Do changes in patent policy influence firms’ technology strategy? Evidence from manufacturing in India

India made patent policy changes to comply with TRIPs agreement that increased the rights of patent owners. Considering that such policy changes influence both in-house research and development investments and technology licensing from external sources, the firms have to accordingly devise their technology strategy. This study employs a simple and fixed effects multinomial logit regression models to study the impact of policy changes on the technology strategy of 402 firms operating in Indian manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2014. The results show that changes in patent policy have a significant impact on technology strategy of firms.     

The Political Role of Social Work: Grasping the Momentum of Working Through Interorganizational Networks in Belgium

ABSTRACT

This article explores how social workers deal with the ambiguity that arises from their ability to transform the private needs of individuals into issues of public concern. It is argued that the current shift towards joined-up working, which is epitomized by the creation of interorganizational networks, could encourage new opportunities for social work. These horizontal and nonhierarchical forms of cooperation serve as platforms for debate to ensure regular discussions about the causes of and potential solutions to complex societal problems. This article relies on a case-study of bottom-up networks in two Belgian cities where social workers from various policy fields voluntarily joined forces to look after hard-to-reach groups of homeless people. The primary data were obtained from document analysis, semi-structured interviews with network participants, and direct observations of network meetings. These data were analyzed by conducting a directed content analysis. The examination shows that the joint creation of welfare services leads to substantial debates among social workers about the criteria which homeless people must meet in order to be provided with welfare services and primary care. The paper shows that despite being aware of differing viewpoints by their engagement in such debates, social workers are reluctant to challenge the dominant conceptualizations underlying their own day-to-day practices, and that this impacts on the potential to induce local policymakers to take further action with regard to reducing homelessness.     

The impact of infectious diseases on remittances inflows to India

The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be grimmer when observed from the migration perspective. Remittances play a vital role in economic development of India through promoting output growth, household spending on health and education, poverty alleviation, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship. Given the importance of remittances, it is important to analyse how the current pandemic will influence the remittances inflows to India. Towards this end, the study employs a gravity model approach to the determinants of remittances with special attention to the impact of infectious diseases in the host countries. The present study constructs a dataset on bilateral remittances from 99 destination countries and utilizes the data on prevalence of infectious diseases in the host countries during the period 2000–2018 to assess the impact of the latter on the inflows of remittances to India. The results of the study based on a variety of estimators tackling various econometric issues suggest a statistically significant negative impact of prevalence of infectious diseases in the host country on the inflows of remittances. The negative impact of infectious diseases on remittances suggest that while there are downside risks in the wake of current pandemic, the scenario does not seem to be that bleak as the remittances to India are countercyclical with respect to economic growth in the home country and largely decoupled from host country macroeconomic fundamentals. As the remittances act as shock absorbers during the time of low economic growth in the home country, India must further build up a conducive eco system to nurture these valuable foreign exchange in a well directed manner.     

Dual experiences of teenage parenting and homelessness among Native Hawaiian youth: A critical interpretative phenomenological analysis

Teenage parenting is a challenging venture—particularly when parenting while homeless. The present study explores in‐depth through case‐based analysis the lived experiences of three young homeless and parenting teens (one mother and two fathers). It is the first known study of teenage parenting and homelessness among Native Hawaiian youth, a key affected population. Interpretative phenomenological analysis of participants' individual interviews revealed three themes that characterize the experience of parenting as a teen while homeless: (a) They never raised me up (childhood experiences); (b) becoming mommy and daddy (early experiences of teen pregnancy and parenting while homeless); and (c) finding our place (current experiences of teen parenting and perspectives on teen pregnancy and homelessness). Implications for direct practice, social policy, and future research are discussed in the context of this complex reality.     

Are the Homeless Mentally Ill?

In Australia, it is widely believed that most homeless people have mental health issues and that mental illness is a primary cause of homelessness. This paper uses information from a study of 4,291 homeless people in Melbourne to investigate these propositions. The research found that 15 per cent of the homeless had mental health issues prior to becoming homeless. This challenges the community perception that mental illness is the primary cause of homelessness. The research also found that 16 per cent of the sample developed mental health issues after becoming homeless. Homelessness causes mental health issues for some people, particularly anxiety and depression. The claim that most homeless people are mentally ill sends the wrong message to policy makers about the services that are needed to assist homeless people.     

The Panchshil Buddha Vihar Group: Dalit migrant life and group solidarity during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

This narrative is based on my previous experience and telephonic discussions with Dalit (Dalits are an ex-untouchable caste of India, who have been subject to discrimination and exclusion historically and placed at the bottom on the Indian social system) migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative aims to highlight the life and trajectory of Dalit migrants pre- and during the pandemic. In addition, the narrative illustrates their everyday strategy as a group in response to the pandemic. Further, the narrative describes various means and methods of Dalit migrants to advance community solidarity, which has helped them to survive and escape the city, to return to their villages.     

Researching Homelessness and Rough Sleeping in the Scottish Context

This paper offers some reflections on a number of methodological and personal issues associated with researching homelessness, particularly in the Scottish context. It opens with an examination of the political and social construction of statistics on homelessness. It highlights the limitations of official data sources, and outlines the problems in quantifying (or even estimating) the extent of one of the most extreme manifestations of homelessness—rough sleeping. It identifies some other practical difficulties in conducting research amongst homeless people, such as setting and meeting interview targets, and questions the perceived level of risk in conducting face-to-face work with street homeless people. The second part of the paper considers a range of ethical tensions, posing a series of dilemmas which can arise for an academic researching homelessness. It is suggested that these issues and concerns could be widely applied to social policy research, and are therefore of equal relevance to academic researchers involved with any groups affected by poverty and social exclusion. Drawing on recent controversial practice debates, the paper questions the role of the researcher in perpetuating the so-called 'homelessness industry'. Finally, the paper argues that the researcher should seek opportunities to enhance user-involvement policy development as well as research. The paper suggests that researchers in the field of homelessness occupy a privileged position, providing a link between homeless people, agencies responsible for policy and practice, and politicians. It concludes that research can make a real contribution to understanding and alleviating homelessness. This, it argues, is the only valid justification for making a living out of homelessness research.     

TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS

This article identifies three temporal images of the homeless youth population. The dominant media typification is of an ‘underclass’ with chronic problems. A dissident image contends that most young people experience only short periods of homelessness, and that there is a ‘high turnover’ population. A third account suggests that there are both ‘short-term’ and ‘chronically’ homeless youth, but few individuals in-between. It is a ‘polarised’ image of the population. This article draws on information from a sample of 1,410 homeless young people to assess these accounts. The article theorises temporal concepts and it explains a methodological issue called the ‘point in time dilemma’. The main finding of the study is that the homeless population is characterised by temporal diversity. The basis for the dominant underclass typification is explained, and various policy issues are discussed.     

Research as Social Action in the Aftermath of Hurricane Andrew

SUMMARY

A study conducted 14 months after Hurricane Andrew examined the long term impact of this natural disaster on the homeless in the hardest hit areas of South Florida. The effects of a natural disaster on the homeless has not been studied in the past. In addition, this study is presented to illustrate a model of social action research. The foundations for the principles of this model are rooted in the best scientific and social justice traditions. The principles are introduced and described using research methodologies that were utilized in this disaster study. How the findings contributed to changes in policy, procedure, and practice are highlighted.     

Homeless young people,families and change: family support as a facilitator to exiting homelessness

The families of homeless young people are most often portrayed as a precipitating factor in their homelessness. However, recent studies, particularly those taking a longitudinal approach, have drawn attention to the enabling role of family members and their positive influence on the housing trajectories of homeless youth. Drawing on selected findings from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative study of homeless young people in Dublin, Ireland, this paper aims to build on this relatively fertile area of research. We demonstrate the supportive role of the families of young people who experience homelessness (often as a consequence of difficult family environments) and specifically examine how family re‐engagement is negotiated and achieved. The findings highlight a number of dimensions of transition and change. Prominent among these is the importance of renewed trust and communication. Young people and their parents also had to accept responsibility for areas of life that previously served to undermine their relationships and were implicated in the circumstances surrounding a young person's premature home‐leaving. Tensions and resistances on the part of young people are highlighted, demonstrating the adaptive mechanisms at work as they attempt to re‐engage with family members. The implications of the findings for social work intervention with homeless youth are discussed.     

Health and community services for trafficked women: an exploratory study of policy and practice

The trafficking of women has attracted considerable international and national policy attention, particularly since the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000), of which the Australian Government has been a signatory since 2005. The provision of health and community services for trafficked women is a central feature of this Protocol, but in Australia service provision is made difficult by how trafficked women are understood and treated in policy and legal terms. This study aimed to explore the provision of health and community services for trafficked women in the Greater Sydney region through a series of interviews with government and non‐government organisations. The findings reveal that services have been inaccessible as a result of sparse, uncoordinated, and poorly funded provision. The major obstacle to adequate and appropriate service provision has been a national policy approach focusing on ‘border protection’ and criminalisation rather than on trafficked women and their human rights. We conclude that further policy development needs to focus on the practical implications of how such rights can be translated into the delivery of health and community services that trafficked women can access and be supported by more effectively.     

Policy, management, and political activities: A current evaluation of the time allocations of mayors and managers in small cities and towns

This study examines executive time allocations in cities and towns with populations between 2,500 and 25,000. The majority of previous research has focused on municipalities with populations greater than 50,000. Do mayors and managers in small municipalities spend the same amount of time on policy, management, and political activities as their counterparts in larger municipalities? Four-hundred-sixty-seven surveys from mayors and city managers are evaluated, and the data reveal that a significant relationship between form of government and the time these individuals devote to policy, management, and political activities does exist. This analysis confirms that managers in small cities and towns do spend more time on policy and management activities, and less time on political activities than mayors in small cities and towns. Also, the research demonstrates that differences in time devoted to these three activities can be seen when small and large municipalities are compared.     

Mobility,migration and rights in the European Union: critical reflections on policy and practice

This article assesses developments in European Union (EU) migration policy and practice and their implications for rights regulation in the Union, as revealed in this special issue and the wider literature. It identifies how rights are constituted in the complex and multivalent policy-making field of the EU. The article views rights as constituted in the process of migration governance. This governance analysis puts centre stage an assessment of the links between policy, policy-making and policy's social and political ordering effects. The article argues that the significance of the Union needs to be analysed against different aspects of rights regulation. The article adopts an analytical framework which discriminates between the discursive framing of migrants' rights, the specification of such rights in Union and member state policy, and the shaping of rights by actors in context at the local level. The article concludes that, first, the Union has begun to play a significant role in regulating mobility rights across its territory in ways which can undermine the substantive or normative rights accessible to migrants in practice. Second, its policy and legal role are politically significant as it asserts the role of the EU as a source of regulatory authority over the distribution of rights for citizens and non-citizens within its territory.     

Should commodity tax rates be uniform across regions in a heterogeneous country? Evidence from India

With countries increasingly adopting the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as their system of commodity taxes replacing the myriad of sales, excise and other form of indirect taxes, there is a move towards the two features that characterize the GST: uniform tax rates across items and identical tax rates across regions. When India introduced the GST in 2017, it followed several other countries in departing from the first feature but in keeping with universal practice embraced the second feature. The chief motivation of this paper is to subject this latter feature to critical scrutiny. The study examines the four GST rates in India by comparing them with counterfactual evidence based on preference based optimal commodity tax rates estimated by taking into account regional diversity in prices and spending. The benchmarking suggests that the current top GST rates (12%, 16% and 28%) are much higher than can be justified by the optimal rates. The Indian evidence is also in favor of departing from the universal practice in GST of adopting a uniform tax across items. The paper makes a methodological contribution by proposing a procedure for calculating spatial prices that can be applied to a wide basket of items. The study provides evidence on the redistributive potential of indirect taxation by showing the progressive nature of the optimal commodity taxes. The latter result is of particular significance in developing countries where indirect taxes raise the greater share of revenue and provide an important policy tool for tackling increasing inequality. The study concludes with a list of policy lessons as the country seeks to make further changes to its GST. While there is a significant literature on harmonization of indirect taxes across countries that belong to a single economic grouping such as the EU, there is no such literature between regions within a large heterogeneous country. The present study on tax harmonization between the states in India attempts to fill this gap.     

日本新冠疫情的社会影响与政策选择

新冠病毒疫情对日本社会各个方面都产生了严重的影响。疫情防治本身就属于社会政策范畴。总体而言,日本作为东方国家所实施的防疫政策取得较好效果,但同时也存在着一些问题。相对宽松甚至曾经数度放缓的防疫政策使日本错过了疫情治理的最佳时机,因而导致疫情的长期化。实现经济复苏是日本政府关注的重点,规模空前的经济刺激政策与以防疫为主导的社会政策之间既有结合也存在矛盾。日本政治的变化具有长期的社会基础,新冠疫情的暴发与蔓延使其凸显出来。在新的国际格局条件下,日本面临着外交战略方向的重大选择。     

SPECIAL ISSUE： MIGRANT WORKERS IN THE COURSE OF URBANIZATION An investigation into intergenerational differences between two generations of migrant workers

以1980年前后出生为界,中国城市农民工呈现出明显的代际差异：80后农民工拥有更多人力资本,有职业规划,求职途径较多为市场和政府,关注自己的长远发展,职业稳定性较低;他们被侵权或自己感觉被侵权的比例更高,对相关劳动法规更了解,更有维权的勇气;个人消费水平高于80前农民工,网民比例高,业余生活娱乐休闲色彩浓厚;对社会的评价和认同度相对更高,与老家的联系程度正在减弱,更愿意放弃老家田地、把户口迁入工作城市。80后农民工向企业的管理理念提出了挑战,更向城乡二元社会结构提出了挑战;农民工在取得流动权、工作权以后,理应进一步取得与城市居民完全平等的公民权。     

Workplace Conditions and Employer Relationships as Predictors of Economic Well‐Being: Female Domestic Workers in India

This article explores the intersectional role played by the various categories of workplace dynamics of female domestic workers in India. It models crucial aspects of a range of workplace conditions and employee‐employer relationship and empowerment factors, as predictors of the economic well‐being of domestic workers. The analysis is based on a questionnaire survey of 487 domestic workers in two cities of the Indian state of Karnataka, conducted July–December 2014. The prediction models reveal intersectionality: female domestic workers are disadvantaged by inequalities caused by two unique aspects of their work, namely, the feminization of this work as naturalized labor that women do because of their innate caring characteristics, and the employer‐employee relationship where the focus of work is the intimate private space of the employer. Empowerment factors, therefore, become additionally significant for their protection from exploitation and abuse. This paper highlights the conflicting role played by empowerment and concludes by discussing implications for legislation and policy.     

Fighting the COVID pandemic: National policy choices in non-pharmaceutical interventions

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed countries to adopt various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Due to the features of the pandemic, which spread over time and space, governments could decide whether or not to follow policy choices made by leaders of countries affected by the virus before them. In this study, we aim to empirically model the adoption of NPIs during the first wave of COVID-19 in the 14 European countries with more than 10 million inhabitants, in order to detect whether a policy diffusion mechanism occurred. By means of a multivariate approach based on Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis, we manage to derive three clusters representing different behaviour models to which the different European countries belong in the different periods of the first wave: pre-pandemic, summer relaxation and deep-lockdown scenarios. These results bring a two-fold contribution: on the one hand, they may help us to understand differences and similarities among European countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak and guide future quantitative or qualitative studies; on the other, our findings suggest that with minor exceptions (such as Sweden and Poland), different countries adopted very similar policy strategies, which are likely to be due more to the unfolding of the pandemic than to specific governmental strategies.     

对北京外来工的权利保护研究

本文通过对北京外来工遭遇的超时工作、拖欠工资、歧视、人身侵犯、辱骂、财物欺诈等侵权现象的实证研究,指出目前外来工权利受侵犯现象严重;虽然外来工对权益的自我保护意识不弱,但因为救济手段不足,目前外来工权利保护状况很差,侵权救济不充分;外来工社会权利保护不利的深层原因在于城乡分离的社会体制。     

Homelessness, Mental Illness and Citizenship

Assertive mental health outreach to homeless persons, which operates under the premise that mental illness must be understood and treated within the individual's social and economic environment, points towards the goals of community membership and 'citizenship'—a connection to the rights, responsibilities, roles, and resources that society offers through public and social institutions and informal 'associational life'—for homeless persons. We argue that the concept of citizenship is a useful framework for approaching these goals. We review the principles of assertive mental health outreach and relevant aspects of contemporary citizenship theory; present a case example of outreach leading to a 'citizenship project'; and discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of a citizenship framework, including strategies and recommendations for program administrators, researchers and policy makers.