1,720,971 research outputs found
Deregulation, job security and employability during the Great Recession : A multilevel analysis
No full textThe recent economic and financial crisis has been the most severe economic downturn that the European Union has faced since its creation. Most of the labour market reforms passed in response to the crisis decreased protections for workers by making employment contracts less secure, expanding the coverage of temporary and agency work, as well as by reducing the power that trade unions used to enjoy. What have been the implications of the crisis-induced labour market reforms for the quality and security of jobs in Europe? Has deregulation affected workers’ perceptions of job security and employability? And was the crisis experienced similarly across Europe? This chapter seeks to answer these questions by analysing the effects of the economic crisis and labour market deregulation on individual perceptions of job security and employability in Europe. Using a multilevel estimation strategy, the chapter finds that the crisis-induced labour market reforms have not impacted negatively workers’ perceptions of job security. Instead, unemployment levels and the generosity of active labour market programmes are the only significant predictors of individual perceptions about job security. Furthermore, we find that self-perceived employability is negatively affected by unemployment rates and positively correlated with economic growth
Climbing over the left-right cleavage : The impact of technocratic and grand coalition governments in Italy in a time of economic crisis
No full textThe worldwide economic crisis has had important political implications in many Western democracies. In Italy, where political competition has been largely structured along a deep left-right cleavage, the crisis brought two parliamentary coalitions that crossed this boundary: one supporting a technocratic government from November 2011 to December 2012, and a grand coalition government from April 2013. In this paper we discuss whether and how these two events had an impact on voters’ behavioural polarization, and how this affected patterns of inter-party competition. Did the grand coalitions help Italian citizens to overstep the psychological gap separating left and right parties? Or did they just contribute to voters' confusion and to the spread of anti-politics sentiment? Moreover, did the two coalitions have similar electoral implications, given that one of the two was in support of a technocratic government? We observe aggregate behavioural polarization by modelling two-by-two correlations between party propensity to vote (PTV) scores in a stacked data matrix. In this setting, anti-political attitudes are assessed by selecting citizens who show no propensity to vote for any of the relevant parties. We use repeated cross-sectional public opinion data covering a time period from March 2011 to March 2014. Preliminary results suggest a process of depolarization during the first coalition supporting the technocratic government in the period 2011-2012
The impact of the economic crisis on latent and early entrepreneurship in Europe
No full textThe recent economic crisis has thrown many European economies into a period of slow growth and high unemployment. While previous research looked at the impact of the crisis on aggregate indicators of entrepreneurship, not much is known about whether and how it affected individual motivations and efforts to become self-employed. This study aims to fill this gap by looking at the impact of the crisis on latent and early entrepreneurship, as well as on the link between the two. We combine individual and country-level data from 25 EU member states from 2006 to 2012. Results of multilevel logistic regressions show that the decrease in entrepreneurial activity in the post-crisis period has been stronger in countries where access to finance for SMEs has been more difficult. Moreover, we show that the high level unemployment generated by the economic crisis has produced a "refugee effect" by pushing into entrepreneurship only those individuals who are not interested in such a career choice
When responsibility is blurred : Italian national elections in times of economic crisis, technocratic government, and ever-growing populism
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La rappresentazione dello spazio politico all'epoca della (presunta) morte di sinistra e destra
No full textBreed-specific fetal biometry and factors affecting the prediction of whelping date in the German shepherd dog
Full text linkTo date many studies have been published about predicting parturition by ultrasonographic fetal measurements in the bitch. Given that accuracy in such prediction is a key point for clinicians and breeders, formulas to calculate the whelping date were mainly obtained from small and medium sized dogs, which means poor accuracy when applied to large or giant breeds.
Based on the evidence that ethnicity significantly affects fetal biometry in humans, this study aimed at developing a breed-specific linear regression model for estimating parturition date in the German shepherd dog. For this purpose, serial ultrasonographic measurements of the inner chorionic cavity diameter (ICC) and the fetal bi parietal diameter (BP) were collected in 40 pregnant German shepherd bitches. The quality of the regression models for estimating parturition date was further verified in 22 other pregnant German shepherd bitches. Accuracy related to the prediction of parturition date was higher than previously reported: 94.5% and 91.7% within +/- 2 days interval based on ICC and BP measurements, respectively. Additional investigation was performed on the effects of maternal weight, age and litter size in relation to fetal biometry and to accuracy of parturition estimation. Moreover, the study included a comparison between hormonal and fetal ultrasound (ICC and BP) measurements connected to the estimation of whelping date.
We suggest that specific equations from a single breed are likely to offer excellent accuracy, comparable to that of periovulatory progesteronemia, in parturition prediction and to avoid morphological variables present in dogs of different breeds even with the same size/weight
The Elite Is Up to Something: Exploring the Relation Between Populism and Belief in Conspiracy Theories
No full textWe explore the relationship between populist attitudes and conspiratorial beliefs on the individual level with two studies using American samples. First, we test whether and what kinds of conspiratorial beliefs predict populist attitudes. Our results show that belief in conspiracies with greedy, but not necessarily purely evil, elites are associated with populism. Second, we test whether having a conspiratorial mentality is associated with all separate sub-dimensions of populist attitudes - people-centrism, anti-elitism, and a good-versus-evil view of politics. Results show a relation only with the first two, confirming the common tendency of both discourses to see the masses as victims on elites' hands. These findings contribute to research on the correlates of populism at the individual level, which is essential to understanding why this phenomenon is so strong in contemporary democracies
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