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241. Urban Sustainable Development and the Challenge of French Metropolitan Strategies

Author:
Philippe Hamman
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Political Sociology
Abstract:
This article focuses on some salient issues of urban sustainable development in France, specifically with regard to six urban agglomerations: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse. The reticular dimension of these issues is analysed with reference to the ways a plurality of actors imagine, project and realise the construction of cities, rather than through sectoral points of view. This relational approach is divided according to a triple focus in which we successively address: firstly, the state of SD policies in the listed major French cities, in terms of contents and conception; secondly, their implementation from the perspective of instruments; and finally, the circuits of their realisation. Thus, urban SD appears within a (locally variable) set of linkages that place these issues firmly in areas of interrelations and intersections.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
France

242. Civic Engagement on the Move

Author:
J.D. Lasica
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom holds that the growing influence of mobile media has contributed to the steady dissolution of society's civic bonds. The creeping sense of disengagement was documented recently in a Duke University study that found we are feeling far more socially isolated today than we were two decades ago. The more we hunker down by checking stocks and scores on our iPhones, sharing our photos on Flickr and jabbering into our Razr phones, the less likely we are to hold a conversation with a stranger, volunteer at a homeless shelter or join a political cause. Or so the argument goes.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Demographics, Politics, and Science and Technology

243. The Effect of Informal Caregiving on Labor Market Outcomes in South Korea

Author:
Young Kyung Do
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Embedded in traditional culture perpetuating family-centered elderly care, informal care is still viewed as a family or moral issue rather than a social and policy issue in South Korea. Using newly available micro data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, this study investigates the effect of informal caregiving on labor market outcomes in South Korea. By doing so, this study provides evidence to inform elderly long-term care policy in South Korea, and also fills a gap in the international literature by providing results from an Asian country. Empirical analyses address various methodological issues by investigating gender differences, by examining both extensive and intensive labor market adjustments with two definitions of labor force participation, by employing different functional forms of care intensity, and by accounting for the potential endogeneity of informal care as well as intergenerational co-residence. Robust findings suggest negative effects of informal caregiving on labor market outcomes among women, but not among men. Compared with otherwise similar non-caregivers, female intensive caregivers who provide at least more than 10 hours of care per week are at an increased risk of being out of the labor force by 15.2 percentage points. When examining the probability of employment in the formal sector only, the effect magnitude is smaller. Among employed women, more intensive caregivers receive lower hourly wages by 1.65K Korean Won than otherwise similar non-caregivers. Informal care is already an important economic issue in South Korea even though aging is still at an early stage.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, and Markets
Political Geography:
Israel, Asia, and South Korea

244. Has the Use of Physician Gatekeepers Declined among HMOs? Evidence from the United States

Author:
Hai Fang, Hong Liu, and John A. Rizzo
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Since the mid-1980s, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) have grown rapidly in the United States. Despite initial successes in constraining health care costs, HMOs have come under increasing criticism due to their restrictive practices. To remain viable, this would seem to suggest that HMOs have to change at least some of these behaviors. However, there is little empirical evidence on how restrictive aspects of HMOs may be changing. The present study investigates one mechanism for constraining costs that is often associated with HMOs – the role of the primary care physician as a gatekeeper (e.g., monitoring patients' use of specialist physicians). In particular, we estimate the effect of primary care physician involvement with HMOs on the percentage of their patients for whom these physicians serve as gatekeepers. We examine these relationships over two time periods: 2000-2001 and 2004-2005. Because physicians can choose whether and to what extent they will participate in HMOs, we employ instrumental variables (IV) estimation to correct for endogeneity of the HMO measure. Although the single-equation estimates suggest that the role of HMOs in terms of requiring primary care physicians to serve as gatekeepers diminished modestly over time, the endogeneity-corrected estimates show no changes between the two time periods. Thus, one major tool used by HMOs to constrain health care costs – the physician as gatekeeper – has not declined even in the era of managed care backlash.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

245. Mobility of Labor and Services across the Baltic Sea after EU Enlargement: Trends and Consequences

Author:
Jon Erik Dølvik
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The enlargement of the EU/EEA area on 1 May 2004 to comprise 28 countries – including eight Central and Eastern European countries, in 2007 followed by Bulgaria and Romania – was a milestone. The subsequent opening of the markets for labor and services between countries with gaps in wages and living conditions comparable to those along the U.S./Mexican border has no modern precedent, prompting new patterns of competition, migration and adjustment in national labor market regimes. This paper reviews developments in labor migration after enlargement and the implications for the labor markets in the Baltic States and Poland, which have accounted for a predominant share of the intra-EU/EEA migration flows since 2004. Besides the UK and Ireland, where almost one million EU8 citizens had registered in 2007, the booming Nordic economies have become important destinations, having granted more than 250,000 permits and seen sizeable additional flows of service providers and self-employed from the Baltic states and Poland. In the sending countries, rising demand for labor has, alongside strong outmigration – especially among young and well-educated groups – engendered falling unemployment, soaring wage growth, and made shortages of skills and labor an obstacle to further economic recovery. Yet, while better paid temporary work abroad may weaken the incentives for employment, mobility and training in the home country, aging will lead to shrinking working-age populations in the coming years. Unless the Baltic states and Poland can entice a larger share of the population to work in their home countries – and/or can attract substantial labor migration from third countries – the declining work force may easily entail economic stagnation and reinforce the outflow of human resources. These countries are thereby facing a critical juncture in their economic and social development. In the recipient Nordic countries, the growing labor and service mobility, low cost production, and competition for labor in Europe, as well as emerging lines of division in the labor markets, have, on the other hand, raised new questions as to how the principles of free movement and the egalitarian Nordic models can be made reconcilable in the open European markets.
Topic:
Demographics, Markets, and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe

246. Transport Infrastructure in Shrinking (East) Germany

Author:
Weert Canzler
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Policy on transport infrastructure in Germany will come under increasing pressure thanks to considerable changes in basic conditions. Demographic change, shifts in economic and regional structures, continued social individualization, and the chronic budget crisis in the public sphere are forcing a readjustment of government action. At root, the impact of the changes in demographics and economic structures touches on what Germans themselves think their postwar democracy stands for. Highly consensual underlying assumptions about Germany as a model are being shaken. The doctrine that development of infrastructure is tantamount to growth and prosperity no longer holds. The experience in eastern Germany shows that more and better infrastructure does not automatically lead to more growth. Moreover, uniform government regulation is hitting limits. If the differences between boom regions and depopulated zones remain as large as they are, then it makes no sense to have the same regulatory maze apply to both cases. In transportation policy, that shift would mean recasting the legal foundations of public transport.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Germany

247. Barack Obama's Social Security Donut Hole

Author:
Andrew G. Biggs
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Until recently, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was surprisingly responsible regarding Social Security, noting the urgency of reform and saying all options should be on the table. But having cornered himself with Democratic activists whose attitudes toward Social Security reform range from demagoguery to denial, his solution to the system's problems has veered leftward. He now plans to fix Social Security exclusively with higher taxes. The new Obama plan would not only fail to resolve the system's long-term problems, but would also impose significant costs on the economy as a whole.
Topic:
Demographics, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

248. Little League, Huge Effect

Author:
Kevin A. Hassett and Scott Ganz
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
When pundits discuss the influence of sports on American culture, they often emphasize the negatives: Michael Vick and dog fighting, the steroids scandals in baseball, lewd fan behavior in football, or doping incidents in cycling and track. But below the radar of popular athletic culture is something that has profoundly shaped the lives of millions of Americans for the better: youth sports. A growing body of research is showing the social and economic benefits of participation in youth sports to be surprisingly large and overwhelmingly positive. Other things being equal, if a kid plays sports, he will earn more money, stay in school longer, and be more engaged in civic life.
Topic:
Demographics and Education
Political Geography:
United States

249. The Cleavage Model, Ethnicity and Voter Alignment in Africa: Conceptual and Methodological Problems Revisited

Author:
Gero Erdmann
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Recent research on political parties and ethnicity has challenged the conventional wisdom about ethnicity as the major factor that explains voter alignment in Africa. The paper maintains that the cleavage model, although modified to include ethnicity, still provides heuristically the best foundation for the explanation of party formation and voting behaviour in Africa. It points out that inconclusive and contradicting research results about the salience of ethnicity can be attributed to a variety of unresolved methodological and conceptual problems linked to the 'fluidity' of the concept of ethnicity. To overcome these problems refined research designs and more sophisticated analytical tools are required. Finally, it is safe to assume that the relevance of ethnicity for the formation of party systems and voter alignment is not a uniform pattern across Africa, but will differ from one country to the other.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa

250. Utility Payments as Alternative Credit Data: A Reality Check

Author:
Sara Burr and Virginia Carlson
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Access to credit is one of the cornerstones of wealth-building in the United States. Yet, between 35 million and 54 million persons are not participating in the credit market. Many individuals outside the credit mainstream are unable to access credit, or credit at competitive rates, because of the lack of traditional information, such as mortgage and credit card payments, available on their credit files. However, there is evidence that the inclusion of alternative data on credit-like payments, such as utility payments, in credit reporting can help bridge this information gap. The first step toward filling this gap requires utility companies to systematically report these data to the major credit bureaus.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States