Framing public policy: The impacts of political sophistication and nature of public policy

This empirical research investigates how political sophistication moderates framing effects on public opinion and attitudes. It explores when framing effects occur and who could be immune to such framing. Experimental results with multivariate analyses indicate that political sophistication enhances or reduces framing effects in shaping public views and stances, subject to the nature of public policy. When a public policy is promoted that is perceived as an easy issue, framing effects are significant for individuals who are less politically sophisticated. Alternatively, when a hard issue is presented, opposite results are observed. Framing effects are insignificant in promoting an ideological issue regardless of a person's political sophistication.     

The impact of racially disproportionate outcomes on public policy: The U.S. Senate and the death penalty

The implementation of particular public policies may infringe upon important civil rights of citizens. This article explores the relationship between the racially disproportionate effects of the death penalty and a subsequent attempt in the U.S. Senate to provide racial justice protection. While the most important explanatory factors of a senator's behavior are their political philosophy and the state homicide rate the findings also indicate that racially disproportionate outcomes under capital punishment in the senator's state are negatively associated with the probability that the senator will support racial justice protection. We discuss the importance of these findings.     

The impact of residential placement on child development: research and policy implications

The accumulated knowledge on the development of children in residential settings covers a lot of ground but leaves a great deal unturned. The article summarises what is known about child development in the context of residential settings and concludes that there is little evidence to draw on to make clear recommendations about what types of children are likely to benefit from what types of residential settings. It maintains that, in the absence of evidence, policy and practice regarding residential care often has been guided by ideology. Residence has become a place of last resort for young people who cannot receive the support and/or safety they need from their own families or from foster families, or who pose a danger to others. The article calls for more rigorous evaluations of the impact of residence on child outcomes as well as concerted efforts to apply research evidence to policy and practice.     

Flexible public policy: The case of the United States wheat sector

This paper tests the proposition that flexible policy rules that tie program instrument settings to changes in market conditions can improve economic welfare compared to the prevailing practice in the United States of setting agricultural policy instruments at fixed levels once every 4 years. Flexible policy rules are obtained for the U.S. wheat sector using stochastic control methods. A constraint structure representing producer and consumer behavior and a policy criterion function representing society's weighting of various groups are estimated. It is shown that the flexible policy rules developed in this paper outperform historic policy instrument settings across a wide spectrum of economic conditions.     

The impact of international migration on the public pension system: The case of Portugal

This article analyses the impact of replacement migration on the financial sustainability of the old‐age pension system in Portugal, a country with one of the largest ageing populations in Europe. We do this using demographic forecasts and prospective exercises for the evolution of the Portuguese economy. During the 2015–2060 period, our results evidence the positive impacts of international migration on old‐age pension system financial balances, reaching over 3 per cent of GDP after 2045. Moreover, even when taking into considering the low dynamics for the Portuguese economy, replacement migration is an important input to improve pension system financial sustainability.     

The economic policy mix, policy cooperation, and protectionism: Some aspects of macroeconomic interdependence among the United States, Japan, and other OECD countries

In this paper we examine the macroeconomic interdependence of Japan and the United States using the McKibbin-Sachs global (MSG) simulation model of the world economy. Our goal is to determine how shifts in macroeconomic policies in the United States or Japan affect the other country as well as the rest of the world. In particular, we examine the following three issues: (1) the likely macroeconomic ramifications for the United States, Europe, and Japan of significant budget cuts in the United States; (2) the macroeconomic implications of a protectionist tariff imposed by the United States; and (3) the scope for policy coordination among the United States, Japan, and Europe.     

The impact of migration on women and the family: research,policy and programme issues in developing countries

"In the context of the pervasive invisibility of migrant women in the standard data collection, policy-making and planning processes, this paper seeks to review some of the major trends and patterns of female migration in developing countries; identify some important research priorities, and to delineate some of the areas in which policies and programmes might be framed so as to assist or change the impact of migration on women and the family. In the discussion of the relevance of these issues to national services and community organisation are emphasised as priority action programmes."     

The impact of euro Area monetary policy on Central and Eastern Europe

This paper investigates the effects of a euro area monetary policy shock on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE). We use shadow rates as a proxy for the monetary policy stance and propose a novel way of treating euro area countries in a multi-country framework. More specifically, our approach allows to place sign restrictions on both euro area aggregate and single member states’ quantities. This procedure fully takes cross-country heterogeneity within the euro area into account and leads to shocks that are economically consistent between both layers of aggregation. Our results show that prices and output fall in response to the euro area monetary tightening, both within the euro area and the CESEE region but to a varying degree. The revealed cross-country heterogeneity in the size of the effects emphasizes the usefulness and importance of our empirical approach.     

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.     

The impact of information technology on public access to social science databases

An examination of four trends in American society and their impact on public libraries, librarians and public access to information. The trends examined include: the rapid increase in the availability of microcomputers; the existence of a telecommunications network; the tendency for more information to appear in machine-readable form; and an increase in the number of individuals familiar with and inclined to utilize machine-readable data files.     

The value of a name: Estimating the economic impact of public land designation

Public land designations have been shown to have significant impact on their contextual regional economies. This paper reviews the existing literature on how public lands impact the proximate regional economies in which they are situated. Based on this collected wisdom the paper synthesizes past lessons into a comprehensive impact methodology. This methodology distinguishes quality effects in terms of visitors’ willingness to pay for sites of higher quality and quantity effects in terms of additional visitation to such sites to give a more comprehensive methodology for characterizing visitation and economic impact of protected area designation. We focus on National Monuments and National Parks, given that these two types of public lands have the broadest popular exposure and feature the most reliable data. A case study is then presented for a hypothetical protected area in Ferry County, Washington, USA, applying this new methodology to assess the likely economic effects of different types of protected areas.     

Tentative evaluation of the impact of public transfers on the dynamics of poverty: The case of Russia

The aim of this article is to offer a dynamic impact analysis of the system of transfers in Russia, based on a comparison of indicators of well‐being measured before and after state intervention. We shall begin by assessing the impact of public transfers on different forms of poverty and demonstrate that, while the system is seeing a fall in chronic and transitional poverty, there is very little movement between categories. We shall then evaluate the capacity of the system to keep non‐poor households from falling into poverty (protection) and to help poor households escape poverty (promotion). Several studies suggest that the Russian system of transfers is well suited to protection but has proved incapable of attaining the goal of promotion. In other words, in its current form it cannot claim to be an effective tool to combat long‐term poverty.     

颐和园对中国"硅谷"发展的战略影响

顺应世界知识经济发展的态势,1999年,有中国"硅谷"之称的北京中关村地区又被赋予了新的历史使命,即建成对全国具有重大影响和带动作用的高新技术产业发展示范基地,成为世界一流的科技园区.在园区发展总体规划中,世界文化遗产颐和园被划人中心区,与其核心中关村西区相距3公里,遥相呼应,古老文明和现代文明走到了一起.     

Perspectives on engaging the public in the ethics of emerging biotechnologies: from salmon to biobanks to neuroethics

In anticipation of increasing interest in public engagement, this article seeks to expand the current discussion in the neuroethics literature concerning what public engagement on issues related to neuroscience might entail and how they could be envisioned. It notes that the small amount of available neuroethics literature related to public engagement has principally discussed only communication/education or made calls for dialogue without exploring what this might entail on a practical level. The article links across three seemingly disparate examples-salmon, biobanks, and neuroethics-to consider and clarify the need for public engagement in neuroscience.     

The asymmetric impact of the pandemic crisis on interest rates on public debt in the Eurozone

The outbreak of Covid-19 has played the role of a ‘game changer’ in the way countries of the Eurozone have faced the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis. This paper investigates what has happened to the interest rates of the sovereign bond in selected countries of the Eurozone during 2020. While the pandemic crisis can be interpreted as a symmetric shock, we found some important asymmetric consequences both in the sovereign bond market and the credit default swap market. Even though the European Central Bank (ECB) has played a fundamental role in easening tensions, especially with the announce of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), countries with a higher pre-Covid level of the debt-to-GDP ratio have been found to undergo a significant jump in interest rates and a greater perceived risks of default. Important policies implications emerge in relation to the future role of the ECB.     

The impact of policy measures and coaching on the availability and accessibility of early child care: A longitudinal study

We conducted a study of changes in the availability, accessibility and enrolment of children from low‐income, single‐parent and ethnic minority families in early child care centres. The study was carried out in Brussels which offers unique possibilities to study accessibility in a context in which quality and costs are controlled across centres. A survey on access policies in 89 day care centres, and on 150 mothers regarding their search process, was complemented by two focus groups attended by centre directors. The results were compared with data from a similar study we conducted in 2005. The results show that while inequality in availability has remained, centre directors' awareness of social priority criteria has changed, resulting in a significant increase in the enrolment of children from single‐parent and ethnic minority families, and – to a lesser extent – an increase in the enrolment of children from low‐income families. The results support the hypothesis that policy measures, combined with support, can influence inequalities in enrolment rates.