Search results for "Public economics"
showing 10 items of 304 documents
How Return Affects the Decision to Surrender a Savings Insurance Policy: Detailed Observations on the Reverse Disposition Effect
2020
The disposition effect has been widely studied in academia, while the reverse disposition effect observed in mutual funds has gained relatively little attention. This study examines the reverse disposition effect in detail by using policy-level data from a Finnish life insurer with a considerable sample size. The results show that the Finnish savings policies with a positive return have a surrender rate that is over 30 percent lower than that of policies with a negative return. Tax incentives and expected future returns do not seem to cause this reverse disposition effect directly. Salient information strengthens the reverse disposition effect, and higher policyholder age and surrender fees…
Promoting self-employment: Does it create more employment and business activity?
2021
International audience; We assess the economic impact of reforms promoting self-employment in the three countries that have implemented such reforms since the early 2000s: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. To that end, we use an unbalanced cross country-industry dataset of 4,226 observations, including 12 OECD countries and 20 market industries, over the 1995-2016 period. We first observe, using country-level data, that the share of self-employed workers in total employment is quite stable or declines over the period in all countries in our dataset, except in the three countries where large reforms promoting self-employment have been implemented, and only after these reforms. …
On Legal Cooperation and the Dynamics of Legal Convergence
2010
In this paper, we study the dynamics of legal convergence and the comparison between the different instruments of legal convergence based on cooperative strategies (i.e., harmonization and unification) or not. To study these questions we use a model with two nation-states which is inspired in part by that used in Carbonara and Parisi (2008) where preferences of each nation-state are such that it is costly to change the law, but it is also costly to have a different legal system from the other nation-state. We show that legal unification could be achieved in the long-run through small step by step changes despite the existence of huge harmonization costs in the short run. We also show that l…
Monetary and non-monetary incentives for educational attainment: design and effectiveness
2020
Abstract The use of extrinsic incentives to steer individual behavior is at the heart of economics and the effects of monetary incentives for students, parents, and teachers on educational attainment have been studied widely. However, the use of monetary incentives may be difficult to scale up because they are potentially expensive and educators and parents may be skeptical about cash for grades. Non-monetary incentives have the potential to mitigate these problems while being cost-effective in increasing educational attainment. This chapter reviews the literature on providing extrinsic, monetary and non-monetary incentives to increase educational attainment. Thereby, we focus on the design…
Housing Affordability and Income-threshold in Social Housing Policy
2016
Abstract The issue of affordable housing has again become crucial in ensuring a greater social equity, increasing social cohesion and reducing inequalities within metropolitan or regional systems which, in the current climate of severe economic crisis, have to respond to global challenges of development, innovation and sustainability. This study aims at building a system of knowledge about the housing affordability on the territorial scale, by which to identify the local characteristics of housing problems that could be solved through traditional planning tools or new practices of social housing, which involves private stakeholders and/or public administrations. This system of knowledge sho…
EX-ANTE AND EX-POST MEASUREMENT OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN HEALTH: A NORMATIVE DECOMPOSITION
2013
This paper proposes and discusses two different approaches to the definition of inequality in health: the ex-ante and the ex-post approach. It proposes strategies for measuring inequality of opportunity in health based on the path-independent Atkinson equality index. The proposed methodology is illustrated using data from the British Household Panel Survey; the results suggest that in the period 2000–2005, at least one-third of the observed health equalities in the UK were equalities of opportunity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
International governance mode choice: Evidence from Brazilian franchisors
2021
Abstract The purpose of this article is to test a novel, integrative theory of governance mode selection in the context of international franchising from Brazil. Given the Brazilian emerging market context, we added and tested another variable in the model relating to environmental distance between the home (Brazil) and host countries. To test the theory, we employed two logistic regression models and representative data from the Brazilian Franchising Association in addition to the World Bank's Doing Business index, and the CEPII (Centre d'etudes prospectives et d'informations internationales). Findings show that three factors influence Brazilian franchisors' choices regarding international…
Does hospital competition harm equity? Evidence from the English National Health Service
2011
Increasing evidence shows that hospital competition under fixed prices can improve quality and reduce cost. Concerns remain, however, that competition may undermine socio-economic equity in the utilisation of care. We test this hypothesis in the context of the pro-competition reforms of the English National Health Service progressively introduced from 2004 to 2006. We use a panel of 32,482 English small areas followed from 2003 to 2008 and a difference in differences approach. The effect of competition on equity is identified by the interaction between market structure, small area income deprivation and year. We find a negative association between market competition and elective admissions …
ASPECTS OF INEQUALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF EMPLOYMENT OF PRE-SCHOOL TEACHERS IN LATVIA
2020
Policy-making in education involves social agents at national, municipal and institutional levels. National regulations and financial capacity of municipalities determine working conditions of teachers and employment aspects at all levels of the education system. For several years, discussions have been taking place in Latvia involving employers of education sector and policy makers on tackling inequalities in pay and workload principles for pre-school teachers. Situation of the pre-school teachers varies across municipalities and is affected by their financial opportunities to sustain educational institutions and ensure teachers’ salaries. In 2019, Latvian Trade Union of Education and Scie…
Applying system dynamics to foster organizational change, accountability and performance in the public sector: A case-based Italian perspective
2010
The goal of this paper is to discuss the role System Dynamics (SD) can play to enhance performance improvement in the public sector. It is remarked how SD can help decision makers to properly perceive the boundaries of the relevant system underlying observed phenomena. To this end, three real cases are analysed to show how SD can facilitate a better understanding of the relationships between the political and the organisational system in the public sector, and how to promptly attain efficiency and improve outcome, given the constraints that the institutional and political systems constitute. The goal of this paper is to discuss the role System Dynamics (SD) can play to enhance performance i…