Weaving nets: Housing and leadership in two Italian cities

As part of local welfare in Italy, housing policies underwent reforms that emphasized the role of local governments—and cities in particular—in the definition of the problem and in the elaboration of possible solutions. Housing is quite neglected in the political debate, but it is increasingly important for responding to citizens' demands in times of economic crisis. This paper reconstructs the policy process in two Italian cities, Turin (1997–2011) and Florence (1995–2011). The paper argues that policy change in housing can be fostered by a local political leadership that invests ideational, relational, and positional resources in policy making to spread new ideas, build networks of public and private actors at the local level, and attract fiscal resources while taking advantage of windows of opportunity at different institutional levels. Moreover, collaboration with local bureaucratic leadership proves fundamental to promoting innovative policies.     

Dollar appreciation,deficit stimulation,and the new protectionism

This article probes whether contemporary U.S. protectionism arises from an appreciating dollar. It concludes that (a) an enrich-thy-neighbor policy of upvaluation has transformed the current U.S. economic recovery into an engine of global recovery; (b) flexible exchange rates continually equilibrate the balance of payments as evidenced in changed domestic—relative to foreign—prices, as well as in capital movements induced by interest-rate differentials resulting from exchange-rate shifts; and (c) flexible exchange rates automatically alter so as to maintain a country's competitive position in the world economy even when facing deficits at home and abroad.     

The microeconomics of distribution: A simulation of the farm economy

A simulation model that incorporates both production and consumption behavior of farm households in Taiwan is presented. The model is used to analyze the effects of policy instruments (price supports, minimum wages, taxes, subsidies, demographic policies, and land and capital redistribution) on the aggregate values of the endogenous variables of the system—the supplies of output and labor, the demands of factors and consumption, income and expenditure—and their distribution among households. The model differs from other simulation models in that it is based on microsimulation, in which the joint distribution of individual household characteristics such as farm-specific prices, initial endowments of land and capital, and numbers of workers and dependents, is explicitly taken into account. As a result, the model is capable of capturing the distributional as well as aggregate impacts of policy changes.     

Four Problems of the SCO in Connection with Its Enlargement

One of the main issues facing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is its enlargement. Traditionally, this issue has been viewed in terms of practical policy. The longer this dispute over enlargement drags on, however, the greater the depth it acquires. The enlargement debate reflects the unique political culture of the SCO. Another issue well-known from other organizations also arises—“different levels” in the admission of new participants. But the question of the organization’s future is emerging in discussions of enlargement as the main matter in dispute: is it to be a global future (as Russia is more inclined to see it) or a regional future (as China is more inclined to see it)? Thus, the SCO faces one of the most important conflicts of today’s world—that between globalization and regionalization. While debates about these trends and the relationship between them continue in the political, economic, and social sciences, the SCO has to make a practical choice in favor of one of the trends or find a way to combine them in determining its work priorities. The authors reformulate the issue of enlargement as a problem of finding a balance between globalizing and regionalizing trends in the SCO strategy. At the practical level this will make it possible to reconcile the basic interests of Russia and China in Eurasia.     

Probation Partnerships, Voluntary Action and Community Justice

Having been offered — and prepared to accept — a “centre-stage”role in the operation of the criminal justice system as recently as 1991, the Probation Service in England and Wales seems increasingly to be marginalized by politicians who, in a more punitive climate, have changed their minds about what is expected of it. As a probation spokesperson has recently said: “the big vision has gone”. One strand of policy which the Probation Service was expected to develop in 1991 was increased partnership with voluntary organizations, but, although progress has been made, it is a policy about which the Service has been very ambivalent, fearing that it may lead in the longer term to privatization of their work. This paper will outline the origins and implications of the policy, note how some local Services have so far responded to it, and suggest that, if pursued in certain fields of activity, partnership could contain an alternative vision to the one that has been lost.     

Devolution and Centralism in the National Health Service

The reforms to the NHS following the White Paper, Working for Patients, were presented by the Conservative government as promoting devolution, defined as “decisions … taken at the lowest possible level” by Douglas Hurd (1991) — reflecting a senior Minister's interpretation of the overall policy agenda, including health. It was further claimed that such policies (“reforms in hospitals, in schools and in housing”) were a way to “empower citizens”. This approach was naturally an attempt to present the Conservatives' policy as pro-community and ‘practical’ rather than ‘ideological’ or free-market obsessed. It is worth renewing the debate about whether power and/or responsibility were devolved in the NHS — or, indeed, to the NHS from the Department of Health. Rudolf Klein, in the first edition of his The Politics of the National Health Service (1983), had no sooner pointed to the ‘devolution’ inherent in the 1982 reorganization of the NHS (based on the document Patients First (HMSO, 1981) when the Griffiths Inquiry recommendations were accepted. As a result, he was soon to observe that the pendulum — at that time — had quickly swung back to centralism, an observation reiterated after a few years when The Politics of the National Health Service came out in its second edition (Klein, 1989). In other words, there may be a cycle from centralism to devolution and back, or at least an interpretation of events as such in health policy, which makes a current reassessment timely. Which direction did the NHS Act of 1990 and related initiatives embody?     

Experimenting with Welfare Reform: Emulating Success,Cutting Costs,or Racing to the Bottom?*

This article calls upon the social scientific research community to systematically assess policy devolution within American federalism through the lens of welfare reform. It asks specifically whether the benefits of policy devolution in this area—the opportunity to learn from policy experiments in similar states and the ability to tailor policies to individual state circumstances—outweigh the costs of devolution—possible racial biases across the states, incentives for cutting costs, and fears of a race to the bottom in benefits and eligibility criteria. A scientific research agenda for addressing these issues is developed. The contribution of De Jong et al. (2006) is assessed in terms of its advancement of this agenda. A path toward future contributions to this agenda is suggested.     

Rent seeking and the North-South terms of trade

In this paper results are reported for a series of counterfactual experiments with an eight- region numerical general equilibrium model of world trade, production, and welfare. In these analyses trade restrictions in the developing world are modeled as quantity constrained import licensing, which generates competitive rent-seeking behavior. Model experiments concentrate on the implications of differential factor endowment growth for the North-South terms of trade, and the effects of alternative trade policy changes in developing countries.     

Changes in the world income distribution

Drawing on new international comparison estimates for 127 nations, this study examines in some detail for the decinnial years 1950–1980 the world size distribution of income. Different income concepts—national output valued in different ways, and also consumption alone; and income per-equivalent adult as well as per capita—have been considered in judging how world inequality has changed. The principal findings are: (i) at a point in time, the intercountry differences in income—differences among nations—are greater than the usually observed intracountry differences in income—differences within nations; and (ii) over time systematic differences in national economic growth rates of countries led on balance to very slightly increased intercountry inequality (quite possible not beyond the margin of measurement error) but that (and this judgment is quite tentative) the changes in intracountry inequality over time have left inequality in the overall distribution unchanged.     

Exchange rate policies simulated by means of a disequilibrium model of the Finnish economy

In this paper a model for the Finnish economy with disequilibrium in the goods and financial markets is specified and estimated by single equation methods. The transmission mechanisms of the model are studied in the framework of various devaluation simulations. The model is very sensitive, especially with respect to the prevailing credit market regime and possible regime changes. Policy effects are not so much affected by conditions in the goods market, assuming moderate policy shocks. These considerations suggest the importance in policy planning of identifying the regimes prevailing in the markets.     

Social administration revisited: Traditions of observational fieldwork and their value

This article revisits traditions of observational fieldwork inside welfare institutions which formed a core part of past social administration teaching and research in the United Kingdom. Drawing on archive materials, a historical exploration of journal contents and some supplementary interview data, it is argued that such approaches—though carried out in a less theoretically pluralist, more vocationally‐oriented time for the subject of social policy and administration—were at the same time valuable in facilitating critical perspectives on how welfare bureaucracies work. Their popularity is potentially rising once again in social policy teaching. Where cultivated alongside an appreciation of theory and where carefully integrated into university social policy departments' wider pedagogical and curricular strategies, they may be of benefit today to students and more senior scholars alike.     

School Choice in London and Paris – A Comparison of Middle‐class Strategies

Education is one major public service in which quasi‐markets and other choice‐based mechanisms are now established methods of delivery. The types of school people choose, and the extent to which their choices are realized, have a fundamental impact on the outcomes of any mechanism of school choice. In this article, we provide a comparative analysis of the school choice strategies of middle‐class families in London and Paris. We draw on approximately 200 in‐depth interviews carried out across the two cities. This enables us to investigate the extent to which middle‐class school choice strategies transcend the institutional context provided by both the local (state and private) schools market and national education policy in England and France. We discuss these findings in the context of current school choice policy and consider their implications for future policy design.     

Interest rate policies and inflation in interdependent economies: Recent policy dilemmas

This paper examines Federal Reserve Board policies that are premised on a negative short-run association of interest rate movements and the rate of inflation. In particular, econometric evidence is provided, supporting the view that tighter monetary policy appears to raise inflation rates in the short run. Conversely, it is demonstrated that easier monetary policy does not necessarily raise inflation rates in the short run. In the case of uncoordinated monetary restrictiveness, interest rate competition among major countries can produce higher inflation and lower growth than was originally intended.     

Economic evaluation of an agricultural sector investment program: A case study for Peru

An evaluation of a sector-wide investment program differs in important respects from an evaluation of an individual project. First, the program as a whole is likely to have more than a marginal effect on production and trade levels and other variables, and so the returns to any one project depend on which other projects are included in the program. Therefore the evaluation of all projects in the program must be carried out jointly. Second in many cases Policy makers may judge alternative program designs according to a multiplicity of criteria, explicitly or implicity. Hence the project identification stage of work is more useful if it takes into account the multiple criteria. This paper reports an experience in constructing and applying a model for the design and evaluation of a sector-wide agricultural investment program. Emphasis is placed on the ways in which such a model may be used. In the course of the applications discussed here, policy makers' preference weights among alternative goals were elicited, but even without such information a model-based exercise can be helpful in the design of a sector investment program.     

Examining Reports and Policies on Cognitive Enhancement: Approaches,Rationale, and Recommendations

The phenomenon of cognitive enhancement is attracting attention in bioethics literature and beyond, in public policy. In response, three bodies—the British Medical Association (BMA); the Commission de l'éthique de la Science et de la technologie (CEST) du Québec; the American Academy of Neurology (AAN)—have produced reports and guidance on this topic. To gain insights into different public policy approaches, rationales, and recommendations on the topic, we analyzed these reports in depth. We found convergence on the definition (with the exception of the CEST) of cognitive enhancement. However, we noted a lack of critical reflection with respect to the underlying rationale for developing these reports, i.e., that cognitive enhancement practices are rampant and represent major social changes. As it currently stands, cognitive enhancement is constituted in a way that challenges the creation of coherent and effective policy recommendations. However, policy makers should not simply wait for definitional consensus and hope that on balance the benefits turn out to be greater than the risks. Some components of cognitive enhancement could be reduced down to clearly identified policy targets to be further examined. Then, if appropriate, policy should be created that is, amongst other criteria, beneficial to the majority of the population.     

Simulation of a debtor country: The example of Colombia

A dynamic model, illustrated on Colombian data, simulates the functioning of an open economy under specified parametric conditions and selected policy scenarios. Unlike the usual two-sector models, the rate of growth of GDP is generated endogenously. Whereas related models perform sensitivity analysis for variations in parameters our procedure makes n possible to simulate policy alternatives under balance-of-payments pressure. The simulations explore the implications of policy options when debt services on inherited and new foreign indebtedness act as constraints on the debtor's growth, especially when new external borrowing is limited.     

Commodity market stabilization: A comparison of simple and optimal intervention strategies in the world copper market

With the publication of the Brandt Report, international commodity policy has again become an important issue. Commodity stabilization agreements have been proposed as a means of stabilizing producers' incomes and/or redistributing wealth to less developed economies. This paper examines, in the context of a single market, the extent to which prices can be stabilized, the potential costs of such a scheme, and whether this redistribution would be achieved. By comparing the bandwidth rules that have been proposed with optimal stabilization rules, we find that significant stabilization is possible but expensive and that bandwidth rules are likely to prove inadequate because they cannot anticipate.     

Chinese Perceptions of the Scandinavian Social Policy Model

This paper highlights the stereotypical images characteristic of Chinese social research on the Scandinavian model. How do Chinese commentators explain the development of the Scandinavian social policy model and how do they assess it? Is it deemed morally sound and sustainable? Reasons for the contrasts of interpretation between Chinese and Scandinavian authors are categorized along two dimensions. There are “missing elements”, typically the notions of social solidarity and social citizenship, which tend to be ignored by Chinese writers though underscored by Scandinavian writers. There are also “added elements”, generated from Chinese contexts, which affect Chinese interpretations of the Scandinavian model. The study argues that since each welfare regime type is possessed of its own normative codes, supported by its own particular social order, it is necessary to decode such elements—especially cultural notions of welfare—to appreciate the points of view being expressed.     

Perception of and Responses to Disasters

This article investigates the possible connections between the different aspects of disasters and how people perceive the gravity of the situation and their tendency to respond to it. The amount of money given by individuals and organizations as a result of fund-raising campaigns is used as an indicator of the perception of disasters in the potential donor population. Drawing on the data from the fund-raising campaigns of three Norwegian non-governmental organisations involved in three disasters (the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, December 2004; the Kashmir earthquake, October 2005; and the Sudanese/Darfur conflict) the article argues that the public response to disasters is only weakly related to the magnitude of the disasters. The factors that can influence the perception of and reactions to disasters and implications for relief work are discussed.     

Social Justice and the Reform of Social Security

There have been massive increases over the years in expenditure on the public services loosely grouped together as the “welfare state”, but widespread dissatisfaction persists. This article is a critique of the proposals for reform presented in the Report of the Commission on Social Justice, set up by the late John Smith. The report contains a sweeping condemnation of existing arrangements and puts forward a series of recommendations ranging from the health service to decentralization in government and from employment policy to benefits for the elderly. As was perhaps inevitable, some are more precisely presented than others. An important example of the more fully specified proposals is one to establish what would, in effect, be a means-tested “pension guarantee”but with “means”so defined as to exclude capital and with much improved “disregards”. Another is the endorsement of the proposals to extend social insurance to part-time workers—a proposal which raises some controversial issues. There is much in this report that deserves close attention, and it is, therefore, all the more unfortunate that its proposals are not presented in the form of a quantified plan for social policy. Even for the first five years or so of the fifteen the Commission has in mind, there is no attempt at quantification. The importance of economic growth is rightly stressed, but “faster growth”can become a panacea that obscures the need for choice, not only between private and public expenditure but also between the various components of public policy itself.