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Anthony Atkinson's proposal for a participation income (PI) has been acclaimed as a workable compromise between the aspirations of unconditional basic income proposals and the political acceptability of the workfare model. This article argues that PI functions poorly in terms of a number of essential administrative tasks that any welfare scheme must perform. This leads to a trilemma of participation income, which suggests that PI can only retain its apparent ability to satisfy the requirements of universalist and selectivist approaches to welfare at the cost of imposing a substantial burden on administrators and welfare clients alike. Consequently, the main apparent strength of PI, its capacity to garner support across different factions within welfare reform debates, is shown to be illusory. © 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

The theoretical effects of labor regulations, such as employment protection legislation (EPL), on innovation is ambiguous. EPL increases job security, and the greater enforceability of job contracts may increase worker investment in innovative activity. But EPL increases firms' adjustment costs, which may lead to underinvestment in activities that are likely to require adjustment, including technologically advanced innovation. In this paper, we find empirical evidence that these effects are at work-in particular, a higher share of multinational enterprise innovative activity in countries with high EPL is technologically advanced. © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We estimate the EU Commission loss preferences for major economic forecasts of 12 Member States. Based on a recently proposed method by Elliott, Komunjer and Timmermann (2005) the paper provides evidence of asymmetries in the underlying forecast loss preference of the Commission that tend to vary across Member States. In some cases, our results show that EU forecasts tend to display a rather optimistic picture for main economic variables, e.g. government balance, thus allowing a certain degree of leeway in the fiscal adjustment path towards the medium-term objective of 'close to balance' or 'in surplus' of the recently revised Stability and Growth Pact. Over the period of our sample, 1970-2004, this apparent asymmetry in the underlying loss preferences tends to deter prudent advice over economic policy. Lastly, we provide an analysis on the trade-off between loss and distribution asymmetries, for which simulation results show that the testing method is robust in the presence of skewness. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper reports on findings derived as part of a two-year project funded by the European Union's Daphne III scheme, involving collaboration between seven partner organisations across six European countries. The project involved an evaluation, using questionnaires and focus groups, of domestic abuse prevention education programmes delivered in schools in the UK, France and Spain. This paper presents the findings from the UK focus group discussions, conducted with young people aged 10-11 years, and 13-14 years to explore their opinions about the intervention delivered in their school. The focus groups revealed the following challenges for service providers in this area: young people can misunderstand issues related to domestic abuse, especially the role of power and control within relationships; there is a tension between educators giving young people free expression to share their opinions and challenging sexism and other prejudices; and boys can become disengaged with gender-based interventions. These issues point towards three key considerations when implementing a domestic abuse prevention education intervention: programme content (the what); the teaching methods used (the how); and whether teachers or external organisations should deliver the programme (the who). © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Routledge.

After many years of debate in the UK about the need for a degree-level qualification in social work, the arguments for a minimum degree-level qualification were accepted. The requirements for the degree in England were developed drawing on work from a number of sources, including a benchmark statement for undergraduate degrees in social work and focus groups with stakeholders. The new degree in England, launched in 2003, involves one extra years study; improvements in the qualifying standard for social work; and specific curriculum and entrance requirements. At the time of launching the degree, the government department responsible for funding (Department of Health) commissioned a three-year evaluation of the implementation of the new degree to establish whether the new qualifying level leads to improvements in the qualified workforce. The aim of the evaluation is to describe the experiences of those undertaking the degree, collect the views of the various stakeholders about the effectiveness of the degree and measure the impact of a degree-level qualification on those entering the workforce. This article, written by the team undertaking the evaluation of the England degree, explores the reasons for the methodological approach adopted and the issues that have arisen in setting up the research.

This paper argues that the HFEA's recent report on sex selection abdicates its responsibility to give its own authentic advice on the matters within its remit, that it accepts arguments and conclusions that are implausible on the face of it and where they depend on empirical claims, produces no empirical evidence whatsoever, but relies on reckless speculation as to what the "facts" are likely to be. Finally, having committed itself to what I call the "democratic presumption", that human freedom will not be constrained unless very good and powerful reasons can be produced to justify such infringement of liberty, the HFEA simply reformulates the democratic presumption as saying the opposite-namely that freedom may only be exercised if powerful justifications are produced for any exercise of liberty.

The topic of parental engagement in the context of child protection is of significant international interest, given much documented problems of achieving effective 'partnerships' where professional agencies raise serious concerns about children. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study of interaction between professionals and parents in the quasi-judicial setting of pre-proceedings meetings in England. Recent legislative changes in England and Wales have aimed to improve the prospects for effective partnership work with parents through a revised pre-proceedings process. Through detailed examination of parent-professional interaction using methods of applied discourse studies, the study highlights the constraints that institutional requirements create in terms of the differential rights and obligations of parents and professionals. Inevitably, that talk is asymmetrically organized in favour of the local authority, leads to resistance on the part of parents. The study highlights problems of engaging parents who display both active and passive forms of resistance, as they seek to challenge or reject organizational goals. The study concludes with broader observations about the likely limits of legislative efforts that seek to 're-order' the complex relationships between parents and professionals in child protection work. © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

This paper examines the results of economic poverty reduction modelling in selected countries 1992-2002 using the fuzzy set method (fsQCA) and the crisp set method (csQCA). The fsQCA and csQCA are the two main configurational comparative methods (CCM). This paper primarily focuses on making sensitivity assessments of the fsQCA and csQCA results. The outcomes of CCM based on the truth table algorithm are determined by the calibration of the set-relation membership score as well as the outcome variable of the interim truth table (called the consistency cutoff). Calibration of the raw data into crisp-and fuzzy-set membership scores based on theoretically and empirically grounded establishment of thresholds has been emphasised as it shapes the truth table algorithm. Thus, like previous studies of sensitivity assessment we focus on calibration. However this paper shows how to determine the balance of consistency and coverage outcomes based on various cutoff points as being highly important for a sensitivity assessment. We argue that the optimal consistency cutoff point helps us optimally determine the configurational multiple causality. The outcomes of fsQCA and csQCA are considered in relation to the balance of consistency and coverage. The robustness of the results of the truth table algorithm depends on the balance of consistency and coverage. Using poverty reduction as a dependent variate, we compare the two methods which are both useful.

As the Global Agenda for Social Work continues to be promoted and moves forward, so does the desire to use innovation in the development, evolution and improvement of practice internationally. Using examples from practice, the article identifies two key challenges associated with transferring innovative social work models between countries, namely demonstrating effectiveness in an evidence-based context and managing cultural adaptation. It draws upon the diffusion of innovation literature applied by different disciplines and recommends practical steps that researchers and practitioners can take to support the transfer of models of practice between countries.

This paper details a research project exploring how work time is structured in the digital industries in the UK, drawing upon a case study of a Bristol web enterprise situated in the 'Silicon Gorge' high-tech hub incorporating ethnography, interviews, observation and time diaries. The role of the internet in blurring the demarcation between paid and unpaid labour features prominently in the work patterns of the research participants. The culture of flexibility that abounds in the case study company harnesses the subjectivities and selves of individual employees to a cycle of 'project time' centred around specific tasks and deadlines, completely divorced from recognition of one's contribution based upon traditional temporal measures.

This article evaluates the relative strengths and weaknesses of fuzzy-set analysis and regression analysis for explaining the "great reversal" in Spanish America. From 1750 to 1900, the most marginal colonial territories often became the region's wealthiest countries, whereas the most central colonial territories often became the region's poorest countries. To explain this reversal, five competing hypotheses are tested using both regression and fuzzy-set methods. The fuzzy-set analysis reaches substantively important conclusions, finding that strong liberal factions are probabilistically necessary for economic development and that dense indigenous populations are probabilistically necessary for social underdevelopment. By contrast, the regression analysis generates findings that are not meaningful. The article concludes that fuzzy-set analysis and regression analysis operate in different "causal universes" and that greater attention should be granted to the causal universe occupied by fuzzy-set analysis. © 2005 Sage Publications.

Prompted by findings from the Munro Review of Child Protection, this paper provides a critical analysis of the combination of changes that appear to have undermined social workers ability to develop strong partnerships with children and their families. Here, we engage with a number of now familiar lines of critique that have exposed the negative consequences of aspects of New Labours modernisation agenda (such as excessive standardisation). However, we challenge our readers to think more broadly about the political foundations of the New Labour project and, in particular, to consider how neo-liberal policies have in the past and are likely in the future to lead to the intensification of inequalities, thus undermining effective family work. Efforts to deal with excessive rules and procedures, or the revision of performance targets, as suggested in the Munro Review, will not mitigate the corrosive effects of rising social inequality. If we are to think systemically, as Munro suggests, then we must consider the likely regressive impact of impending public sector and welfare cuts and challenge any moves to sideline family support and restrict social work to a narrow focus on child protection. © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Incorporation in law is recognised as key to the implementation of the UNCRC. This article considers the ways in which a variety of countries have chosen to incorporate the CRC, drawing on a study conducted by the authors for UNICEF-UK. It categorises the different approaches adopted into examples of direct incorporation (where the CRC forms part of domestic law) and indirect incorporation (where there are legal obligations which encourage its incorporation); and full incorporation (where the CRC has been wholly incorporated in law) and partial incorporation (where elements of the CRC have been incorporated). Drawing on evidence and interviews conducted during field visits in six of the countries studied, it concludes that children's rights are better protected – at least in law if not also in practice – in countries that have given legal status to the CRC in a systematic way and have followed this up by establishing the necessary systems to support, monitor and enforce the implementation of CRC rights.

Variations in the distribution of power have been used to account for and to advocate different types of doctor-patient relationship. It might be expected that doctors who become patients would have a 'mutual' relationship with their treating doctor. Data from interviews with doctors with a recent illness show that this is not necessarily the case and may not even be doctors' preferred model of doctor-patient relationship for themselves when they become ill. Doctors constitute anomalous patients since they confound two categories generally held to be separate, 'doctor' and 'patient'. This affects the type of medical encounter they have, raising issues of identity and role performance for both patient and treating doctor. Doctor/patients may be in control of the encounter (through choice or default); they may consciously choose or have explicitly ascribed to them the status of 'ordinary patient'; some believe that doctors should be treated as extraordinary patients with particular needs dependent on their insider status as much as their pathology, The negotiation of power in the encounter between doctors and medically qualified patients is problematic but the existence of the power differential in the medical encounter emerges as 'natural' and largely as desirable, since it is linked to the ability and authority to take charge of the disorder which illness represents.

In Stockholm, Sweden, women are invited to a cost-free population-based cervical cancer screening programme (PCCSP) at regular intervals. Despite this, many women choose not to attend screening at all or to take opportunistic tests instead. This study explores how women who actively declined participation in the PCCSP reasoned about their choice. Qualitative telephone interviews and fax messages from women who actively declined participation in the PCCSP were analysed inductively. The manner in which women defined and conceptualized distinctions between, and the roles and responsibilities of, both private and public spheres were found to be central in explanations of decision making. Factors related to women's decisions not to participate in screening at all include a lack of confidence in the benefits of screening, previous negative health care and preventive experiences, a belief in one's own ability to discern health changes or a belief that one was not at risk for cervical cancer, as well as a number of unconventional standpoints on social and political issues. Women who chose not to participate in the organized PCCSP, but who did use private opportunistic screening, generally motivated this with direct or indirect criticism of the screening programme itself. Not only was the examination itself sensitive but also all facets of the PCCSP, from invitation letter on, were found to influence women's decisions. Using Jepson et al.'s ethical framework to peruse the evidence-base underlying women's 'informed decision-making' about CCS is suggested to be more constructive than discussing potential participants' knowledge versus lack of knowledge. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.