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Compulsory activation of young welfare recipients: revisiting the trade-off between workfare and welfare generosity
Get PDFWe revisit the trade-off between workfare and welfare through a quasi-natural experiment by exploiting municipal variation from a 2017 Norwegian reform introducing compulsory activation for young welfare recipients. The results show a significant negative effect on social assistance. On the other hand, we find no effect on income adequacy, implying that other transfers mitigate the drop in social assistance. Our results convey therefore that the trade-off between workfare and welfare is binding when focusing exclusively on social assistance: investing in activation policies creates challenges to poverty alleviation channeled through the last social safety net. However, the trade-off is mitigated through other transfers, allowing us to conclude that social investment does not need to be inimical to the poor
Roy Jenkins: the frustrations of pro-European constancy
No full textRoy Jenkins was the most consistently pro-European politician covered in this volume. This brought him early prominence, was of some importance in Labour’s turn to Europe during the late 1960s, proved crucial during the key 1971 parliamentary vote on membership and during the 1975 referendum campaign and explains his four-year stint as European Commission president. But it also complicated and ultimately broke his relationship with the Labour Party, causing clashes with Gaitskell, Wilson and Callaghan, and encouraging his move to form the breakaway SDP. This chapter will explore why Jenkins believed so passionately in Britain’s European participation and why, unlike so many other Labour politicians, he refused to temper or trim these beliefs
How to reconcile China leading in renewable energy capacity and in CO2 emissions
Get PDFChina is a leader in building renewables capacity and in greenhouse gas emissions. Given this contradiction, how can one make sense of the country’s environmental performance? Mathias Larsen argues that this debate needs to take nuance into account. China’s emissions may already have peaked and could fall rapidly, despite its continued investments in coal
Is there still public support for foreign aid?
Get PDFWhat do citizens of European countries think about foreign aid and development cooperation? Using a new dataset covering France, Germany, Great Britain and the US, Felipe Torres, Soomin Oh, Paolo Morini, Jennifer Hudson, David Hudson and Molly Anders show that concern for poverty abroad persists but is sensitive to political shocks and competing crises
A new consensus? Economic principles for the 21st century
Get PDFPublished in 1990, John Williamson’s Washington Consensus set out a “free-market” economic paradigm that has shaped our economies and societies. 35 years later, is another set of economic principles emerging? The London Consensus brings together 50 world-leading economists and policy experts to consider this question. Its editors, LSE’s Tim Besley, Irene Bucelli and Andrés Velasco spoke to LSE Review of Books Managing Editor Anna D’Alton. The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century. Irene Bucelli, Tim Besley and Andrés Velasco (editors). LSE Press. 2025
Why do workers dislike inflation? Wage erosion and conflict costs
No full textHow costly is inflation to workers? Answers to this question have focused on the path of real wages during inflationary periods. We argue that workers must take costly actions (“conflict”) to have nominal wages catch up with inflation, meaning there are welfare costs even if real wages do not fall as inflation rises. We study a menu-cost style model, where workers choose whether to engage in conflict with employers to secure a wage increase. We show that, following a rise in inflation, wage catch-up resulting from more frequent conflict does not raise welfare. Instead, the impact of inflation on worker welfare is determined by what we call “wage erosion”—how inflation would lower real wages if workers’ conflict decisions did not respond to inflation. As a result, using observed wage growth to measure worker welfare understates the costs of inflation. We conduct a survey showing that workers are willing to sacrifice around 1.75% of their wages to avoid conflict. Calibrating the model to survey data, we find that incorporating conflict significantly raises the costs of inflation for workers
China as leading innovator, and as challenger to US hegemony?
Get PDFTo what extent has China over the past decade leapfrogged beyond ‘factory of the world’ (scaling up technologies developed elsewhere) to ‘leading innovator’ (starting up technologies developed at home to produce new-to-the-world products)? To what extent has China’s size, economic development, and geopolitical influence reached the point where it is challenging the US for hegemony? The essay gives a qualified ‘yes’ to the first question, a qualified ‘no’ to the second
Positive appraisal style predicts long-term stress resilience and mediates the effect of a pro-resilience intervention
Get PDFStress resilience is the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. Identifying factors that predict and promote good long-term mental health outcomes in stressor-exposed individuals is a first step towards developing more effective prevention programs. In two independent observational samples (N = 132, N = 1034), we find that a tendency to evaluate stressors in a realistic to slightly unrealistically positive fashion (positive appraisal style, PAS) is prospectively associated with resilient outcomes over several years. We also find that PAS is an integrative, proximal resilience factor that mediates the pro-resilience effects of other protective factors (e.g., social support). In an analysis of pre-specified exploratory outcomes of a randomized controlled trial comparing a behavioral intervention targeting a broad set of resilience factors against usual care in a sample of distressed healthcare workers (N = 232; trial registry: NCT04980326), we find that PAS is modifiable, with improvements in PAS mediating intervention-induced improvements in resilience. These results establish PAS as a proximal, plastic, and potentially causal resilience factor
The universe’s fine-tuning does call for explanation
Get PDFIn recent years, several prominent authors have criticized fine-tuning arguments for failing to show that the universe’s purported fine-tuning for intelligent life calls for explanation. In this paper, I provide a systematic categorization and a detailed evaluation of the proffered critiques. I argue that these critiques cast doubt on various instances of fine-tuning reasoning, but fail to undermine fine-tuning arguments’ conclusion that the universe’s purported fine-tuning for intelligent life calls for explanation. I then explicate the implications of this result for the ongoing philosophical debate concerning the merits of fine-tuning arguments and the conditions under which specific events or states of affairs are justifiably taken to call for explanation
Mismatched commitments: treaty law solutions for multilateral ISDS reform
Get PDFCalls to reform the system of investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS) have progressed to the multilateral negotiation of several treaties within UNCITRAL Working Group III. This article analyses the risk of mismatched commitments under the draft Multilateral Instrument on ISDS Reform (MIIR), which would serve as the delivery vehicle for proposed reforms. While the MIIR’s opt-in design allows each State to select its preferred reform protocols and which of its international investment agreements are to be modified by each protocol, such flexibility may generate further fragmentation. Empirical evidence from the implementation of recent treaties on OECD tax reform (BEPS MLI) and transparency in ISDS proceedings (Mauritius Convention) underscores the challenges in aligning State preferences through treaty design. This article identifies five scenarios of mismatched commitments and offers possible solutions informed by the general law of treaties. It argues that the MIIR should prioritize systemic coherence to mitigate transaction costs and ensure effective reform. A pragmatic roadmap is provided for negotiators to balance these competing goals in navigating the technicalities of treaty law in a fragmented ISDS system