Reducing unemployment? Examining the interplay between active labour market policies

Active labour market policies (ALMP) are important tools that welfare states utilize to influence the labour market. This study analyses the macroeconomic effects of different types of ALMP spending on aggregate unemployment rates, and especially if there is evidence of interdependencies between policies. The types of policies scrutinized are public employment services (PES), training programs, public job creation and subsidized employment, where the PES is singled out as a crucial factor that moderates the effects of other types of labour market programs. The study examines 19 welfare states between 1985 and 2013, using error correction modelling to separate between short‐ and long‐term effects. The results indicate that PES, training and subsidized employment reduce unemployment in the short‐run, whereas PES and wage subsidies are associated with reduced unemployment when considering long‐term effects. However, PES is found to have indirect effects on other policy types and increased spending on PES is shown to reinforce long‐term effects of training programs.     

Promoting social Europe? The development of European youth unemployment policies

Since the beginning of the millennium, the institutions of the European Union have intensified their political efforts to combat youth employment. Youth‐specific policy initiatives were launched after the financial and economic crisis of 2008, and the overall subsequent rise of unemployment rates among young people. In this article, we analyse and assess these developments on the basis of an analysis of European policy documents and interviews. Our conclusions are twofold. One, we argue that the Europe 2020 Strategy and its flagship initiatives devoted to youth do not constitute a new policy field or approach, but are rather the outcome of an incrementalist logic of policy development. Two, the European youth strategy is clearly committed to activation, and it pushes policy developments towards a minimalist policy approach of precarious protection. Both developments are explained by the actor constellations and path dependencies of the European policy arena.     

英/法语学习者与场独立/场依存型认知风格关系研究

认知风格与外语学习者之间的关系已成为国内外学者关注焦点。研究选取52名英/法语学习者为调查对象,对其进行认知风格（场独立/依存/混合型）测试,采用定量计算与定性分析相结合的方法,分别分析场独立/依存/混合型学习者与英/法语成绩之间的关系。结果表明,认知风格与外语成绩有一定的相关性,且与场依存型学习者相比,场独立/混合型学习者与英、法成绩的相关性更加显著。因此,外语教学中可根据不同类型学习者的特点制定不同的教学计划和方案。     

Our Involvement with a Cult

No abstract available for this article.     

The Passagenwerk and the place of Walter Benjamin in cultural studies: Benjamin,cultural studies,Marxist theories of art

This essay is a reflection on the circumstances that led me to a particular research project, on Cajun dance and music spaces, and also on the project's mutations through subsequent phases of development. Above all, this essay attempts to take stock of the difficulties – personal, scholarly, and theoretical – as well as the personal choices that have gone into developing an ongoing scholarly project. While I indicate the importance of the experiences of personal pleasure that originally inspired my research, I also show how the personal and the pleasurable often necessarily encounter tensions and even certain kinds of conflict when linked to a ‘disciplinary’ domain. This essay therefore traces a particular example of how ‘cultural studies travels’ both geographically within a life and disciplinarily within something that has come to be known as‘French cultural studies’.     

基于Fama French三因子模型的沪深300指数效应实证研究

本文采用事件研究法研究了沪深300指数的指数效应,引入短期事件窗和长期事件窗分别考查了指数调入股票和调出股票的价格和交易量的市场反应。在研究股票的价格效应时,引用Fama-French三因素模型来计算股票的超额收益。实证研究发现,沪深300指数存在显著的指数效应,但是调出股票和调入股票的指数效应并不对称,调入股票的指数效应更为显著,符合市场分割假说。     

共用和互借视域下的英语词汇与法语词汇

西欧语言的共性渊源使得英语与法语存在着可以比较与关联的方面,分属于不同语支又使英语与法语存在着诸方面的较大差异。通过对英语词汇与法语词汇进行观察与比较分析,探索二者之间的共用与互借现象,并力图发现现象背后的规律性语言习得知识。     

Parental Employment Status and Symptoms of Children Abused during a Recession

Incidences and severity of child abuse have increased since the start of the recession. This study examined the relationship between employment status and severity of symptoms in children abused during a recession year. Participants included 154 females and 65 males between 2 and 17 years old referred to Dallas Children's Advocacy Center after surviving child sexual abuse, physical abuse, and/or neglect. We found that child abuse survivors whose mothers were unemployed showed higher symptom severity. Larger differences were found when participants were broken down by age, ethnicity, and living situation. Father's employment status did not affect symptom severity probably because many children lived with single mothers. We concluded that child abuse survivors whose mothers are unemployed have increased risk for psychological symptoms.     

The Acculturative Experience of French Students in a Southwestern University Apartment Complex in the United States

This article is an ethnographic study that explores the lives of eight French students in a Southwestern university apartment complex in the United States. The researcher employs narrative methodology to understand their acculturative experiences in American higher education. Thematic analysis of in-depth, conversational interview data is used. Emergent themes from these narrative interviews are also found in regard to the participants’ acculturative experiences of studying in a foreign country. Those themes are discussed in the order of the participants’ experience: (1) the theme of culture shock, (2) the theme of acculturative stress, (3) the theme of linguistic limitations, and (4) the theme of culture adjustment. As they experience the American lifestyle both in and outside the classroom setting, it was found that, overall, those French participants report difficulties in crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries while studying in an American university.     

Stratagems and Spoils in US Policy in the Middle East

Current uprisings in the Middle East suggest a need for reform in US foreign policy, based in economic liberalism, to the exclusion of the needs of ordinary people. From the end of World War I to the present, the US has shaped a political economy in the Middle East, based on empowerment of patricians and oligarchies to develop a competitive edge over oil and oil-related industries. The geopolitics of US intervention has been based on forming binary categories of ‘allies’ and ‘foes’, to justify economic and political alliances, regardless of the histories behind the disenchantment of US presence in the Middle East. This has generated social conflict where people no longer seem to want to support the authoritarian regions which have allied with the US. These uprisings are a desperate call for democracy to end elitism, cronyism, and corruption—a reminder of the need to rethink inconsistent agendas and clandestine interventions which have destabilized the region for almost a century.

Los levantamientos actuales en el Medio Oriente sugieren una necesidad de reformar la política exterior de los E.E.U.U., en base al liberalismo económico, a la exclusión de las necesidades de la gente ordinaria. Desde el fin de la primera guerra mundial al presente, los E.E.U.U. han dado forma a una economía política en el Medio Oriente, en base al liberalismo económico, a la exclusión de las necesidades de la gente ordinaria. Desde el final de la primera guerra mundial a la actualidad, los E.E.U.U. han configurado una economía política en el Medio Oriente, basada en el empoderamiento de los patricios y las oligarquías para desarrollar una ventaja sobre la competencia en el petróleo e industrias relacionadas. La geopolítica de la intervención estadounidense se ha basado en la formación de categorías binarias de “aliados” y “enemigos”, para justificar alianzas económicas y políticas, no obstante las historias detrás del desencanto de la presencia de los E.E.U.U. en el Medio Oriente. Esto ha generado un conflicto social, en donde la gente ya no parece que quiera apoyar los regímenes autoritarios que se han aliado con los E.E.U.U. Estos levantamientos constituyen una llamada desesperada a la democracia para terminar con el elitismo, amiguismo y corrupción—un recordatorio de la necesidad de recapitular en las agendas inconsistentes e intervenciones clandestinas que han desestabilizado la región por cerca de un centenario.

中东当前的起义表明,建基于经济自由主义、将普通人的需要排除在外的美国外交政策需要改革。从一战结束至今,美国打造了中东的政治经济,它以授权贵族和寡头集团在石油及与石油相关工业领域中发展竞争性优势为基础。美国干预的地缘政治学一直是建立在形塑“盟友”和“敌人”的双重类别基础之上,以证明经济和政治同盟的正当性,而不管它迷恋于在中东维持存在背后的历史。这已经产生了社会冲突,在其中,人们似乎不再想支持已经与美国结成同盟的威权政体。这些起义是孤注一掷的民主吁求,以终结上流人士统治、任人唯亲和腐败——提醒人们需要重新思考前后不一的议程和暗中干预,这已使该地区动荡了近一个世纪。