The European economic integration leads to increasing mobilityof factors, thereby threatening the stability of social transferprograms. This article investigates the possibility to achieveby means of voluntary matching grants both the optimal allocationof factors and the optimal level of redistribution in the presenceof factor mobility. We use a fiscal competition model a la Wildasin(1991) in which states differ in their technologies and preferencesfor redistribution. We first investigate a simple process inwhich the federal authority progressively raises the matchinggrants to the district choosing the lowest transfer and alldistricts respond optimally to the resulting change in transfersall around. This process is shown to increase efficiency ofboth production and redistribution. However, it does not guaranteethat all districts gain, nor that an efficient level of redistributionis attained. Assuming complete information among districts,we derive the willingness of each district to match the contributionof other districts and we show that the aggregate willingnessto pay for matching rates converges to zero when both the efficientlevel of redistribution and the efficient allocation of factorsare achieved. We then describe an adjustment process for thematching rates that will lead districts to the efficient outcomeand guarantee that everyone will gain. (JEL Classification:H23, H70) 相似文献
Abstract. During the last decade, many Western economies reformed their welfare systems with the aim of activating welfare recipients by increasing welfare‐to‐work programmes (WTWP) and job‐search enforcement. We evaluate the short‐term effects of three important German WTWP implemented after a major reform in January 2005 (‘Hartz IV’), namely short training, further training with a planned duration of up to three months and public workfare programmes (‘One‐Euro‐Jobs’). Our analysis is based on a combination of a large‐scale survey and administrative data that is rich with respect to individual, household, agency level and regional information. We use this richness of the data to base the econometric evaluation on a selection‐on‐observables approach. We find that short‐term training programmes, on average, increase their participants' employment perspectives. There is also considerable effect heterogeneity across different subgroups of participants that could be exploited to improve the allocation of welfare recipients to the specific programmes and thus increase overall programme effectiveness. 相似文献
In this work we explore how the international outsourcing of production impacts the skill composition of employment within Italian manufacturing firms. In particular, our aim is to assess whether the choice to offshore production activities to cheap‐labour countries implies a bias in the employment of skilled workers relative to unskilled ones.
Using a balanced panel of firms covering the period 1995–2003, we set up a counterfactual analysis in which, by using a difference‐in‐differences propensity score matching estimator, we compare the dynamics of skill demand for treated and control firms while addressing the possible problem of selection bias.
Our results identify a ‘potential’ skill bias effect of production offshoring. In particular, we find that treated firms tend to show an upward shift in the skill ratio with respect to the counterfactual sample, but coefficients are not significantly different from zero. When we look at the elements of the skill ratio separately, we find that the skill bias is driven by a fall in the employment of production workers (blue collars), rather than by the increase in the employment of non‐production workers (white collars), thus providing further evidence on the unskilled labour‐saving nature of international outsourcing. 相似文献