1,721,046 research outputs found
Paths to justice in the Netherlands: looking for signs of social exclusion
Full text linkIn 2003 Genn's Paths to Justice study for the UK was replicated in the Netherlands. A survey was held among 3.500 citizens into their experiences with problems for which there might be a legal solution.The data were collected by internet questionnaires, which were addressed to a random sample of an internet panel. In this paper we present some major findings on: (1) the incidence of justiciable problems within the population; (2) the kind of strategies people choose to solve their problems; (3) the outcome of different strategies for resolving justiciable problems; (4) the public's perceptions of the legal system. More specifically, we study differences with respect to age, marital status, educational level, income level and social class, in order to shed some light on the role and scope of social exclusion. Our results suggest that access to justice in the Netherlands is not so much restricted by the supply of legal advice and the organisation of the legal system, as well as by insufficient social-psychological capabilities of the citizens concerned.Legal procedure, legal system, social exclusion
Russia's role in fostering the CIS trade regime
Full text linkThe CIS trade regime can be characterised as a mix of, partly overlapping, weak, bilateral, subregional, and multilateral agreements. This is a result of the design of the CIS, which was explicitly constructed to allow its member states to participate in only those parts that they deemed in their best interest and not to participate in other parts. The dissolution of the Soviet Union forced the successor states to create a trade regime. Initially, they turned to one another not to disrupt trade any more than needed. However, Russia carried most of the financial burden of the initial arrangements and started to push for bilateral agreements. The others followed this example, but were careful not to commit too much sovereignty in these agreements. At a later stage, sub-regional agreements substituted for the CIS framework as well. The CIS states remained ambivalent, however, to submit too much sovereignty, whereas Russia formally stayed out of the multilateral free trade agreements altogether. The countries did work together multilaterally and committed themselves to these agreements where it concerned specific issues. In this paper, we look for causes of the myriad of agreements in the actual economic developments. We will therefore present and discuss the major trade agreements with economic arguments. We will also briefly discuss the developments in the volume and direction of trade. Although we expect the gradual improvement of the agreements and the ‘rationalisation’ of the complex arrangement, we do not foresee a consolidated ‘hard’ multilateral framework in the short or even medium term.trade agreements, economic integration, CIS
Flexicurity in the European Union: flexibility for outsiders, security for insiders
Full text linkFlexicurity is at the heart of European policy debates. Its aim is to overcome the tensions between labour market flexibility on the one hand, and the provision of social security for workers on the other hand. To date, there is little insight into whether flexicurity policies have been adopted across the European Union. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse to what extent labour market policies have been reformed along the lines of the flexicurity concept across 18 European countries over the period 1985-2008. Focusing on the main axes of the flexicurity concept, new datasets are used to examine changes in employment protection legislation, unemployment benefits and active labour market policies. Data on the strictness of employment regulation indicate that reforms have been influenced by labour market insiders, since the level of flexibility has been increased more for temporary employment, the labour market outsiders, than for regular employment, the insiders. Although gross unemployment replacement rates suggest that unemployment benefits have become more generous, net replacement rates indicate that the level of income security from benefits actually has been decreased. Moreover, data illustrate that larger shares of European labour forces have temporary contracts. As such, the gap between insiders and outsiders on the labour market has been increased. This development is contrary to the goals of the European Commission.Flexicurity, insider-outsider theory, labour market policy, welfare state, political economy
Tracking the Household Income of SSDI and SSI Applicants
Full text linkUsing panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation linked to Social Security Administration disability determination records we trace the pattern of household income and the sources of that income from 38 months prior to 39 months following application for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI). We find that the average applicant’s labor earnings declines dramatically beginning six month before application but the average applicant’s household income drops much less dramatically both in the months just before or just after application and over the next three years, and does so even for those denied benefits. However, we also found substantial heterogeneity in household income outcomes in both the SSDI and SSI applicant population. Our quantile regressions suggest that higher income households experience greater percentage declines in their post-application income. Such results are consistent with the lower replacement rate for higher earners established in the SSDI program and the low absolute level of protection provided to all SSI applicants regardless of income prior to application.
Sibling-Linked Data in the Demographic and Health Surveys
Full text linkThis paper highlights an aspect of the enormous and little-exploited potential of the Demographic and Health Surveys, namely the use of data on siblings. Such data can be used to control for family-level unobserved heterogeneity that might confound the relationship of interest and to study correlations in sibling outcomes. These uses are illustrated with examples. The paper ends with a discussion of potential problems associated with the sibling data being derived from retrospective fertility histories of mothers.siblings, unobserved heterogeneity, retrospective fertility histories, state dependence, DHS, India.
Frame-of-reference bias in subjective welfare regressions
Full text linkPast research has found that subjective questions about an individuals'economic status do not correspond closely to measures of economic welfare based on household income or consumption. Survey respondents undoubtedly hold diverse ideas about what it means to be"poor"or"rich."Further, this heterogeneity may be correlated with other characteristics, including welfare, leading to frame-of-reference bias. To test for this bias, vignettes were added to a nationally representative survey of Tajikistan, in which survey respondents rank the economic status of the theoretical vignette households, as well as their own. The vignette rankings are used to reveal the respondent's own scale. The findings indicate that respondents hold diverse scales in assessing their welfare, but that there is little bias in either the economic gradient of subjective welfare or most other coefficients on covariates of interest. These results provide a firmer foundation for standard survey methods and regression specifications for subjective welfare data.Rural Poverty Reduction,Housing&Human Habitats,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Lines,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems
Economic Literacy: An International Comparison
Full text linkThis article uses international panel data on 55 countries from 1995 to 2008, merging indicators of economic literacy with a large set of macroeconomic and institutional variables. Results show that there is substantial heterogeneity of financial and economic competence across countries, and that human capital indicators (PISA test scores and college attendance) are positively correlated with economic literacy. Furthermore, inhabitants of countries with more generous social security systems are generally less literate, lending support to the hypothesis that the incentives to acquire economic literacy are related to the amount of resources available for private accumulation. Copyright � 2010 TheAuthor(s). The Economic Journal � 2010 Royal Economic Society.
Some aspects of labour market flows in New Zealand 1986-2001
No full textIt is now commonplace to study labour market dynamics using flows data from labour force panel surveys. The analysis of labour market flows to and from the states of employment, unemployment and non-participation has received most attention. This paper considers some New Zealand aspects of these flows with particular reference to concepts, descriptive features, the behavioural responses implied by the Markov approach to modelling labour market transitions, a brief literature review and some preliminary econometric results on the trend and cyclical features of New Zealand's gross flows
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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