Exploring the future for pensions pillarisation

The pensions pillarisation agenda envisages a reduction in the role of social insurance while simultaneously advocating the parallel expansion of fully funded private sector, occupational and personal retirement contingencies. Widespread perception of looming state failure in the field of pensions delivery highlights the inherent limitations of current pension delivery arrangements. However, moves to de-emphasise the provision afforded by, predominantly, monopillar state-mandated pension systems by expanding private privision represent short-term palliative responses to deep rooted structural and demographic problems. Multipillar systems appear no more capable of guaranteeing system funding in the face of demographic ageing and structural unemployment than existing monopillar systems. Moreover, a diminished role for social insurance will leave the low paid and unemployed significantly more vulnerable in old age. Consequently, this paper argues for a pension reform agenda which, in terms of levels of income substitution, will secure an adequate social insurance element into the future.     

Bivariate and multivariate scaled association models. An application to homogamy of social origin and education in Hungary between 1930 and 1979

In this article we compare bivariate and multivariate models for homogamy of social origin and education to test whether bivariate models of homogamy lead to biased results. We use data on Hungarian couples married between 1930 and 1979 and loglinear models of scaled association. The results indicate some differences between bivariate and multivariate analyses. At each point of time bivariate models overestimate homogamy, both with respect to education and social origin. However, results on trends in time do not differ much between the two analyses. The exception is the period 1940–1959, in which bivariate analysis showed decreasing educational homogamy, and multivariate analysis showed an increasing trend. The latter finding can be explained by declining homogamy of social origin, as well as the weaker reproduction and cross-effects in this period.     

Do Mothers Matter? A Comparison of Models of the Influence of Mothers' and Fathers' Educational and Occupational Status on Children's Educational Attainment

The first objective of this article is to clarify which model best captures the structure and trend of the influence of social origin on children's education. The second objective is to analyse how general conclusions on historical trends in educational reproduction change if we add mother's status background to the model. Six contrasting hypotheses are derived fromthe body of literature dealing with models on families' socioeconomic status. All hypotheses are translated into empirical models and their explained variance is compared. A pooled data set is used that contains data from the Netherlands, West Germany, and the USA. The Modified Dominance Model, that distinguishes the influence of the highest from thelowest status parent, has the best model fit. Regarding the second objective we see that adding the mother's influence to that of the father's does not change general conclusions on trends in educational reproduction. Over time the influence of both parents decreases continuously. However, the influence of the mother's education and occupational status on children's educational attainment is substantive.     

E–Commerce and the Australian Economy

This paper considers the likely impact of e–commerce and the Internet on the Australian economy. It surveys literature on the extent and development of e–commerce in Australia and its impact on the shape of the Australian economy. Evidence for the 'renewal' of the Australian economy is presented and examined, especially the question of whether Australia has enjoyed increases in productivity as a result of the production and/or use of new information and communications technology. Australia is seen as broadly well placed to benefit from the Internet and e–commerce. Traditionally isolated from the world's main economic centres and reliant on commodities in international trade, the advent of the Internet is ideal for a country in transition to a service–orientated, knowledge–based economy. As the composition of Australia's exports becomes more service–orientated and knowledge–intensive, traditional trading links with Europe and North America may strengthen relative to those with Asia.     

MEASURING THE LIFETIME REDISTRIBUTION ACHIEVED BY DUTCH TAXATION, CASH TRANSFER AND NON-CASH BENEFITS PROGRAMS

This paper assesses how the Dutch system of taxation, cash transfers and non-cash benefits redistributes between the rich and the poor. The approach in this paper deviates from the usual approach by incorporating the full life cycle in the measurements, rather than only the annual effects. Moreover, the coverage is larger than is usually the case: the paper takes account of both direct and indirect taxes and direct and indirect benefits. In order to obtain the measurements on redistribution, we use the level of educational attainment to classify the population. We therefore measure, in terms of present values, the average net benefit from government policies for an average representative person of each level of education. The results indicate a sizable redistribution from the rich to the poor and a significant reduction of welfare inequality. The net effect on welfare inequality is, however, substantially smaller than when measured on an annual basis.     

Money disillusion and stagflation

In the conventional income-expenditure model with rigid wages, the aggregate supply curve is upward sloping. Increases in demand therefore imply increases in real output and employment. We demonstrate here that this conclusion depends on the form of money illusion implied by the rigid wage assumption. If we assume instead that labor supply is more sensitive to price increases than to wage increases, the aggregate supply curve is negatively sloped, and the conventional policy multipliers are thereby reversed. In the second section, we show that this result also follows if labor supply depends on the expected real wage.