The People Shall Rule by Fisher,R. (Ed)

ABSTRACT

Meals Made Easy was introduced as an interactive group cooking program at a food bank to help food bank clients learn to prepare economical and nutritious meals. Cognitive behavior strategies were used to alter their prevailing negative attitudes about participating in an on site cooking program, and to overcome self-defeating notions about their capabilities. Self-efficacy and mutual aid were promoted through the group program. Classes were open-ended to accommodate persons with a wide range of social, mental and physical disabilities. Over a two year period, 100 clients enrolled in the program, which comprised 10 series of 3 to 6 cooking classes. Analyses of self-evaluations and an independent focus group assessment showed that the participants not only benefited by learning to prepare nutritional meals, but also by improving their self-esteem and self-efficacy.     

Central bank credibility and monetary policy in Indonesia

This paper examines the role of central bank credibility in achieving an inflation target and proposes monetary policy rules for Indonesia. Towards that end, we construct and estimate a forward-looking small scale macroeconomic model (SSMM) of the Indonesian economy by adapting the theoretical underpinnings of the well-known Batini–Haldane model, along with the Taylor policy rule. Our results indicate that it is crucial for the Indonesian central bank to bolster its credibility in order to achieve a lower inflation rate. The inflation–output volatility trade-off frontier we derived from the SSMM shows that a monetary policy rule that targets both inflation and output gaps will result in less macroeconomic volatility. We also found that the inclusion of the exchange rate into the rule as an additional feedback variable warrants consideration in the future course of monetary policy management.     

Overcoming the zero interest-rate bound: A quantitative prescription

Using a macro-econometric model we provide a quantitative estimate of the cash transfer or tax cut that would achieve recovery from a severe recession when the central bank is unable to achieve full recovery because of the zero bound. We introduce an automatic transfer and simulate its triggering in the severe recession. We find that an automatic transfer that averages 3% of quarterly GDP repeated four times (quarterly) reduces the unemployment rate an additional full percentage point and thereby completes the recovery. We recommend that legislatures enact an automatic counter-cyclical fiscal policy that will assure adequate stimulus without generating a long-term debt problem.     

Leaving the door open for “tune ups”: Challenging notions of ending working relationships in family work

The working relationship is considered a central feature of direct practice with human services clients. There are many challenges when it comes time to end a working relationship, yet limited guidance for workers on successful relationship ending. This paper aims to increase understanding of the process of the ending phase of the working relationship for parents and workers working with families where child neglect is an issue. The paper draws on data from a small‐scale qualitative Australian study of perceptions of parents, family workers, and supervisors involved in eight parent‐worker relationships. Using semistructured interviews, participants were asked to explore how they experienced the relationship. The findings illuminate important aspects about the ending phase of the relationship; in particular, challenging the idea that parents' returning to services for support is a sign that the service has not provided a successful intervention. The paper challenges social workers to consider recurring parent–worker relationships similar to other professional relationships where there are episodes of service but the relationship is there to be reactivated where needed.     

Breaking bad: an attachment perspective on youth mentoring relationship closures

Endings in youth mentoring relationships have received little attention to date despite the frequency with which they occur. In this paper, we bring an attachment theory perspective to bear on youth mentoring relationship closures and consider how the rich empirical and theoretical literature on attachment can inform mentoring programme practice and possibly help prevent premature and poorly handled mentoring relationship endings. We consider what is known about endings in youth mentoring relationships, articulate an attachment perspective on mentoring relationships and their endings and offer recommendations informed by these literatures for how mentoring programmes can promote positive closure when relationships come to an end.     

Alternative to incarceration for low‐income non‐custodial parents

Increasingly, low‐income non‐custodial parents in the USA, primarily fathers, are at risk of incarceration for failure to make child support payments, clogging the prison system, preventing already at‐risk fathers from holding a job and removing them from relationships with their children. This paper examines an innovative programme in one south‐eastern state that provides an alternative to incarceration for non‐compliant parents, also allowing fathers an opportunity to find gainful employment; to learn valuable life skills; and to establish healthier relationships with their children. Data analysis from 3 years of programme implementation suggests that low‐income non‐custodial fathers enrolled in the Alternative to Incarceration programme have a much greater chance to fulfil their obligations, both as wage earners and as parents, when they are in a programme that provides life skills, helps them find employment and provides other supports to help them improve their life situation rather than incarcerating them for non‐payment of child support. Furthermore, this programme represents a substantial cost savings to the state, as hundreds of fathers have remained outside of the prison system. To date, this alternative to incarceration is a promising solution to a previously intractable problem.     

Central banks’ priorities and the left/right partisanship of exchange rates

This study argues that when central banks subordinate all policy goals to achieving price stability greater central bank independence encourages left-wing governments to seek greater exchange rate stability. Such central bank policy priorities make the Left's preferred distributive policies more dependent on the effectiveness of fiscal policy, which under high capital mobility increases with exchange rate stability. In contrast, right-wing governments put greater emphasis on market adjustments and price stability. Hypotheses are tested by estimating the sensitivity of exchange rate variation to partisanship, central bank independence, and the salience of price stability, using a Prais-Winsten estimator and Instrumented Variables, run on pooled cross-section time-series data from 22 OECD countries during 1990-2004.     

Supporting families living with parental substance misuse: the M‐PACT (Moving Parents and Children Together) programme

The Moving Parents and Children Together (M‐PACT) programme is one of the growing number of interventions tailored to meet the multiple and complex needs of children and families affected by parental substance misuse. This paper pulls together the qualitative findings from 13 evaluated M‐PACT programmes in England. Sixty‐four families attended an M‐PACT programme, including 82 children and 75 adults. Qualitative data were collected from 37 children, 36 adults and over 30 group facilitators. Six themes are discussed: engaging with M‐PACT, shared experiences, understanding addiction, changes in communication, healthier and united families, and ending M‐PACT. The majority of families benefitted in a range of ways from the programme: meeting others who were experiencing similar problems, greater understanding about addiction and its impact on children and families improving communication within the family. In many families there was more openness and honesty, stronger relationships and more time as families, and a reduction in arguments and conflict. The key findings are discussed in terms of the potential for interventions of this kind to reduce family‐related harm from parental substance misuse.     

Effecting change in local government: local authority chief executives as emotional actors

Most change management initiatives fail. Here, we explore data which emerged from a larger research study of local authority chief executives’ subjective experiences of New Labour’s modernisation programme and argue that the route to change so often taken by central government is detrimental to the successful embedding of change within local government because it ignores fundamental human reactions to coercion and control. We demonstrate that the seeds of failure are sown in the processes adopted as much as in the content of any programme of change. A contributory factor to such failures is the apparent reliance on the part of legislators that their policies and procedures will receive a neutral reaction. We show that the reality is that legislation is responded to and enacted by people who react in ways designed to defend their own positions, irrespective of the worth of those positions. Whether seen as actors in the policy implementation process, or as agents of change, chief executives act and react emotionally. This contributes to our theoretical understanding of the policy process and the practical application of change programmes. This article will be of interest to those in central and local government who are promoting or responding to change.     

Pre- versus post-crisis central banking in Qatar

In the years before the global financial crisis of 2008–2010, Qatar experienced a huge build-up of liquidity surplus in the banking system, mainly driven by surging net capital inflows. This paper identifies various sources of interbank liquidity in Qatar and discusses the various implications of structural primary liquidity surplus for the money market in particular and the economy at large. The paper attempts to evaluate the Qatar Central Bank policy making and conduct during the pre- and post-crisis periods within a framework of the Austrian monetary overinvestment theories, and concludes that the central bank had forcibly committed several forced monetary policy mistakes, which resulted in a breakdown in the interest rate channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. This led to the inability of the central bank to control the interbank interest rate and to an accelerating inflation rate during the pre-crisis years. In contrast, a dramatic change in the central bank's monetary policy framework and a deliberate monetary policy mistake on behalf of the central bank resulted in a restoration of the interest rate channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism, stabilization of the interbank interest rate close to the central bank's policy rate and a sharp deceleration in the inflation rate in the post-crisis period. The paper concludes by offering brief policy recommendations.     

Why was the ECB’s reaction to Covid-19 crisis faster than after the 2008 financial crash?

At the time of the financial crises of 2008 and 2010–11 the ECB reacted with an extremely cautious gradualism. This behaviour is attributable to the slower learning process that characterizes a central bank of a monetary union composed of countries with fiscal sovereignty compared to other central banks. In sharp contrast to the previous crises, the ECB reacted promptly to the COVID-19 crisis. This change in behaviour is explained here by the learning process about the effects on monetary policy transmission of the increased financial fragmentation of the eurozone over the last decade.     

宏观金融博弈分析与我国货币政策实践

西方经济学界将博弈分析方法推广到金融领域取得了理论成果,尤其以宏观金融博弈分析在20世纪90年代的最新发展为主要内容.完全信息动态博弈和不完全信息动态博弈两类模型,对货币政策的连贯性与可信度以及中央银行声誉做出了重新解释,货币政策目标、货币政策操作程序、中央银行独立性及政策透明度等热点问题在我国金融体制改革实践中的作用是至关重要的.     

中国证券投资基金市场的竞争态势

开放式基金塑造并强化了中国基金市场的竞争机制,主要表现为:竞争主体和基金产品不断增多、基金扩容呈加速态势、替代竞争和潜在竞争压力增强、基金销售竞争激励。在竞争的格局下,基金业绩表现良好分红连创新高,基金业的营销手段花样翻新,在服务水平不断上升和产品创新层出不穷的同时基金费率持续走低,从而使基金业进入良性循环阶段。     

Policies and programmes to end homelessness in Australia: Learning from international practice

Parsell C, Jones A, Head B. Policies and programmes to end homelessness in Australia: Learning from international practice. Many welfare states throughout the industrialised world have recently implemented policies to achieve targeted reductions in homelessness. These policy and welfare initiatives differ across national contexts. They are similar, however, in moving away from social programmes that have essentially ‘managed homelessness’ towards interventions that seek to permanently end homelessness. Australia has recently adopted similar homelessness policy objectives. This article examines the manner in which Australian homelessness policy has been converging with international policy directions. More specifically, the article scrutinises Australian social programmes adopted from the UK and USA as a means to achieve strategic goals of reducing homelessness. It argues that although Australian homelessness policy objectives are converging with international policy, Australian programmes modelled on international successes do not have some of the elements shown elsewhere to be crucial for achieving sustainable reductions in homelessness. This may become central to explaining programme outcomes in future years. Key Practitioner Message: ?Strategies aimed at permanently ending homelessness represent a significant shift to contemporary professional practice;?Homelessness programmes internationally are now characterised by their branding or identification with evidence‐based models;?It is important to critically scrutinise these models, examining their core elements and the manner in which they are appropriated and incorporated across jurisdictions.     

中国当前的通胀与汇率问题

引起我国通胀的原因诸多，但顺差过多，央行购回美元投放基础货币是通货膨胀的主要原因。人民币主动适度升值是减少顺差、缓解通胀的有效措施。     

Codependent Cycles of Chinese Inflation

对我国通胀率、农产品价格和M2等三个变量进行相依性周期的检验与分解表明,农产品价格周期波动剧烈,在很大程度上为“圈地”等导致的粮价波动以及诸如猪肉价格暴涨暴跌等因素对农产品价格的冲击效应。阕此,将现行的粮食收购保护价改革为粮食生产保护价与销售保护价,将减弱粮价等因素对农产品价格和通胀的冲击强度。农产品价格与通胀率和M2的周期弱相依,M2与通胀率的周期强相依,它们周期成分的交点形成“梭形”,说明我国货币政策目标在抑制通胀和促进增长之间交替转换。在农产品价格周期处于基本平稳时,可实施适度宽松的货币政策刺激经济增长,但其扩张幅度应以M2的相依周期成分扩大至1．5左右为宜;在农产品价格怏速上涨或者周期成分的上升期,应以抑制农产品价格为先导,刺激经济增长的适度宽松货币政策宜延缓至农产品价格周期处于平稳或者下行期,再予以实施。     

Who returns home? Study on placement outcomes of Flemish foster children

Until recently, Flemish family foster care was a temporary measure with as its most important goal, the reunification of the foster child with the birth parents. To date, nothing is known on the number of reunifications, nor has any study been undertaken into the factors (child, parent, foster parent and foster care process) associated with reunification. Case files of 127 foster children who exited foster care in 2007 were analysed. Dependent variables were type of foster care placement outcome (reunification, successful placement without reunification or breakdown) and place of residence after placement ending (with birth parents, extended family, foster family, residential care or living independently). After placement ending, only 40% of foster children went living with their parents, including foster children who were reunified (26%) and foster children who moved to their parents after a placement breakdown (14%). Characteristics of the foster children, and in particular absence of problem behaviour, were associated mainly with a return home. This may indicate that too much attention is paid to the functioning of the foster child and too little to improving the competencies of the parents and the (future) home environment.     

Codependent Cycles of Chinese Inflation

A test and decomposition of the codependent cycles of the consumer price index (CPI), agricultural producer price index (APPI) and M2 reveals that the sharp cyclical fluctuations in agricultural producer prices largely stem from the grain price fluctuations induced by factors such as land enclosure and the impact on APP of the abrupt changes in pork prices and other factors. Therefore, changing the current policy of grain purchasing price subsidies to one of subsidies to grain production and sales will reduce the impact of grain prices and other factors on APP and inflation. The weak cyclic codependence among APP, CPI and M2, along with the strong cyclic codependence between M2 and CPI, has given rise to a “shuttle-shaped” intersection of cyclic elements. This indicates that China’s monetary policy goal has been alternating between curbing inflation and stimulating growth. When the APP cycle is basically stable, China can implement a moderately easing monetary policy to stimulate economic growth, but this must be based on a 1.5 or so margin of increase in the codependent cycle components of M2. When APP rises sharply or is in the rising phase of cycle elements, China should emphasize APP control, and should delay the moderately easing monetary policy till the APP cycle becomes stable or is in the downlink phase.     

How to be Modern: New Labour's Neoliberal Modernity and the Change for Children programme

In England the New Labour administration is seeking to embeda ‘transformational reform agenda’ within children’sservice. Social workers, among others appear, however, to bewary of the agenda which is now rhetorically rooted in the EveryChild Matters: Change for Children programme (CfC). The mainsocial work practice elements of this programme are associatedwith the introduction of a Children’s Index, a multidisciplinaryCommon Assessment Framework and the role of Lead Professional.In terms of the promotion of this programme, the governmenthas maintained that the focal aim is to create a ‘modern’children’s workforce. However, the entire ‘transformationalagenda’ can be interpreted as reflecting New Labour’sneoliberal modernity. This is particularly apparent in the termsof the ideas associated with ‘flexibility’ whichare so central to the CfC programme.     

Activation and Local Welfare in Italy: Trends and Issues

This article deals with the development of local welfare in Italy and is grounded on a research project focusing on activation as a main feature of change in Italian social policies. Along with decentralization processes, many Italian regions have been acting as policy laboratories, developing and testing very different approaches according to their political attitude. On the one hand this results in a fragmented policy landscape which is difficult to recompose, and, moreover, in growing inequalities in the Italian welfare system. On the other hand, it opens opportunities for experimentation on institutional and organizational structures on a regional scale, creating a variety of practices for research and policy analysis. In the article we first describe the main trends in national social policies, with a specific focus on the dynamics of change referring to activation. We will then focus on a pilot programme which is aiming at the promotion and implementation of innovative practices in health and social care services in Friuli‐Venezia Giulia, a region in which there is a significant orientation towards enhancing social citizenship and enforcing the central position of the public actor. We investigate how the dynamics of territorialization and personalization, implied by the programme, trigger specific logics and practices of activation. Finally, referring to this case study, we propose an analytical overview of some relevant issues in the development of ‘local active welfare’ in Italy.