Benefit Dependency and the Dynamics of the Welfare State: Comparing Sweden and the Netherlands

In this article we analyse the dynamics of the welfare state, focusing on the Netherlands and Sweden. The basic question is whether the different social systems of these countries result in differences in persistency of benefit dependency. We conclude that although benefit dependency at a macroeconomic level is more or less the same, patterns of mobility of individuals between benefits and jobs are different. These different patterns are partly explained by overrepresentation of benefits with a high degree of persistency in the Netherlands. This overrepresentation is, however, not sufficient to account for the large differences observed in dynamics. Characteristics of the welfare state account for that.     

Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players

A unique data set of post‐war English trained soccer players is used to study the impact of the youth training program they attended on their career and spell duration. Duration models in the spirit of Abbring and van den Berg are employed to estimate local treatment effects of different training programs on players — survival in the top European leagues. The results indicate that the duration patterns of players are dependent on the youth academy they attended. Certain clubs, with a well‐established reputation in developing youth talent, outperform others in terms of producing and evaluating the ability of their youth players to succeed in top European leagues. The spell analysis outlines the nature of the competitive environment in which smaller clubs have a chance to keep up with the larger ones in terms of producing and holding on to homegrown talent. Finally, the results of both analyses addressed unobserved heterogeneity, allowed for nonlinearity of covariates using the cubic spline methodology, and were tested for endogeneity bias using a split sample test.     

Die individuellen Erträge ehrenamtlicher Arbeit

In the recent debate on the future of voluntary work and honorary appointments the question of the individual benefits of volunteering is of special interest. In a dynamic perspective it is obvious that an unpaid voluntary activity has to be regarded as work because of the individual’s expectation to yield a personal gain. Combining a sociological and a micro-economical perspective, volunteering is shown to be part of the production process within the private household. Volunteers gain returns by reducing transaction costs and by deriving benefits from economies of scale and economies of scope.     

Short‐Term Reciprocity in Late Parent‐Child Relationships

Long‐term concepts of parent‐child reciprocity assume that the amount of support given and received is only balanced in a generalized fashion over the life course. We argue that reciprocity in parent‐child relationships also operates in the short term. Our analysis of short‐term reciprocity focuses on concurrent exchange in its main upward and downward currencies, time and money. Fixed‐effects models with data from SHARE (N = 8,816 dyads) revealed that within a family, parents gave financial transfers to those children who supported them with time transfers of help and care. Reciprocal patterns emerged most clearly if parents were highly dependent, received intense support, and had sufficient financial opportunities to reciprocate. We conclude that short‐term reciprocity eases the burden of late parent‐child relationships.