Determinants of social assistance caseloads for employable single adults without dependants in Canada

Government officials like the idea of just a small number of households in their respective jurisdiction receiving social assistance. A large number is seen as costly to the public treasury, and declining caseloads are generally viewed as a mark of success for both the economy and the government of the day. But what factors account for the size of a Canadian province's social assistance caseload? This article aims to shed light on this question, with a focus on single adults without dependants (and without serious disabilities) during the 1989–2017 period. One important finding is that when the value of social assistance benefit levels for this group increases by 1% in a province, the social assistance caseload for this demographic rises by 0.457%. Put differently, there is indeed an important behavior response associated with higher benefit levels. In response, we propose that provincial officials budget for higher take up levels when they increase benefit levels for this household group.     

Does the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership contribute to regional integration?

The paper investigates whether Southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets under the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership (Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Malta, and Turkey) have become more financially integrated with the European stock market over time. The findings suggest that the Turkish equity market is moderately integrated with the European market, while the other economies exhibit weak financial integration with Europe, supporting the idea that the partnership appears to have no effect on enhancing inter-market linkages for these economies. Therefore, these markets would be good destinations for international investors seeking attractive investment opportunities to diversify their equity portfolios. Structural changes in the cross-market integration do exist, which may be considered as a guide for international equity portfolio diversification over different subperiods. In addition, there is evidence of an increasing trend in conditional correlations for Egypt and Turkey, to varying degrees, over time, notably during the post global financial crisis of 2007–2008, thus revealing herding behavior during this period. Overall, investors should be wary of the variation of equity market integration over time before engaging in an investment at the level of portfolio management and diversification. Policymakers must be aware of the remoteness of the current achievements of the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership from the targets set in terms of financial development and economic growth.     

An evaluation of alternative fiscal adjustment plans: The case of Italy

What advice can be given to the policymaker to reduce the burden of public debt after a crisis? In this situation, the debt consolidation calls for fiscal surplus based on increases in taxes and/or reductions in public spending. This paper aims at answering to the above question. Specifically, it evaluates different policy options on the table using the estimated model of the Italian dynamic General Equilibrium Model (IGEM). Our main message is that plans aimed at reducing the public debt based on tax increases rather than expenditure reductions are more effective. Therefore, consolidation should be designed on the former.     

Supplemental home care and topping‐up: A shift from service universalism towards a new and privatised public service model?

How does a public service model based on service universalism react to the introduction of market principles of topping up? In a recent so‐called Free Municipality Scheme (an experimental scheme that allowed for greater operational autonomy locally in an effort to reduce state bureaucracy), a number of Danish municipalities were for the first time ever allowed to compete with for‐profit providers of home care in selling supplemental home care services paid entirely by the user. The take‐home message from this experience is that the introduction of supplemental home care entails challenges and eventually wider implications for the public service model, on an economic, organisational and cultural level. Supplemental services represent a new and potentially powerful combination of market and state logics that eventually redirects away from the universalist welfare state and towards a new and increasingly privatised public service model – a model where the service level is determined by the user's capacity to purchase and pay for services. The introduction of such services therefore implies a change of the potential of the Nordic welfare state to ensure equal access regardless of class and income.     

明清以来的市镇:中国城镇化发展的历史因缘

本文致力于厘清关于市镇研究的理论传统,对明清以来市镇的演变在经济、社会和政治等多个层面进行考察。从经济层面看,市镇是连接地方性市场和世界体系的节点,并越来越具有超层级、跨区域和金融化的特点;从社会层面看,市镇是有层级、有组织的,并具有很强的包容性;从政治层面看,它是地方自治化和国家政权建设的着力点。在社会结构中的中间性质是市镇的本质特征。社会学对于市镇的研究必须将其看作一种总体性的社会事实,在对生命体验、生活智慧、伦理道德、乡风民俗等民情因素进行调查研究的前提下,考察其与具体制度和社会结构之间的关联。     

Assessing the market values of soccer players – a robust analysis of data from German 1. and 2. Bundesliga

The paper examines to what extent a player's market value depends on his skills. Therefore, a data set covering 28 performance measures and the market values of about 493 players from 1. and 2. German Bundesliga is analysed. Applying robust analysis techniques, we are able to robustly estimate market values of soccer players. The results show (1) that there are significantly underrated and overrated players and (2) that a player's affiliation to a certain team may contribute to his market value. We conclude that a club's reputation affects the market values of its players and that star players are in tendency overrated.     

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.     

Identifying Systemically Important Banks: A temporal approach for macroprudential policies

Contrary to the general belief, systemic risk does not only regard the risk posed by balance sheet relationships and interdependencies among institutions. It also features a temporal dimension related to the inappropriate responses of financial market participants to changes in risk over time. This paper proposes a method to simultaneously address the cross-sectional and the time dimension in which systemic risk materializes. The method is based on the TOPHITS algorithm. It provides three scores, namely borrowing, lending and time scores: the first two represent the systemic importance of the borrowing and the lending activity associated with each financial institution,while the third represents an empirical Early Warning Signal of the financial crisis. Our findings reveal that the identification of the time score as an indicator for an incoming market distress could be relevant to design macro prudential policies.     

Expediting youth's entry into employment whilst overlooking precariousness: Flexi‐employability and disciplinary activation in Hong Kong

With an emphasis placed on supply‐side interventions such as skills training and incentives enhancement, active labor market polices (ALMPs) are strongly promoted by international organizations and widely adopted across different welfare regimes to boost employment rates. This article first presents the under‐examined relationship between ALMPs and employment precariousness, which has posed a challenge to the neoliberal notion of employability and activation. Youth‐focused employment policies tend to speed up employment entry whilst downplaying the risk of precariousness and the importance of job quality, and thus further reinforcing the belief that engaging in precarious employment is tolerable if not inevitable. The article then examines the case of Hong Kong, which illustrates that its relatively low rate of youth unemployment may conceal the unfavorable employment conditions confronted by youth. It is argued that the service‐led employment policies and short‐term vocational training define the employability of young workers in terms of labor flexibilities. The coined phase of “flexi‐employability” is characterized by promoting youth's readiness for, and adaptability to, the volatilities and changing demands of the labor market. Arguably, the disciplinary approach to youth activation would only strengthen the work‐first principle by enforcing young people to take up jobs available and leave welfare as soon as possible, but without thoroughly addressing the risks and insecurities generated by the labor market in undermining their well‐being.