Measuring and implementing equality of opportunity for income

Departing from the welfarist tradition, recent theories of justice focus on individual opportunities as the appropriate standard for distributive judgments. To explore how this philosophical conception can be translated into concrete public policy, we select the income as relevant outcome and the income tax as the relevant redistributive policy, and we address the following questions: (i) what is the degree of opportunity inequality in an income distribution? (ii) how to design an opportunity egalitarian income tax policy? Several criteria for ranking income distributions on the basis of equality of opportunities are derived. Moreover, we characterize an opportunity egalitarian income tax and we formulate criteria for choosing among alternative tax schedules. I would like to thank Peter Lambert for his encouragement and guidance, and Walter Bossert, Maurice Salles, and partecipants at the 1998 Social Choice and Welfare Conference, Vancouver, and at the Conference on Non–Welfaristic Issues in Normative Economics in Caen for their helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support of the Ministero dellIstruzione, Università e Ricerca (Italy) is gratefully acknowledged. Responsibility for any remaining deficiency is mine.     

Choice,freedom, and freedom of choice

This paper argues in favour of a distinction between freedom and freedom of choice – a distinction that economists and political philosophers have so far either ignored or drawn wrongly. Drawing the distinction correctly may help to resolve a number of disputes in contemporary political philosophy and non-welfarist normative economics regarding the so-called preference-based account of freedom and the relevance, to judgements about freedom, of degrees of similarity between agents options. The paper begins by setting out three much discussed axioms for the measurement of freedom (of choice?) originally put forward by Pattanaik and Xu. It is suggested that the problems these axioms give rise to can be solved by distinguishing correctly between freedom and freedom of choice. The paper then sets out definitions of freedom, choice and freedom of choice, justifying these in philosophical terms and arguing their superiority to alternative definitions. Finally, on the basis of these definitions and with reference to Pattanaik and Xus axioms, it is shown that an agent can enjoy freedom without enjoying freedom of choice, and that she can enjoy an increase in one of these without enjoying an increase in the other. For their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I should like to thank Keith Dowding, Martin van Hees, Matthew Kramer, Marco Negri, Serena Olsaretti, Olof Page, Mario Ricciardi, Alan Ritter, Hillel Steiner, Kotaro Suzumura and audiences at seminars in Manchester, Palermo, Pavia and Oxford. I am grateful to the Italian Ministry for Higher Education (MURST) and the Italian National Research Council (CNR) for funding that facilitated the completion of the paper.     

Dynamic risk control for project development

A statistical methodology for dynamic risk control is discussed. The research is aimed at constructing tools for the analysis of expert opinions within a company about the risks involved in the production of a new commercial product or service. Focus is on risk events and on the analysis of the expert assessments of probabilities, losses and correlations of such events. A rescoring loop of risk assessments and preventive actions taken by the company on the basis of these assessments is illustrated through an example on software development. Relevant literature on risk and subjective elicitations is reviewed.     

Mothers,fathers and children after divorce: The role of institutions

In recent years the increase in the divorce rate in many advanced countries and the predominance of female-headed families among the poor has generated much interest in the relationship between divorce and the welfare of mothers and children. In this paper I will review a small body of economic literature which has been recently developed in order to analyze the economic consequence of divorce on the welfare of fathers, mothers and children under alternative behavioral assumptions. Important economic and econometric issues arise from an analysis of welfare in non intact households as compared with intact households. In particular the focus is on the role that institutions play in post-divorce arrangements and important implications concerning policies for child support, custody, and visitation.Presidential Address of the Annual Congress of ESPE2000 held on June 15, 2000 in Bonn. I would like to thank Christopher Flinn, Rocio Ribero, Maristella Botticini and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Modelling Socio-Spatial Change: Istanbul,Kadıköy Case

Social Indicators Research - This study aims to understand the relationship between social structure and morphological character based on a case area...     

Reactions to cyberbullying among high school and university students

In this study, behavioral and emotional reactions to cyberbullying were investigated by surveying 567 undergraduate-level university students and 211 high school students. Among the study participants, 170 of the undergraduates (29.98%) and 120 of the high school students (56.87%) reported that they had recently been cyberbullied. A four-factor scale with 37 items was used to investigate the behavioral cyberbullying reactions of victimized students. The four factors were revenge, countermeasure, negotiation and avoidance. An additional two-factor scale with 11 items was used to classify victimized students’ emotional reactions as either internalizing or externalizing. Explained variance values of both scales were above 50%, and the factors were found to have acceptable internal consistency coefficients. Behavioral and emotional reactions varied according to gender and school level. Computer self-efficacy and internet use were associated with different reaction types.     

The International Migration System Between Turkey and Russia: Project‐Tied Migrant Workers in Moscow

The last 50 years of emigration history in Turkey indicate that the migratory flows of Turkish citizens have consecutively become a part of various migratory systems. In this essay, our main aims are twofold. First, we attempt to document the dynamics and mechanism of project‐tied migration from Turkey to the Russian Federation, focusing in particular on the case of project‐tied workers migrating from Turkey to Moscow. Second, this effort intends to elaborate on the research on migratory systems between Turkey and the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central and Northern Asian countries, mainly referring to macro‐, micro‐ and meso‐level factors affecting the relevant migration systems. In this paper, in which we tackle the various migration systems with which Turkey is involved, we conclude by arguing that parallel to the new migration patterns that have been experienced throughout the post‐Soviet geographies, the internalization process of Turkish constructors within the changing dynamics of Turkish foreign policy has widened the direction of the migration flows from Turkey by introducing new migrant worker profiles to different regions. In this sense, short‐term labour migrants, shuttle traders and in particular project‐tied migrant workers show not only the important role that migrants may play in the shift towards a market‐based economy in the Russian Federation, but also how they have become crucial actors of the migration system between Turkey and Russia.     

Are there domino effects between consumers' ordinary and ‘green’ practices? An analysis of quantitative data from a sensitisation campaign on personal carbon footprint

This paper studies how consumers' reported practices related to food, energy use in housing, daily mobility, and tourism are combined and structured. Social practice theories are the main theoretical framework of this research. Data are drawn from a sensitisation campaign run by the WWF-Belgium and the methods developed to attempt to translate the theoretical focus to practices. Results show that both the low number of ‘green’ practices reported and the multiplicity of combinations of practices indicate a rather important compartmentalisation of ‘green’ practices and seem to refute the hypothesis of vast domino effects in these four different areas. In addition, a wider openness to information on environmentally friendlier practices is associated with a larger number of such practices, which raises questions about the design of such campaigns. Finally, there is no conventionalised way of linking practices and commitments taken by the respondents to reduce their environmental impact. A few policy recommendations are derived for sensitisation campaigns that often assume domino effects between ‘green’ practices, and for tools dealing with personal carbon awareness.     

Elderly-technology interaction: accessibility and acceptability of technological devices promoting motor and cognitive training

As the world population is ageing, studies on the socio-economic and health consequences are proliferating. Little has been done on the effectiveness and impact elderly may benefit from the use of technology in their everyday life. The pilot study, implemented within a funded project aimed at identifying sustainable actions to promote Seniors' quality of life, intended to investigate this kind of interaction in terms of accessibility and acceptability that senior citizen experience with technological devices promoting motor and cognitive training. In the hypothesis, interfaces and technological artifacts, that still take in little account the seniors' physical characteristics (e.g. physiological limitations in sight, hearing, movement) and cognitive processes (selective memory often driven by practical needs), can cause elderly to mistrust technology. Study participants were twenty over seventy-year-old people, who were observed and interviewed in context in a two-hour training session regarding the technological devices user experience. The results are presented with scenario-based techniques that help represent typologies of users in different use situations. Findings confirm the hypothesis, highlighting that elderly may accept technological artifacts when they perceive them as bringing benefits in terms of well-being and health.