Europeanisation and the Youth Guarantee: The case of France

In 2013, the European Council approved the Youth Guarantee (YG) to counteract youth unemployment. Because of its specific features, the YG is useful for understanding whether the EU has triggered policy change in national youth unemployment policies. Contrary to most of the literature on similar topics, we focused in this study on the effect of this specific European measure rather than on broader EU strategies or policies. The study contributes to the literature by qualifying the degree of fit/misfit and suggesting a counterfactual analysis, using the case of France. We first situate the article within the broader Europeanisation debate and present our research design. The second section introduces the policy structure of the YG and investigates youth unemployment policy in France, prior to and after the European initiative. The third section discusses whether the French youth unemployment policy would have been developed in the same way without the YG. A final section concludes.     

The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007?2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.     

Payment by results in international development: Evidence from the first decade

Payment by results is a relatively new way of giving development aid, where a recipient's performance against pre‐agreed measures determines the amount of aid they receive. Advocates for the mechanism argue it provides donors with both a ready justification for maintaining aid budgets and better results through innovation and autonomy. It has proved popular, with most bilateral aid donors having at least experimented with the mechanism and the variety of measures stretching from individual health workers being paid for each procedure, to national governments being paid for students' test scores. However, there has not been a robust assessment of whether Payment By Results (PbR) achieves its aims for greater effectiveness. I synthesize the evidence from eight projects fully or partially funded by DFID, the recognized world leader on PbR. This represents the best evidence currently available, and is critically analysed using the leading theoretical framework that breaks each agreement into its constituent parts. I find no evidence that PbR leads to fundamentally more innovation or autonomy, with the overall range of success and failure broadly similar to other aid projects. This may partly be due to the current use of Payment by Results, with no readily identifiable examples of projects that truly meet the idealized PbR designs. Advocates of PbR may thus conclude the idea is yet to be tested. I argue PbR does not deal with the fundamental constraints that donors face, and so it is unsurprising that PbR is subject to the normal pressures that affect all aid spending.     

Getting low educated and older people into work: The role of fiscal policy

Raising employment, in particular employment among older individuals and low educated individuals, stands high on the agenda of policy makers in many OECD countries. Increased sensitivity in recent years to rising inequality has made the challenge only larger. In this paper we evaluate alternative fiscal policy scenarios to face this challenge. We construct and use an overlapping generations model for an open economy where individuals differ not only by age, but also by innate ability and human capital. The model allows us to study effects on aggregate employment, per capita income and welfare, as well as effects for specific age and ability groups. We show that well-considered fiscal policy changes can significantly improve macroeconomic productive efficiency, without increasing intergenerational or intragenerational welfare inequality. Our results strongly prefer a reduction in the labor tax rate on older workers and on all low-wage earners, financed by an overall reduction in non-employment benefits. An alternative financing option is to raise the consumption tax rate. These results are to be seen as long-run effects for economies at potential output.     

江泽民依法治国思想探析

以江泽民同志为核心的第三代领导集体,首次提出了"依法治国,建设社会主义法治国家"的治国方略。准确把握江泽民同志依法治国的科学内涵,德治与法治的相互关联以及建设法治国家的主要途径等法治思想,对于全面建设社会主义小康社会和和谐社会意义深远。     

单片机控制器在卷染机中的应用

】将卷染机的控制系统从直流电机拖动、自耦调压器有级调速改造为交流电机拖动和变频器无级调速。通过对调节对象的理论分析,得到了一种新的控制策略,研制出以单片机为核心的控制器,在不使用速度和张力传感器的条件下,控制系统可自动对被染织物进行恒速与恒张力控制,以利于染色质量的稳定和提高。经实际运行表明,该系统运行可靠,节能增效显著。     

究竟是按所有权分配还是按贡献分配?--与《关于深入研究社会主义劳动和劳动价值论的几个问题》一文商榷

价值分配的对象是价值,不是财富.按劳分配的现实理论依据是劳动价值论,最终理论依据是按贡献分配.按生产要素分配的理论依据是以承认其价值创造作用为基础的按贡献分配,而不是按所有权分配.     

二元经济条件下农村劳动力转移的对策研究

我国是典型的二元经济结构国家,大量农村剩余劳动力直接关系着我国经济的发展。本文在深入分析我国农村劳动力转移现状的基础上,有针对性地提出了二元经济条件下我国农村劳动力转移的思路与对策。     

法社会学中的个体角色与和谐社会的法治构造

和谐社会是成千上万优秀个体角色组成的,社会规范下的个体角色的认知与责任是构建现代和谐社会的基础。优秀的个体角色的形成,是构建和谐社会的法治基础。个体角色对权利、义务认知,个体角色的道德观念和行为准则是对社会规范、社会习俗的尊重。法律规范社会化下的个体角色,实质上是塑造与社会公共权利机关所确定的社会规范相适应的自我。个体角色彼此之间都是一面镜子,相互反映着对方的自我,任何一个个体角色都可以从其他角色的态度中来认识自我。个体角色彼此之间又都在无形中相互影响、起着率先垂范的作用。