CEL, the SCEL method can be implemented by some standard Newton-type optimization. Simulation results demonstrate that the SCEL method in particular compares favorably with existing alternatives.     

Regression discontinuity inference with specification error

A regression discontinuity (RD) research design is appropriate for program evaluation problems in which treatment status (or the probability of treatment) depends on whether an observed covariate exceeds a fixed threshold. In many applications the treatment-determining covariate is discrete. This makes it impossible to compare outcomes for observations “just above” and “just below” the treatment threshold, and requires the researcher to choose a functional form for the relationship between the treatment variable and the outcomes of interest. We propose a simple econometric procedure to account for uncertainty in the choice of functional form for RD designs with discrete support. In particular, we model deviations of the true regression function from a given approximating function—the specification errors—as random. Conventional standard errors ignore the group structure induced by specification errors and tend to overstate the precision of the estimated program impacts. The proposed inference procedure that allows for specification error also has a natural interpretation within a Bayesian framework.     

Delayed integration as a possible remedy for the race to the bottom

It has been a long-standing concern in the literature that household mobility implies a serious threat to redistributive taxation. This paper considers the effects of delayed integration of migrants into the redistributive system of the target country. We argue that delayed integration may introduce a time consistency problem into governments' tax plans that reduces a region's incentive to undercut other regions' tax rates and can bring tax competition to a halt. Due to delayed integration, rich migrants cease to benefit from the lower tax rate in the current period. At the same time, the region's promise of a low rate in the future lacks credibility, since delayed integration locks in migrants once they are settled. We also explore the case where poor recipients of social assistance are mobile, while the rich are immobile.     

Social Context,Management, and Organizational Performance: When human capital and social capital serve as substitutes

Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.     

Social Security Foments the Black Economy

Social security incites a tendency to exploit other citizens. Hermione Parker demonstrates the effects of social benefits in discouraging work and encouraging dishonesty, not least by forcing recipients into the black economy.     

INFLATION AND CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE: A META‐REGRESSION ANALYSIS

Abstract Using 59 studies, we perform a meta‐regression analysis of studies examining the relationship between inflation and central bank independence (CBI). The studies considered are very different with respect to the CBI indicator used, the sample of countries and time periods covered, model specification, estimators used and publication outlet. We conclude that there is a significant publication bias. However, we also find a significant genuine effect of CBI on inflation. Differences between studies are not caused by differences in CBI indicators used.     

THE ROOTS OF MODERN ‘SOCIAL COST OF GAMBLING’ ESTIMATES

We discuss some critical issues in social cost of gambling methodologies which suggest that many social cost estimates are arbitrary. Rather than using monetary estimates of costs and benefits, we argue policy‐makers should focus on fundamental issues: consumer sovereignty, property rights and the role of government in free societies.     

Spatial correlation robust inference with errors in location or distance

This paper presents results from a Monte Carlo study concerning inference with spatially dependent data. We investigate the impact of location/distance measurement errors upon the accuracy of parametric and nonparametric estimators of asymptotic variances. Nonparametric estimators are quite robust to such errors, method of moments estimators perform surprisingly well, and MLE estimators are very poor. We also present and evaluate a specification test based on a parametric bootstrap that has good power properties for the types of measurement error we consider.     

城市居民最低生活保障对象的社会救助研究--以常州市为例

分析了常州市城市居民最低生活保障制度实施以来,常州市城市贫困阶层最低生活保障对象的生活、群体特征及其社会救助状况;讨论了社会救助制度推行过程中存在的问题及解决对策与思路.     

In-work policies in Europe: Killing two birds with one stone?

Generous social assistance has been held responsible for inactivity traps and social exclusion in several European countries, hence the recent trend of promoting employment through in-work transfers. Yet, the relative consensus on the need for ‘making work pay’ policies is muddied by a number of concerns relative to the design of the reforms and the treatment of the family dimension. Relying on EUROMOD, a EU-15 integrated tax-benefit microsimulation software, we simulate two types of in-work benefits. The first one is means-tested on family income, in the fashion of the British Working Family Tax Credit, while the second is a purely individualized policy. Both reforms are built on the same cost basis (after behavioral responses) and simulated in three European countries suspected to experience large poverty traps, namely Finland, France and Germany. The potential labor supply responses to the reforms and the subsequent redistributive impacts are assessed for each country using a structural discrete-choice model. We compare how both reforms achieve poverty reduction and social inclusion (measured as the number of transitions into activity). All three countries present different initial conditions, including existing tax-benefit systems and distribution of incomes and wages. These sources of heterogeneity are exploited together with different labor supply elasticities to explain the cross-country differences in the impact of the reforms.     

Voices unspoken? Understanding how gay employees co-construct a climate of voice/silence in organisations

Abstract

This study aimed to understand how the individual actions of gay employees influence the development of a climate of voice/silence in the workplace. We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with male and female homosexuals. The results reveal two types of boundary tactics (micro-level and structural) that our research participants used to promote their ideal level of separation or integration of their personal and professional identities. Our grounded theory demonstrates that whereas structural boundary tactics promote respect and a climate of voice, micro-level boundary tactics soften conflicts in the short term but solidify a climate of silence from a long-term perspective. We also propose that the insufficiency of institutional mechanisms to support gay people’s right to have a voice at work reduce the likelihood that these workers will risk confronting those who attempt to silence them. The originality of this study is based on the fact that it focuses on actions that gay employees can perform to co-construct a climate of voice that positions them as active social actors and not merely passive recipients of organisational and institutional conditions.     

The impact of age on the ability to perform under pressure: golfers on the PGA tour

This paper is about aging and the ability to perform under pressure on the PGA tour. Performance increases with golfing skill, but may first increase and then decrease with age as experience interacts with changes in physical condition. Similarly, mental fortitude or the ability of a golfer to perform under pressure may first increase and then decrease with age as experience interacts with changes in the ability to concentrate. Net performance on the tour is the result of both physical golfing skill and the ability to perform under pressure. We control for changes in physical skill and focus on the mental side of the game. The role of experience suggests an inverted U shaped relationship between age and mental performance that could vary significantly across golfers. We use Order-m FDH to calculate a measure of performance under pressure, and we confirm an inverted U-shaped curve with age. Along the way, we examine the ability to perform under pressure at the level of the individual golfer.     

Benefits and Strategic Outcomes: Are Supplemental Retirement Plans and Safer Driving Related in the U.S. Trucking Industry?

We suggest that a firm's benefits can relate to important organizational outcomes that have strategic implications. We propose a number of mechanisms that could relate benefits to strategic outcomes, including the notion that benefits can help attract and retain the type of employees who are most likely to perform in ways consistent with the firms’ strategies. We illustrate this with the case of supplemental retirement benefits in an actual setting, the long‐haul trucking industry. We report positive organization‐level relationships associated with the management choice of offering these benefits. Our results show that firms offering supplemental retirement plans engage in significantly safer driving practices, as measured by the proxy of driver insurance costs, as hypothesized. These findings show that benefits can be related to outcomes that have strategic implications for the firm. By showing that retirement plans may be of value to organizations, we help to bridge the academic‐practitioner divide and provide motivation and guidance for additional work on this important but underresearched topic. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Myopia and pensions in general equilibrium

The US social security tax rate has doubled in the last half century. Does the degree of myopic behavior that we observe in the US justify the size of the social security program? To study this question we build a computable general equilibrium model that is composed of life-cycle permanent-income consumers who save optimally and “hand-to-mouth” consumers who just consume their disposable income. Our model is a continuous-time, general equilibrium extension of the model by Cremer et al. (Int Tax Public Financ 15(5):547–562, 2008), though we abstract from the redistributive function of social security to focus on myopia. Retirement is a choice variable in our model and the social security program is designed to mimic the US program in which the annuity value of benefits increases with the retirement age. Also, we allow for delayed claiming beyond the date of retirement. The model matches a variety of important data targets relating to saving and retirement. We find that small reductions in the social security tax rate provide significant welfare gains to both groups of consumers.     

Rural entrepreneurs and institutional assistance: an empirical study from mountainous Italy

Despite the recognition of entrepreneurship as one of the main determinants of rural economic development, empirical research in this field is relatively sparse. Thus, there is little evidence on the role and function of rural entrepreneurs, the driving force behind the birth, survival and growth of rural enterprises. The present work aims at providing a contribution to filling this gap in knowledge. We present and analyse the results emerging from a questionnaire submitted to a sample of 123 rural entrepreneurs and businesses in a mountainous area of central Italy. In particular, we test for six hypotheses concerning the correlation between different factors, reflecting entrepreneur and business-specific characteristics, and the adoption of instruments of institutional assistance. Entrepreneur's and business's variables are related to (1) entrepreneurial human capital; (2) entrepreneur's local knowledge and social capital; (3) firm's size; (4) entrepreneur's age; (5) firm's age; and (6) busines's sector of activity. Empirical results largely support the importance of variables taken into consideration in explaining differences in the adoption of institutional assistance among businesses of the sample. In the light of our empirical findings, we also examine and propose potential policies for fostering entrepreneurship and the development of the rural region under study.     

On portfolio optimization: How and when do we benefit from high‐frequency data?

We examine how the use of high‐frequency data impacts the portfolio optimization decision. Prior research has documented that an estimate of realized volatility is more precise when based upon intraday returns rather than daily returns. Using the framework of a professional investment manager who wishes to track the S&P 500 with the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks, we find that the benefits of using high‐frequency data depend upon the rebalancing frequency and estimation horizon. If the portfolio is rebalanced monthly and the manager has access to at least the previous 12 months of data, daily data have the potential to perform as well as high‐frequency data. However, substantial improvements in the portfolio optimization decision from high‐frequency data are realized if the manager rebalances daily or has less than a 6‐month estimation window. These findings are robust to transaction costs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.