The social costs of unemployment: accounting for unemployment duration

This article contributes to the literature on unemployment and well-being by investigating the linkage between personal life satisfaction and a macroeconomic indicator of the duration of unemployment. Using data for more than 50?000 individuals in 10 European countries, 1992–2002, we find that the social costs of unemployment, in terms of general unemployment's impact on life satisfaction, relate significantly and to a considerable extent to unemployment duration. It is thus not just the risk of becoming or staying unemployed that people worry about, but especially the prospect of staying long-term unemployed. This fear affects employed and unemployed people alike. Our findings provide a strong point for focusing labour market policies on long-term unemployment, in addition to considerations of human capital depreciation.     

Long-term unemployment, unemployment benefits and social assistance: The Polish experience

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the regulations governing the systems of unemployment support and social assistance in post-communist Poland. To provide a solid foundation for a further discussion of these issues, the paper extensively characterizes the Polish labor force in terms of the prevalence and duration of unemployment. A final aspect of our empirical analysis concerned the question of what are the main sources of personal income for labor force participants, unemployed workers and long-term unemployed workers. In conclusion, we argue for a reform of the Polish systems of income support that separates the objectives of employment growth and poverty alleviation, and that improves upon the implementation of support schemes.     

中国失业社会保险制度改革探讨

当前,我国的失业社会保险制度出现了统筹层次低、覆盖面较窄、促进再就业的功能弱化等问题,需要通过适时提高统筹层次、扩大企业社会保险的覆盖面和完善失业社会保险促进再就业等措施进一步改革完善。     

Strategic niche management of social innovations: the case of social entrepreneurship

Strategic niche management (SNM), a tool to understand and manage radical socio-technical innovations and facilitate their diffusion, has always departed from a technical artefact. Many radical innovations, however, do not revolve around such an artefact. Social entrepreneurship is a new business model that combines a social goal with a business mentality and is heralded as an important new way to create social value such as sustainability. This study examines if and how SNM can be applied to such a social innovation. It identifies theoretical and practical limitations and proposes solutions. The main conclusion is that SNM can be used to analyse radical social innovation, although it requires rethinking the initial entry point for research and management. Exemplifying quotes are proposed as an alternative. Second, this paper suggests using values to describe niche–regime interaction as a better way to anticipate future niche–regime interactions.     

Energy conservation, unemployment and the direction of technical change

This paper extends the model by Smulders and de Nooij (Resour Energy Econ 25:59–79, 2003), where technical change can be biased towards labour or energy, by assuming a monopolistic union and a government which pays unemployment benefits, collects wage taxes and sells emission permits. The extended model is applied to the analysis of environmental tax reforms. A reduction in the level of energy use yields a double dividend by lowering pollution and unemployment, while temporarily inducing energy-saving technical change. It moves the economy to a new balanced growth path where unemployment is permanently lower, but long-run growth is not affected. A reduction in the growth rate of energy use induces a persistent bias in technical change towards labour and reduces long-run growth.     

Long-term unemployment, social assistance and labor market policies in Romania

Long-term unemployment in Romania has grown in both absolute and relative terms in the last few years, leading to increased expenditures, both absolutely and in relation to unemployment benefits, for the support allowance and social assistance programs and for pensions to labor force drop-outs. The paper uses a variety of data sources, including registration information, labor force surveys, and our own survey of registered unemployed (SRU) to describe these trends in the characteristics of Romanian unemployment and to examine differences across unemployment benefit (UB), short-term and long-term support allowance (SA) recipients. We employ the data to estimate the transition flow probability from the UB to the SA program; discuss the work incentives, income maintenance effects, and public costliness of the labor market and social insurance (including pension and disability) policies; and investigate the effects of the policies and of other characteristics of the unemployed and the areas where they live on the hazard for the escape rate from unemployment for UB and SA recipients separately.     

Processes and patterns in transitions and system innovations: Refining the co-evolutionary multi-level perspective

This article investigates transitions at the level of societal functions (e.g., transport, communication, housing). Societal functions are fulfilled by sociotechnical systems, which consist of a cluster of aligned elements, e.g., artifacts, knowledge, markets, regulation, cultural meaning, infrastructure, maintenance networks and supply networks. Transitions are conceptualised as system innovations, i.e., a change from one sociotechnical system to another. The article describes a co-evolutionary multi-level perspective to understand how system innovations come about through the interplay between technology and society. The article makes a new step as it further refines the multi-level perspective by distinguishing characteristic patterns: (a) two transition routes, (b) fit–stretch pattern, and (c) patterns in breakthrough.     

马克思失业理论与西方主流失业理论:当代中国失业问题的解读

当代中国日益严重的失业问题引起理论界的众说纷纭.西方主流失业理论与马克思失业理论相比,后者对解读当代中国的失业问题具有根本性、基础性的现实指导意义.根据马克思失业理论,资本积累仍是当代中国失业问题的根源.然而发展中的中国,既要发挥资本积累的优越性,又要让失业者适当分享资本积累的成果,并尽快提高其素质和能力,成为具有全球竞争力的新型劳动者,以此,才能解决当代中国的失业问题.     

美国的失业保险制度及其对我国的启示

从美国失业保险制度的发展入手,简介其发展概况,分析其特点和经验。并由此根据我国失业保险制度的发展实际,得出相应的借鉴对策,以规范我国失业保险制度,促进再就业,促进失业保险的发展和完善。     

Work incentive and other effects of social assistance and unemployment benefit policy in the Czech Republic

In this paper we provide an account of most of the passive labor market policies (unemployment compensation, social assistance, state social support and the pension system) in the Czech Republic during the 1990–1996 period. The eligibility requirements and benefit levels are described in great detail. Using Labor Force Survey data, we compare the characteristics of unemployed people receiving unemployment benefits with those receiving social assistance and those not receiving any benefits and we find significant differences in their characteristics. Finally, we provide an analysis of the work disincentive effects of the unemployment and social assistance benefits by comparing these benefits to market wages and by analyzing the effect of being in the system on the duration of unemployment of two cohorts of unemployed in 1994 and 1995. We find that social assistance benefits are fairly generous for low income families with more children, individuals with these characteristics have a higher probability of receiving social assistance and they tend to stay unemployed longer than those people with relatively fewer dependants. We conclude that the social assistance scheme seems to be having some disincentive effects for at least one group in the population.     

马克思失业理论与西方经济学失业理论:一个新的综合

马克思失业理论与古典经济学失业理论、凯恩斯失业理论、货币主义失业理论、新古典经济学失业理论尽管存在差别,但也存在相当程度的一致性.正是二者的一致性与差异,为失业理论进行新的综合分析提供了基础与前提.     

Jobs specialization versus unemployment: more on the productivity effect of unemployment benefits

We use the Marimon and Zilibotti (Econ J 109: 266–291, 1999) circle model and we endogenize the choice of the degree of specialization of jobs. We show that an increase in unemployment benefits not only reduces the mismatch of talents (as in Marimon and Zilibotti), but it also raises the degree of specialization of jobs. This reinforces the productivity enhancing effects of unemployment benefits.      

Estimating the public's social preference function between inflation and unemployment using survey data: The survey research center versus Gallup

Economists often use Gallup Poll data on presidential performance to analyze the interaction between politics and the state of the macroeconomy. The household survey undertaken by the Survey Research Center (SRC) of the University of Michigan provides an alternative data base. The SRC asks respondents about the government's performance specifically with respect to inflation and unemployment. We compare whether the Gallup or SRC data are the more useful for estimating the public's social preference function between inflation and unemployment for the Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton presidencies. The estimates that use Gallup Poll data are unsatisfactory because for two of the periods the coefficients of inflation and unemployment are not well estimated and for one period there is serial correlation of the residuals. The estimates using the SRC data set are satisfactory and the results are consistent with economic theory. We conclude that a researcher using survey data to estimate the public's reaction to varying rates of inflation and unemployment should prefer the SRC series when it is available. First version received: October 1995/final version received: July 1998     

Re-thinging the relationship between enviromental regulation and industrial innovation: The social negotiation of technical change

This paper draws attention to the current political and acdemic dislocation between regulation and innovation as activities and aims to emphasize the significance of the interrelationship both in terms of academic analysis and of policy approaches. The notion that innovation and regulation are both facets of the same overall process of technical change is explored, and accordingly, it becomes important to analyse them together as well as seperately. A conceptual approach is advocated which draws upon the notion of 'social and institution negotiations' in coming to terms with the nature of innovatory and regulatory processes.     

The effects of age and unemployment percentage on the duration of unemployment: Evidence from aggregate data

In this paper models for the duration of unemployment are estimated using aggregate data on incomplete unemployment spells. In particular the elasticities of the probability of leaving unemployment with respect to age and unemployment percentage are estimated. Special attention is paid to the time dependence of the re-employment probability and to the effect of omitted regressors. Because models are fitted for male and female unemployed separately, these groups can be compared. We find that their position on the labour market is different.