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OECD Countries (oecd + country)
Kinds of OECD Countries Selected AbstractsImproving Access to and Participation in Adult Learning in OECD Countries,EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, Issue 1 2004Beatriz Pont First page of article [source] The Elasticity of Marginal Utility of Consumption: Estimates for 20 OECD Countries,FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2005David J. Evans Abstract In social project appraisal, the policy profile of both distributional welfare weights and the social discount rate has risen considerably in recent years. This fact has important implications for the allocation of funds to social projects and policies in countries, and in unions of countries such as the EU. A key component in the formulae for both welfare weights and the social discount rate is the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, e. A critical review of existing evidence on e suggests that the UK Treasury's preferred value of unity is too low. New evidence presented in this paper, based on the structure of personal income tax rates, suggests that, on average, for developed countries e is close to 1.4. This particular approach to the estimation of e has previously been under-utilised by researchers. [source] Exchange Rate Regimes and Reforms: A Panel Analysis for the World versus OECD Countries,INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2006Ansgar Belke This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms over a period of 30 years. Using panel data techniques, we look at both a broad ,world sample' and an OECD country sample. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms have complemented or substituted for monetary commitment in the attempt to improve macroeconomic performance. Our results suggest that, on average, an exchange rate rule positively correlates with the amount of overall structural reforms and of trade liberalization in particular. However, we do not find a significant and robust impact of exchange rate commitment on labour and product market reform. The results are similar for both the wider, more heterogeneous world sample and the panel of OECD economies. They contradict the hypothesis that exchange rate commitments may have slowed the pace of structural reform, but neither provides robust evidence that losing the possibility of an exchange rate adjustment promotes labour and product market reforms. [source] An Empirical Analysis of Inflation in OECD CountriesINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2004Jane Ihrig During the 1990s, many OECD countries had declining rates of inflation while their unemployment rates were also falling, something that on the surface seemed at odds with the Phillips curve relationship between inflation and unemployment. For the USA, these seemingly contradictory developments have been reconciled in terms of two factors: (1) an acceleration in productivity and (2) structural changes in labour markets that lowered the natural unemployment rate (NAIRU). Here we ask whether comparable forces were at work in 19 other industrial countries. We find that productivity advancements were the main structural factor reducing inflation only in the USA. In other industrial countries, persistent labour-market slack was the main factor exerting downward pressure on inflation. This persistence stemmed, in part, from structural reforms that lowered the NAIRU while the unemployment rate was declining. Ireland, New Zealand and Norway were three countries where labour-market reforms helped to push inflation down dramatically. [source] Comparing the Pension Promises of 30 OECD CountriesINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Monika Queisser This paper takes a microeconomic approach to compare prospective pension benefits in the 30 OECD countries. It shows entitlements gross and net of taxes and social security contributions for male and female single workers based on 2002 pension rules and parameters. The models cover all public and private mandatory sources of retirement income for full-career private-sector workers across a broad earnings range. The paper shows that average earners in OECD countries can expect a post-tax pension of about 70 per cent of their earnings after tax. The average minimum retirement benefit is just under 29 per cent of national average earnings. [source] Testing for Hysteresis in Unemployment in OECD Countries: New Evidence using Stationarity Panel Tests with Breaks,OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 2 2006Mariam Camarero Abstract This paper tests hysteresis effects in unemployment using panel data for 19 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1956,2001. The tests exploit the cross-sectional variations of the series, and additionally, allow for a different number of endogenous breakpoints in the unemployment series. The critical values are simulated based on our specific panel sizes and time periods. The findings stress the importance of accounting for exogenous shocks in the series and support the natural-rate hypothesis of unemployment for the majority of the countries analysed. [source] The Institutional Context of Market Ideology: A Comparative Analysis of the Values and Perceptions of Local Government CEOs in 14 OECD CountriesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2004Morten Balle Hansen During recent decades, various versions of market practices have, in most nation states, diffused into the public sector. We analyse variations in the adoption of market ideologies and examine plausible explanations for these variations. Four managerial ideal types are constructed, based on their attitudes towards two dimensions of market ideology. Managerial attitudes and perceptions are conceived as embedded in a global process of diffusion highly affected by varying institutional preconditions. The impact of five types of institutional contexts is examined: the national context, the organizational context, the context of interaction, the context of socialization and the norms of the manager. [source] Can OECD Countries Afford Demographic Change?THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Ross Guest This article provides new calculations on the effects of demographic change on living standards in all 30 OECD countries using the latest demographic projections up to 2050 from the United Nations, World Population Prospects, 2004 Revision. The calculations include several potential dividends that could offset, at least in part, the costs of a lower working age population share. The effects of demographic change calculated here are mechanical in that there is no explicit optimising behaviour. In the worst case scenario, which assumes zero potential dividends and no increase in labour force participation rates, the negative effect of demographic change on living standards among OECD countries over the whole period from 2006 to 2050 ranges from zero to 28 per cent, with an average over all countries of 15.5 per cent. In the best case scenario the average effect is zero. About half of the difference between the best and worst case scenarios is accounted for by higher labour force participation and about half by the potential dividends from demographic change. [source] Transparency, Political Polarization, and Political Budget Cycles in OECD CountriesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2006James E. Alt We investigate the effects of fiscal transparency and political polarization on the prevalence of electoral cycles in fiscal balance. While some recent political economy literature on electoral cycles identifies such cycles mainly in weak and recent democracies, in contrast we show, conditioning on a new index of institutional fiscal transparency, that electoral cycles in fiscal balance are a feature of many advanced industrialized economies. Using a sample of 19 OECD countries in the 1990s, we identify a persistent pattern of electoral cycles in low(er) transparency countries, while no such cycles can be observed in high(er) transparency countries. Furthermore, we find, in accordance with recent theory, that electoral cycles are larger in politically more polarized countries. [source] Your Money or Your Life: Changing Job Quality in OECD CountriesBRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2005Andrew E. Clark Job quality may usefully be thought of as depending on both job values (how much workers care about different job outcomes) and the job outcomes themselves. Here, both cross-section and panel data are used to examine changes in job quality in OECD countries during the 1990s. Despite rising wages and falling hours of work, overall job satisfaction is either stable or declining. These movements are neither due to changes in the type of workers nor because of changes in their job values. Some pieces of evidence point to stress and hard work as being strong candidates for what has gone wrong with employees' jobs. We find evidence of increasing inequality in a number of job outcomes. Some groups of workers have done better than others: the young and the highly educated have been insulated against downward movements in job quality, and there is tentative evidence that trade unions may have protected their members against adverse job outcomes. [source] Eastern Donors and Western Soft Law: Towards a DAC Donor Peer Review of China and India?DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 5 2010Sebastian Paulo The international system is still governed by a normative framework designed mainly by OECD countries, especially with regard to soft-law standards in the field of development co-operation. However, the growing relevance of ,Eastern donors' is weakening its efficiency and raises the question of how compliance with these standards can be assured in a changing donor landscape. Despite efforts to integrate emerging countries into the traditional approach of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to monitoring compliance through peer reviews, the aid architecture of the future might turn out to be a synthesis of established and new approaches. [source] Growth, Poverty Reduction and Development Assistance in Asia: Options and ProspectsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 2006John Farrington This article examines a number of policy challenges and dilemmas arising from the pattern of growth and poverty reduction in Asia, central to which is the fact that growth and poverty reduction have been more rapid in Asia than in any other region in the last decade, and yet Asia still contains the majority of the world's poor. The article examines the record of achievement, possible future trends including emerging patterns of inequality, and likely future priorities for poverty-reduction policies. It assesses the role of official development assistance and suggests how it may evolve in future, in part linked with responses to a number of challenges shared between Asian and OECD countries, including energy supply, environmental issues including climate change, and financial stability. [source] Technology, Geography, and TradeECONOMETRICA, Issue 5 2002Jonathan Eaton We develop a Ricardian trade model that incorporates realistic geographic features into general equilibrium. It delivers simple structural equations for bilateral trade with parameters relating to absolute advantage, to comparative advantage (promoting trade), and to geographic barriers (resisting it). We estimate the parameters with data on bilateral trade in manufactures, prices, and geography from 19 OECD countries in 1990. We use the model to explore various issues such as the gains from trade, the role of trade in spreading the benefits of new technology, and the effects of tariff reduction. [source] A CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS OF EXPORT PRICES IN OECD COUNTRIESECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 4 2006ABBAS VALADKHANI This article distinguishes the extent to which export price variation consists of global versus country-specific changes for fourteen OECD countries. We find that sharp changes in global export prices are evidently becoming more important for many of the OECD countries over the last twenty-five years as compared with the previous twenty-five year period. The article also finds that, by a number of different measures, whilst Australia's export price growth has apparently become more highly associated with world export prices in recent years, it nonetheless continues to have one of the more volatile set of export prices among OECD countries. [source] REFORM OF THE PERSONAL INCOME TAX SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIAECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 4 2005Jeff Pope This paper examines the case for reform of Australia's Personal Income Tax (PIT), argues that it is outdated, and demonstrates a growing consensus for reform. The importance of tax avoidance, particularly the use of trusts, in the Australian PIT system, and arguably its abrogation of modern-day criteria of what constitutes a ,good tax', is emphasised. Three possible ,reform' options are identified: the ,tinkering and tokenism' approach of current Government policy; moderate reform and a proposed ,significant reform option' costing around $22 billion. Essentially this comprises company and top PIT rate equalisation and a doubling of the tax-free threshold. But funding this is problematical. Two key arguments of the paper are that: (real) simplification i.e. lower compliance costs, is an important yet usually down-played objective in reform proposals; savings from reform denying PIT deductions such as work expenses are insufficient to achieve significant PIT reform. An increase in the rate of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 10% to 15% (with a compensation package) is therefore advocated in a revenue-neutral analysis ignoring current Government budget surpluses. The overall outcome would be a simplified, more equitable and incentive-driven PIT system that would move Australia closer to the PIT and GST policies of other OECD countries. But the political difficulties of reform mean that the Government's ,tinkering' approach is likely to continue. [source] Disability, capacity for work and the business cycle: an international perspectiveECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 63 2010Hugo Benítez-Silva Summary Important policy issues arise from the high and growing number of people claiming disability benefits for reasons of incapacity for work in OECD countries. Economic conditions play an important part in explaining both the stock of disability benefit claimants and inflows to and outflows from that stock. Employing a variety of cross-country and country-specific household panel data sets, as well as administrative data, we find strong evidence that local variations in unemployment have an important explanatory role for disability benefit receipt, with higher total enrolments, lower outflows from rolls and, often, higher inflows into disability rolls in regions and periods of above-average unemployment. In understanding the nature of the cyclical fluctuations and trends in disability it is important to distinguish between work disability and health disability. The former is likely to be influenced by economic conditions and welfare programmes while the latter evolves in a slower fashion with medical technology and demographic changes. There is little evidence of health disability being related to the business cycle, so cyclical variations are driven by work disability. The rise in unemployment due to the current global economic crisis is expected to increase the number of disability insurance claimants. --- Hugo Benítez-Silva, Richard Disney and Sergi Jiménez-Martín [source] What happens during recessions, crunches and busts?ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 60 2009Stijn Claessens Summary We provide a comprehensive empirical characterization of the linkages between key macroeconomic and financial variables around business and financial cycles, for 21 OECD countries over the period 1960,2007. In particular, we analyse the implications of 122 recessions, 113 (28) credit contraction (crunch) episodes, 114 (28) episodes of house price declines (busts), 245 (61) episodes of equity price declines (busts), and their various overlaps in these countries, over the sample period. Our results indicate that the interactions between macroeconomic and financial variables can play a major role in determining the severity and duration of a recession. Specifically, we find evidence that recessions associated with credit crunches and house price busts tend to be deeper and longer than other recessions. , Stijn Claessens, M. Ayhan Kose and Marco E. Terrones [source] Lessons for an ageing society: the political sustainability of social security systemsECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 38 2004Vincenzo Galasso SUMMARY Politics, ageing and pensions What is the future of social security systems in OECD countries? We suggest that the answer belongs to the realm of politics, and evaluate how political constraints and ageing shape the social security system. The increasing ratio of retirees to workers lowers the rate of returns of unfunded pay-as-you-go social security, and induces citizens to prefer smaller such systems and a larger role for private savings. An ageing electorate, however, increases the relevance of pension spending on the agenda of office-seeking policy-makers and tends to increase the size of unfunded pension systems. Calibrating the strength of these effects for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, we find that the latter political aspect always outweighs the former. The relative size of the effects depends on country-specific characteristics and modelling details: when labour market distortions are accounted for the political effect still dominates but becomes less sizeable; the different redistributive character of pension systems and the strength of family ties also play a role in determining politico-economic outcomes. A higher effective retirement age always decreases the size of the system chosen by the voters, often increases its generosity, and may be the only viable solution to pension system problems in the face of population ageing. [source] Public employment and labour market performanceECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 34 2002Yann Algan Summary We explore the consequences of public employment for labour market performance. Theory suggests that public employment may not only crowd out private employment, but also increase overall unemployment if, by offering attractive working conditions, it draws additional individuals into the labour force. Empirical evidence from a sample of OECD countries in the 1960,2000 period suggests that, on average, creation of 100 public jobs may have eliminated about 150 private sector jobs, slightly decreased labour market participation, and increased by about 33 the number of unemployed workers. Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence, however, suggest that the crowding out effect of public jobs on private jobs is only significant in countries where public production is highly substitutable to private activities and the public sector offers more attractive wages and/or other benefits than the private labour market. [source] Anatomy of employment growthECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 34 2002Pietro Garibaldi Summary This paper studies net employment growth across 21 OECD economies since 1980, focusing on the wide range of experiences within the European Union. The initial composition of employment across sectors is relevant in a few countries, but can only partially account for cross-country differences in net employment growth. Institutions play a more important role. A policy package including low dismissal costs and low taxation is significantly associated with high net employment growth and can account for a substantial share of cross-country differences. While the Netherlands' employment miracle is largely accounted for by an increase in part-time jobs for women aged 25,49 in the services sector, we find that in the whole sample part-time jobs largely replace full-time jobs, and temporary jobs replace permanent jobs, with small net effects on hours worked. Continental Europe did not increase employment as much as other OECD countries until the mid-1990s, but later appears to be staging a resurgence of employment growth. We argue that this resurgence is not merely cyclical, is likely related to reforms, and may well be there to stay. [source] Robust International Comparisons of Distributions of Disposable Income and Regional Public GoodsECONOMICA, Issue 303 2009NICOLAS GRAVEL The paper provides robust normative comparisons of 12 OECD countries based on their distributions of disposable income and access to two regional public goods: infant mortality and pupil,teacher ratios at public schools. Comparisons are performed using two and three-dimensional dominance criteria that coincide with the unanimity of utilitarian judgments taken over specific classes of utility functions. The criteria succeed in ranking conclusively about 30% of all possible comparisons in the two-dimensional case, compared with 67% for one-dimensional income-based comparisons and 6% for three-dimensional ones. Introducing local public goods seems to worsen the relative standing of Anglo-Saxon countries. [source] Do Developing Countries Need a Development Box?EUROCHOICES, Issue 2 2003Jonathan Brooks Summary Do Developing Countries Need a Development Box? Developing country proposals for a Development Box focus on changes to WTO rules on agricultural trade that would enable them to address more effectively their objectives related to food security, poverty alleviation and economic development. Yet, there are few instances where developing countries have been constrained in the policies they can adopt. This does not mean that demands for a Development Box are pointless, for if the next WTO agreement is to have a real impact on rates of protection, there will be a need for tighter commitments in both developed and developing countries. Hence proposals for a Development Box can be seen as an insurance policy, given the prospect of deeper multilateral reforms. There is a strong case for easier access to safeguards, under which developing countries could temporarily apply higher tariffs on food security crops when world prices are depressed below threshold levels. There may be an economic justification for expanding the types of domestic support measures that developing countries can employ, in those rare cases where policies would otherwise be constrained. However, these demands should not constrain progress on the most important issue; namely, how OECD countries can do more for developing countries through improvements in market access, the elimination of explicit and implicit export subsidies, and reductions in trade-distorting domestic support. Faut-il une boite spéciale pour le développement ? Les propositions des pays en développement en vue ?établir une ,boîte pour le développement'à,OMC sont centrées sur ,idée qu'il convient de modifier les règies du commerce international agricole, afin de leur permettre ?aborder de façon plus efflcace leurs problèmes spécifiques de sécurité alimentaire, de réduction de la pauvreté et de développement économique. Pourtant, il existe peu ?exemples de situations dans lesquelles un pays en développement ait pu être gêné dans ,adoption ?une politique particulière. Cela ne veut pas dire qu'une boîte pour le développement soit inutile: si le prochain accord à,OMC doit avoir un effet réel sur les taux de protection, des engagements encore plus stricts seront nécessaires de la part, aussi bien des pays en développement que des pays développés. II en résulte que les propositions en vue ?une ,boîte pour le développement' peuvent être considérées comme une politique ?assurance, dans ,optique de réformes multilatérales plus approfondies. II y a des raisons sérieuses pour faciliter le recours aux clauses de sauvegarde, grâce auxquelles les pays en développement pourraient imposer temporairement des droits plus élevés sur les denrées importantes pour leur sécurité alimentaire lorsque les cours mondiaux descendent en deçà?un certain seuil. Il peut exister une justification économique à,extension des catégories de soutien que les pays en développement peuvent employer, dans les cas peu fréquents où les engagements pris seraient contraignants à cet égard. Mais surtout, il faut que les pays en développement prennent garde à ne pas entraver les progrès dans les domaines vraiment importants, à savoir ce que les pays de ,OCDE peuvent faire pour eux en améliorant ,accès aux marchés, en eliminant les subventions implicites et explicites aux exportations, et en réduisant les mesures de soutien intérieures qui affectent les échanges. Benötigen Entwicklungsländer eine Development Box? Die Vorschläge der Entwicklungsländer für eine Development Box zielen auf Änderungen in den Agrarhandelsvorschriften der WTO ab; es soil ihnen ermöglicht werden, ihre Zdele hinsichtlich der Nahrungsmt-telsicherheit, Armutsbekämpfung und Wirtschaftsentwicklung wirkungsvoller zu verfolgen. Bis heute jedoch wurden die Entwicklungsländer nur in wenigen Fällen bei der Ausgestaltung bestimmter Politikmaßnahmen eingeschränkt. Damit ist nicht gesagt, dass Forderungen nach einer Development Box zwecklos sind, denn wenn sich das kommende WTO-Abkommen tatsächlich auf die Protektionsraten auswirken soil, werden sowohl den entwickelten Ländern als auch den Entwicklungsländern mehr Verpflichtungen abverlangt werden. Daher können Vorschläge für eine Development Box als eine Versicherungspolirik vor dem Hintergrund der Aussicht auf tiefergreifende multilaterale Reformen angesehen werden. Es spricht vieles für einen einfacheren Zugang zu Schutzmaßnahmen, unter denen Entwicklungsländer vorübergehend höhere Zölle auf pflanzliche Erzeugnisse mit Bedeutung für die Nahrungsmittelsicherheit erheben könnten, wenn die Weltpreise unterhalb von Schwellenwerten liegen. Es mag aus ökonomischer Sicht eine Rechtfertigung für die Ausdehnung der inlandischen marktstützenden Maßnahmen geben, welche Entwicklungsländer anwenden dürfen; dies kann sinnvoll sein, wenn andernfalls, allerdings in seltenen Fällen, Politikmaßnahmen eingeschränkt werden müssten. Diese Forderungen sollten den Fortschritt bei den allerwichtigsten Themen jedoch nicht behindern; OECD-Länder können mehr für Entwicklungsländer tun, und zwar durch Verbesserung des Marktzugangs, durch die Abschaffung von expliziten und impliziten Exportsubventionen und durch Kürzungen bei den handelsverzerrenden Inlandssubventionen. [source] The Impact of Macroeconomic and Financial Variables on Market Risk: Evidence from International Equity ReturnsEUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2002Dilip K. Patro Using a GARCH approach, we estimate a time,varying two,factor international asset pricing model for the weekly equity index returns of 16 OECD countries. We find significant time,variation in the exposure (beta) of country equity index returns to the world market index and in the risk,adjusted excess returns (alpha). We then explain these world market betas and alphas using a number of country,specific macroeconomic and financial variables with a panel approach. We find that several variables including imports, exports, inflation, market capitalisation, dividend yields and price,to,book ratios significantly affect a country's exposure to world market risk. Similar conclusions are obtained by using lagged explanatory variables, and thus these variables may be useful as predictors of world market risks. Several variables also significantly impact the risk,adjusted excess returns over this time period. Our results are robust to a number of alternative specifications. We further discuss some economic hypotheses that may explain these relationships. [source] The Structure of Banking Systems in Developed and Transition EconomiesEUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2001Dwight Jaffee The paper empirically analyses the determinants of banking system structure (as measured by bank assets, number, branches and employees) for 26 developed OECD countries. The estimated regressions are then applied to 23 transition economies, to obtain benchmarks for the efficient structure of their banking systems. The actual and benchmark measures of banking structure are compared to evaluate the state of banking system development, including the computation of a measure of ,banking system convergence'. The results are objective and replicable multidimensional measures of banking system development for the transition economies. [source] Workers, worries and welfare states: Social protection and job insecurity in 15 OECD countriesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007CHRISTOPHER J. ANDERSON Based on data on people's attitudes toward their job as well as levels of and kinds of social protection collected in 15 OECD countries, it shows that there are distinct manifestations of job insecurity that are affected differently by distinct aspects of social protection programs. While the analysis shows that social protection measures reduce employment insecurity, it also reveals that overall levels welfare state generosity do not have any systematic effect on whether workers feel secure. The article's findings suggest the need to decompose the different components of employment insecurity as well as disaggregate national systems of social protection when examining the impact of welfare states on job insecurity. [source] Economic performance of ,weak' governments and their interaction with central banks and labour: Deficits, economic growth, unemployment and inflation, 1961,1998EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2005TAKAYUKI SAKAMOTO Comparative political economists have conventionally claimed that the strength and stability of governments affect policy making and performance, and that what they call ,weak governments', multiparty, minority and short-lived governments , show poorer economic performance. This article tests this and related hypotheses on deficits, economic growth, unemployment and inflation by examining data from 17 OECD countries. I find that there is generally little evidence to indicate that so-called ,weak governments', when considered independently, produce poorer performance than strong ones. However, the effects of different government types are partly contingent on central bank independence and labour organization. When central banks are independent, coalition governments exhibit better inflation and economic growth performance than one-party governments, but the opposite happens when central banks are dependent. I attempt an explanation for these relationships. I also find that independent central banks, under certain conditions, lead to lower growth and higher inflation. Thus, some of the benefits of central bank independence are context-specific, depending on other political-economic factors. [source] Corporatism and income inequality in the global economy: A panel study of 17 OECD countriesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2003DANIEL J. MINNICH The conventional wisdom of domestic politics in the global economy holds that that the globalization of the market economy has spelled the imminent collapse of corporatist bargaining institutions and the corporatist goal of economic equality. This conventional wisdom, however, highlights an interesting puzzle: it was the process of internationalization and economic openness itself that generated corporatist institutions. This study examines whether corporatist institutions are still effective in ensuring the corporatist goal of equality in the ,global' economy. Income inequality from the early 1980s to the middle 1990s is used as a measure of institutional effectiveness. It is argued that corporatism, as a form of interest mediation, is a path-dependent institution that generates increasing returns in terms of equality in the most internationalized economies. Results of a panel study of 17 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries indicate that corporatism reduces income inequality and, contrary to the conventional wisdom, income inequality is lowest in the most ,global' national economies. [source] Developing new measures of welfare state change and reformEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 5 2002Francis G. Castles Since the publication of Gøsta Esping,Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping,Andersen 1990), which built its typologies on a rich database of detailed programme characteristics, it has been generally accepted that measures of social expenditure are an inferior, and even a misleading, source of information concerning the character of welfare state development. The problem is, however, that the kinds of detailed programme data Esping,Andersen used are not routinely available, while the quality of social expenditure data has been improving rapidly, culminating in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) now regularly updated and highly disaggregated Social Expenditure Database (SOCX). This article explores the possibility of using SOCX to devise measures of the extent, structure and trajectory of welfare state change and reform in 21 OECD countries over the period 1984 to 1997. On the basis of these measures, it suggests that there has been almost no sign of systematic welfare retrenchment in recent years and only limited evidence of major structural transformation or programmatic reorientation. [source] Rights, review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rightsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2001AMY K. MÄKINEN This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time,series cross,section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions. [source] Is Financial Stress an Incentive for the Adoption of Businesslike Planning and Control in Local Government?FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2000A Comparative Study of Eight Dutch Municipalities Hood has formulated the hypothesis that financial stress is a motive for the adoption of New Public Management (NPM), and particularly of businesslike instruments and styles in government. He has illustrated this hypothesis on a macro-level by comparing different OECD countries. The aim of this paper is to make a start with a micro-level test of this hypothesis by studying individual governmental organization, i.e. eight municipalities in the Netherlands. The financial stress hypothesis has been operationalised by assuming a negative relationship between the financial position of a municipality and the existence of businesslike planning and control instruments. The research shows that there is no evidence for the existence of this relationship. However, a conclusive judgement about the financial stress hypothesis seems to be impossible due to the fact that non-technical aspects of NPM were not taken into account, and also because of an , on average , upward bias in the financial position of the municipalities in the empirical investigation. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||