The Multicultural Welfare State: International Experience and North American Narratives

Contemporary debates are increasingly pessimistic about the impact of ethnic diversity on support for the welfare state. A growing number of analysts argue that greater ethnic diversity in Western democracies is weakening public support for redistribution, and that this underlying tension is exacerbated by the adoption of robust multiculturalism policies. The purpose of this essay is to summarize early findings from several studies that bear on the questions at the heart of such debates. These studies analyse the implications of immigration and multiculturalism policies for the welfare state across OECD countries, and also focus more closely on the experience of two distinctively multicultural countries, the United States and Canada. The evidence points to more complex relationships than often assumed. OECD countries with large foreign‐born populations have not had more difficulty in sustaining their welfare states than other countries. The extent of change does seem to matter, however, as countries in which immigrant communities grew rapidly between 1970 and the late 1990s did experience lower rates of growth in social spending. But despite the warnings of some critics, robust multiculturalism policies do not systematically exacerbate this tension. Moreover, the United States and Canada reflect different patterns. In the US racial diversity does weaken support for redistribution; but Canadian experience suggests that immigration, multiculturalism policies and redistribution can represent a stable political equilibrium. These contrasting narratives from North America stand as a warning against premature conclusions based on the US experience alone. There is no inevitability at work, and policy choices do seem to matter.     

An international trade model to capture linkages among supply-constrained economies

The development of a country's domestic and international markets depends on its own actions as much as on those of its trading partners. The study of market linkages is thus vital for policy making. Borrowing from the conceptual framework of Leontief's input-output analysis and from the national accounts equation, this paper presents a new model to calculate multilateral trade multipliers while minimizing data requirements. The novelty of the approach consists in the column-wise (supply-oriented) normalization of trade as opposed to the row-wise (demand-oriented) normalization that prevails in the literature. The explanatory power of the model has been successfully tested on data that refer to 1973–1974. Divergence from reality inevitably reflects the great fluidity that characterized trade during that period. Although most successful when applied to trade among supply-oriented economies (such as those of socialist or developing countries), at present empirical tests have been run only for a handful of OECD and OPEC countries.     

How effective are countercyclical policy tools in mitigating the impact of financial and economic crises in Africa?

Using panel vector auto regression (PVAR) and GMM estimates we provide evidence for the transmission of financial crises to African economies through foreign direct investments and exports. Although many countries resort to stimulus packages to mitigate the impacts of financial crises, we find no evidence for fiscal policy to be considered an effective countercyclical policy tool in the African context. Monetary policy could be an effective tool in mitigating the impact in non-resource rich SSA countries, but not in others. Limited policy space calls for African economies to reconsider their policies towards trade, investment, finance and macroeconomic management.     

Trade, education, and innovation: Prospects for the U.S. economy

This paper examines international trade issues as vital indicators of the economic prospects of the United States and other developed economies. In particular, it challenges misuses of the doctrine of mutual gains from trade and instead argues that comparative advantage does not guarantee increases in benefits to both trading partners—especially when one partner seeks to distort the market mechanism in its favor. In the face of such mercantilist or protectionist practices, efforts to advance innovation, without retaining manufacturing jobs, will not ensure continued prosperity, as the number of jobs entailed in the invention process is small compared with the number of jobs associated with manufacturing an innovative product for mass consumption. These matters call for the urgent rethinking of trade policy by the United States and other developed nations, if they are to balance their imports and exports and ensure continued economic growth.     

Public Policy and the Effects of Media Violence on Children

Policymakers and the public have been concerned about the effects of media violence on children for decades. Scientific psychological research can be an important source of information for policy, as the goal of science is to separate facts from opinions. This article reviews children's exposure to media violence, describes theories that explain the effects media violence could have, summarizes the research on the effects of media violence exposure, and describes several moderators that can enhance or mitigate those effects. These scientific findings provide useful information for public policy, yet there are many barriers to their use, including misunderstandings of how causality is determined in scientific and public health circles and how large the effects are. Finally, the implications for public policy are discussed, including what has and has not worked in the United States, what other countries and the international community are doing, and where opportunities for new approaches for effective policies may exist.     

Global Research Integrity in Relation to the United States' Research-Integrity Infrastructure

Recent global attention to research integrity has led to international meetings and the development of international policies and guidelines. The United States's infrastructure for fostering research integrity (policy, instruction, oversight) has usefully supported these international initiatives. The United States cannot and should not, however, expect other national and global systems to match exactly its approach to research integrity.     

Paid parental leave and other supports for parents with young children: The United States in international comparison

The United States is at a crossroads in its policies for families and women. Currently, the United States provides basic support for children, fathers, and mothers in the form of unpaid parental leave, child‐related tax breaks, and limited public child care. In contrast, the other member states of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) empower families through paid parental leave and comprehensive investments in infants and children. The potential gains from strengthening these policies in the United States are enormous. Paid parental leave and subsidized child‐care help to get and keep more women in the workforce, contribute to economic growth, offer cognitive and health benefits to children, and give parents options in defining their preferred work‐life strategy. Indeed, the United States has been falling behind the rest of the OECD in many social and economic indicators by not adequately investing in children, fathers and mothers. Given the significant payoffs to these family supports, this article focuses on issues of reconciling work and care commitments for families with young children, and, in particular, on paid parental leave policies within the OECD and the United States.     

The experience of the EEC Eurolink Project in modeling bilateral trade linkage equations

Following the basic philosophical approach of the LINK Project, which links various national econometric models built in different countries, the Commission of the European Communities has succeeded in linking the full-size quarterly econometric models of the four major European countries. The Eurolink Project is being extended to cover the other EEC countries as well as the United States, Canada, and Japan. The results reported in this paper are part of this larger project which attempts to link the EEC member economies in a trade and capital flows econometric model and explain the transmission of interdependent economic fluctuations from country to country. In the present study, the interconnection between the various economies is represented by bilateral trade flows only. Flows of invisibles and of financial capital are not completely studied and are not yet ready to be included in this report.The theoretical structural model with its bilateral trade supply and demand functions and the technique employed for the construction of bilateral import and export price indices are presented. Estimation results are shown and discussed with emphasis on their use for the analysis of international trade and for policy decision making.     

Multilateralism under threat: Causes,impact, and the policy debate on government intervention in trade

Several forces fostered trade liberalization since the end of World War II. Production and trade interacted quite favorably during the period. In the past quarter century real income in the OECD economies grew at almost 4% yearly, while the volume of export increased by almost 7 percent. However, in the first half of the 1980s, the chemistry of the situation seems to have changed as protectionist tendencies developed almost everywhere in the world. The very same multilateral nature of the world trading system is under threat, as illiberal discriminatory practices are being implemented bilaterally and, even more often, unilaterally. What are the forces at play to increase the pressure towards government intervention in trade? The paper reviews (i) macroeconomic issues and policy situations, as well as (ii) structural issues concerning the working of the economic systems of industrial countries. The pressure for trade intervention in the U.S. is addressed separately with respect to Europe, given the structural and cyclical differences between the two economies The case of Japan is dealt with with reference to the alleged interrelation between Japan's international competitiveness and its macroeconomic policies. Matters of more direct concern to the LDCs are covered at the end of the paper, with emphasis placed on the restructuring process under way in response to, and as a consequence of, the external debt. The paper ends with a recommendation to all countries to make efforts to preserve and strengthen the multilateral and liberal foundations of the international trading system.     

Models of economic planning under uncertainty: A selective survey and appraisal

Uncertainty and risk have played significant roles in policy making, at the micro and macro levels, from formulation of policy models to their actual implementation in several countries. The impact of risk aversion on policy making has differedm however, both in magnitude and intensity. Thus, for less developed countries with large commodity exports, stabilization policies have played a role as important as those for income growth and employment; for centrally planned economies, the investment cycles leading to large-scale divergences of actual from planned targets in strategic sectors have led policy makers to consider the need for building adequate safety margins in the planning process. Finally, for developed economies, the applied theory of indicative planning and decentralization has stressed the various informational gaps and competing risks that may impede an efficient and cooperative solution between private and public sectors. A selective survey and appraisal of the planning methods as they relate to risk and uncertainty is attempted here for less developed, centrally planned, and developed market economies.     

US foreign aid and economic policy concessions*

Why do donors continue to provide foreign aid despite its failure to help poor countries over the past several decades? While some scholars argue that foreign aid is purely for humanitarian purposes, others assert that such aid serves as a tool to pressure recipient countries into accepting policy concessions. In this study, we subject these arguments to empirical testing using a dataset that integrates the amount of US aid and economic policies of recipient countries for 1995–2012. The findings suggest that aid decisions correspond to the interests of the United States, such as policy concessions in economic and business liberalization. However, an increase in US aid is not directly associated with further economic reforms in recipient countries. We conclude that US foreign aid programmes are strategic in nature and successful not in alleviating economic problems in recipient countries but, at the very least, in buying their policy compliance.     

Financing of health service systems: Recent developments and reforms

Health systems everywhere have been undergoing profound changes since 1980. The major OECD countries (with the exception of the United States and France) have brought their health spending under control, modified the methods for determining health sector incomes, and introduced competition and financial incentives. In eastern Europe the question of which new health systems to adopt is firmly on the agenda. In the former USSR there have been experiments similar to those carried out in the United States and the United Kingdom, while France has remained largely on the sidelines. The author considers the various options.     

Improving educational resilience in the OECD countries: Two convergent paths

While equality of opportunity in education has been studied, the literature mainly focuses on academic performance and its determinants. Thus, to help fill this gap, this paper identifies the factors that contribute to improving equality of opportunity and the policies that should be implemented to achieve it. This work is novel in various ways. First, it defines student resilience in a new way using multilevel models applied to two groups of countries. Second, it analyses the determinants of equality of opportunity in the OECD and makes economic policy recommendations. Using the PISA waves from 2003 to 2018, our results show that uniform economic policies should not be pursued across all OECD countries. While countries in the relatively poor group need economic policies that boost per student expenditure, countries in the richer group should prioritise human capital via teacher salary. In other words, in the richer countries, it is not the level of expenditure that matters but how it is spent. Our results also demonstrate the importance of soft skills for the equality of opportunity of students in all cases. Thus, we recommend designing education policies aimed at developing these skills.     

OECD国家家庭福利政策实践与启示

家庭福利政策作为OECD国家政策体系的有机组成部分,在稳定家庭功能、提高家庭福祉等方面发挥了重要作用。税收优惠是国外家庭福利供给的主要手段,美国近一半的家庭福利、日本近40%的家庭福利来自税收优惠。在经济体制深刻变革、社会结构深刻变动、利益格局深刻调整、思想观念深刻变化的形势下,我国传统家庭功能正在经受严重冲击,家庭互助、家庭照料、社会融合等婚姻家庭新问题不断凸显。文中系统梳理近20个OECD国家的家庭税收优惠措施,提出在我国工薪所得税中率先探索家庭税收优惠政策,提高家庭发展能力。     

Global policy optimization and the exchange-rate regime

The international coordination of macroeconomic policies is apt to be imperfect. Therefore, exchange-rate regimes can be compared by asking whether they allow individual governments to achieve their national objectives without coordination. This question is pursued in a model containing two large industrial countries and many small less-developed countries. The model starts and ends in a stationary state, and governments are well behaved; they do not try to push their economies away from long-run equilibrium. But they have views about the appropriate path back to equilibrium following a shock and use their monetary policies to reach it. When both large countries do so independently, they can wind up in a less than optimal situation, and coordination is needed to extract them from it. The character of the outcome depends on both the nature of the shock and the exchange-rate regime. But pegged rates dominate floating rates in several cases, in that they obviate the need for coordination, and floating rates never dominate pegged rates. Thus, floating rates do not facilitate decentralized policy making but call for coordination more frequently than do pegged rates.     

Work, welfare and the attack on the welfare state: the mixing of politics and policy

This article considers the current ideological and political attack against the floor of benefits for poor families in the United States. It examines a number of punitive approaches to the treatment of families on welfare that were developed in the United States in the late 1980s and the 1990s and contends that such policies will not effectively deter the dysfunctional behavior of some of the poor. Rather these policy developments reflect an attack on current national policies of developing an income maintenance floor that seeks to economically sustain poor families, albeit often inadequately. The article contends that current welfare proposals by conservatives and social liberals are not satisfactory for dealing with the problems of the welfare poor and offers suggestions for dealing with these deficits. It also notes that criticisms of welfare state protection for the poor raised in the United States are much more categorical than those raised in Sweden.     

The analytic foundation of international economic modeling at the OECD

This article describes the OECD Secretariat's international linkage model, INTERLINK, built to assist various tasks, including the production of baseline international projections, the establishment and maintenance of international consistency of these projections, and the production of alternative projections and policy scenarios. It is thus concerned with the theory of the method of international forecasting and policy analysis, rather than the theory of forecasting itself. The article is divided into sections, which discuss the reasons for international economic modeling at OECD, the main tasks performed by the model, the technical requirements that it needs to satisfy, its present structure, and the experience with it.     

Sickness and disability benefit programmes: What is driving policy convergence?

In this paper we explore the reasons for the apparent convergence in sickness and disability policies across the OECD, asking whether and to what extent policy convergence should be seen as a product of policy learning. We conclude that convergence is the result of policy imitation more than policy learning and that learning (from past mistakes) is more likely within countries than across borders. Given limited evidence on what really "works", when it comes to designing policies that both provide adequate income security and still encourage labour-force participation, governments look abroad or to bodies like the OECD for possible models and ideas to underlie a reform. However, translating those ideas into workable policies requires great sensitivity to the institutional and political-economic context — especially the role of the social partners and the nature of policies in existence. When it comes to policy implementation, such contextual learning may be crucial.     

A quantification of lobbying benefits with an application to the common agricultural policy

We employ an empirical general equilibrium model of the CAP to determine which factors and countries would be expected to be opposed to or support reform of the CAP. The objective is to determine who are the “friends” and “enemies” of the CAP. The analysis studies the extent to which lobbying activity by these interested parties could be expected to encourage or discourage internal EU reform of the CAP. Several alternative policies to reform the CAP are evaluated in this manner in order to determine if one or another set of policies has a greater chance of being accepted. Specifically, we study the Uruguay Round Agreement, as well as a number of stated negotiating positions presented during the Round. The result will be a summary assessment of the relative politico-economic acceptability of these reform proposals within the EU. Our results lead to a very simple policy conclusion. Given the set of policy packages considered here, there is little doubt that the EU was most inclined to adopt a proposal incorporating compensation payments. Without further disaggregation of the analysis to identify the United States or Japan, we can only note that such a proposal is also the best as far as overall welfare goes for the rest of the world. Our results confirm the importance of sidepayments in the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement.     

Sickness and disability policies: Reform paths in OECD countries between 1990 and 2014

We analysed sickness and disability policies for the working‐age population in a number of OECD countries, between the years 1990 and 2014. Existing evidence suggests that there has been a broad shift in focus from passive income maintenance to employment incentives and reintegration policies. We have updated detailed policy scores provided by the OECD to estimate model‐based country clusters. Our results indicate that countries have pursued different types of reforms consisting of a combination of integration and compensation measures. The reforms of recent decades have led to the emergence of a distinct cluster of Northern and Continental European countries characterised by a combination of strong employment‐oriented policies and comparatively high social protection levels. An analysis of recent reforms shows a continued expansion of measures that foster employment as well as instances of retrenchment in the compensation dimension. Diversity of policy settings across country groups, however, remains substantial.