Suchergebnisse

Ethnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have been remarkably persistent. Yet one very well-known differential – the Catholic/Protestant unemployment differential in Northern Ireland – has largely (although not completely) disappeared. This paper charts its decline since the early 1980s and examines potential explanations using Census data from 1991, 2001 and 2011 together with annual survey data. These data span the ending of The Troubles, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the introduction of fair employment legislation, growth in hidden unemployment, and major structural changes in Northern Ireland. We assess the potential impact of these changes.

Brazil has recently shifted from economic growth to recession, from left-wing to far-right politics and from neo-developmentalist to ultra-liberal economic policies. This regressive change in Brazil (and elsewhere) has prompted the need for empirical investigation and emancipatory movement-building, as urged by the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI). This article responds to the ERPI call by reflecting on the politics of the past. It argues that the road to regression was paved during the tenure of the Workers' Party, when Lula's leadership emerged as representative of interests 'from below' while advancing a political project that protected and nurtured interests 'from above' - a populist ambiguity. By offering an understanding from a class political economy perspective, this article concludes that reinforcing left-wing populism in the face of authoritarianism is unlikely to create a path to emancipation.

The first book to analyses the effects of technologization, flexibilization and intensification of work for the quality of work. Offers a clear definition of 'good work' based on academic work from various disciplines. Suggests novel policy proposals based on a thorough analysis of the quality of work in the Netherlands The original Dutch version of the book has been well received in the Dutch media, by employers' organizations, trade unions, academics, and in Dutch parliament.

This case study examines the financial mechanisms that support the social economy in Quebec, Canada. Quebec's innovative social economy ecosystem is rooted in strong associative and cooperative traditions, well developed networks, and strong partnerships between the social economy and government. Among the key themes that emerged were the value of a large range of financial mechanisms available to meet the needs of SSE enterprises at different stages of development, and in particular, the development of 'patient capital' which has facilitated broader investment in collectively owned enterprises that operate for social and community benefit. In responding to COVID-19, the provincial government and other financial institutions have instituted relief efforts to support the SSE, and the SSE will form an important component of recovery efforts in terms of providing key services, helping integrate people into the workforce and facilitating the transition towards a more sustainable and socially responsible economy in the province.

Early modern warfare in Western Europe exposed civilian populations to violence, hardship, and disease. Despite limited empirical evidence, the ensuing mortality effects are regularly invoked by economic historians to explain patterns of economic development. Using newly collected data on adult burials and war events in the seventeenth-century Low Countries, we estimate early modern war-driven mortality in localities close to military activity. We find a clear and significant general mortality effect consistent with the localized presence of diseases. During years with major epidemic disease outbreaks, we demonstrate a stronger and more widely spreading mortality effect. However, war-driven mortality increases during epidemic years are of similar relative magnitude is those in non-epidemic war years. Given the omnipresence of warfare in the seventeenth-century Low Countries, war-driven mortality was remarkably constant rather than a sharp discontinuity. The economic impact of warfare likely played out over the long term rather than driven by sudden large mortality spikes creating rapid structural change.

Early modern warfare in Western Europe exposed civilian populations to violence, hardship, and disease. Despite limited empirical evidence, the ensuing mortality effects are regularly invoked by economic historians to explain patterns of economic development. Using newly collected data on adult burials and war events in the seventeenth-century Low Countries, we estimate early modern war-driven mortality in localities close to military activity. We find a clear and significant general mortality effect consistent with the localized presence of diseases. During years with major epidemic disease outbreaks, we demonstrate a stronger and more widely spreading mortality effect. However, war-driven mortality increases during epidemic years are of similar relative magnitude as those in non-epidemic war years. Given the omnipresence of warfare in the seventeenth-century Low Countries, war-driven mortality was remarkably constant rather than a sharp discontinuity. The economic impact of warfare likely played out over the long term rather than driven by sudden large mortality spikes creating rapid structural change.

The UKs withdrawal from the European Union presents multiple uncertainties for farm management planning. Encouraging growth within the agricultural economy requires some acceptance of risk within farming decision making. This briefing note outlines the results of a survey of 2,494 farmers, crofters and smallholders, run during the summer of 2018, on their approaches towards farming and how this may affect business planning post-Brexit. We find three categories of farmers based on their risk perceptions. Risk averse farmers (39%), risk taking farmers (17%), and risk cautious farmers (44%). Risk taking farmers appear to be more likely to have increased their intensity of production and their level of diversification. In addition they are more likely to have invested in new technologies and new capital. On more environmental led approaches, the differences are less extreme, especially in aspects around woodland expansion which may indicate different motivates towards public good activities. There is a fairly even spread of risk perceptions across farming types, with risk takers more likely to emerge from very large farms, and risk averse farmers from very small farms. Older farmers are more risk averse, and a higher proportion of risk cautious and risk takers are under 45. Only a slightly higher proportion of new entrants are risk takers compared to established farmers. Understanding risk perception is crucial as support systems may change. Risk taking activity can lead to higher levels of investment and therefore increasing on farm efficiencies. On more greener activities there is less evidence. However, whilst risk taking may lead to more sustainable growth, the high level of debt within Scottish farming may support more risk cautious approaches to investment. Nevertheless, supporting farmers away from risk averse behaviours (which compose 39% of the sample) should be encouraged.

We examine the effect of initial public offering (IPO) characteristics on seasoned equity offering (SEO) decisions in relation to governmental intervention in China. Our results confirm the process of underpriced IPOs in promoting earlier and larger SEOs in the Chinese context. The study examines three channels through which the Chinese government intervenes in equity issuance activities, namely state ownership, politically connected executives and economic development areas. We find that the connection between IPOs and SEOs becomes less apparent in government‐intervened firms. We attribute these results to the conflict between the state and minority shareholders, which leads to high uncertainty and risk in government‐intervened firms.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and estimate market risk for the ten major industries in Vietnam. The focus of the empirical analysis is on the energy sector, which has been designated as one of the four key industries, together with services, food, and telecommunications, targeted for economic development by the Vietnam Government through to 2020. The oil and gas industry is a separate energy-related major industry, and it is evaluated separately from energy. The data set is from 2009 to 2017, which is decomposed into two distinct sub-periods after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), namely the immediate post-GFC (2009–2011) period and the normal (2012–2017) period, in order to identify the behavior of market risk for Vietnam's major industries. For the stock market in Vietnam, the website used in this paper provided complete and detailed data for each stock, as classified by industry. Two widely used approaches to measure and analyze risk are used in the empirical analysis, namely Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). The empirical findings indicate that Energy and Pharmaceuticals are the least risky industries, whereas oil and gas and securities have the greatest risk. In general, there is strong empirical evidence that the four key industries display relatively low risk. For public policy, the Vietnam Government's proactive emphasis on the targeted industries, including energy, to achieve sustainable economic growth and national economic development, seems to be working effectively. This paper presents striking empirical evidence that Vietnam's industries have substantially improved their economic performance over the full sample, moving from relatively higher levels of market risk in the immediate post-GFC period to a lower risk environment in a normal period several years after the end of the calamitous GFC.

This paper examines the processes of formulation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) – 'Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns' – and its targets and indicators. We argue that business interests have steered its narrative of sustainable growth. The outcome of the SDG 12 negotiations reflects a production- and design-centered perspective that emerged in the 1990s and has a business-friendly regulatory approach and faith in solutions through new technologies. We show how the targets and indicators emerged in debates between national governments, UN agencies, civil society and private sector organizations – and how they reflect both the political process and technical and practical considerations in translation of a broad concept into the SDG format. While the emergence of SDG 12 as a standalone goal stems from a push by developing countries to build pressure on developed countries, and its presence may open space for attention to this area in the future, many of its targets were watered down and left vague. The indicators to measure progress on the targets further narrow the scope and ambition of Goal 12, whose current content does not adequately reflect earlier more transformative conceptualizations of Sustainable Consumption and Production.

This paper studies the relationship between collective bargaining and mergers and acquisitions activity in 46 countries from the early 1990s. We find that the frequency and volume of mergers and acquisitions within industries increase in countries with powerful labor unions and high coverage of bargaining coordination. Economically, collective bargaining mitigates the negative effect of tighter employment protection legislations on mergers and acquisitions documented in prior works. Further analyses suggest that collective bargaining encourages mergers and acquisitions by reducing employment uncertainty among target firm employees. Our results provide new insights into the real effects of collective bargaining in the context of mergers and acquisitions around the world.

The creation of Intreo as a one-stop shop for jobseekers in Ireland occurred during the financial and sovereign debt crisis period of 2010–16. The organisational merger was the product of an extensive programme of successful administrative reorganisation and service integration that deserves attention. This article begins with an overview of the policy to merge insurance-based unemployment benefit, discretionary social welfare payments and labour market activation measures, as well as the various political and institutional rationales that led to this development. Drawing on the special issue framework concerning how the interaction of ideology, institutions and interests comes into play during policy change, we consider the contextual factors that facilitated the rapid implementation of the programme and its overall successful execution. Whilst focusing on the success, we also critically point out the shortcomings in the implementation chain, some of which predated the crisis, as well as problems during the implementation process, such as delays in the national rollout and back-office supports. We identify the main contributing factors for successful implementation of a one-stop shop for activation and unemployment services as (a) a high problem pressure, (b) a small and agile implementation team, (c) changing labour relations (e.g. binding arbitration, weakened unions) and (d) a modern communication strategy.

Governments around the world are adopting inclusive growth agendas. The ambition to align economic growth ambitions with broader-based social benefits is increasingly embraced by corporations to limit the 'negative externalities' and enhance the 'positive externalities' of their operations. Therefore, micro-level corporate strategies and macro-level national ambitions meet at the meso-level of networks and clusters. This requires societal spheres to collaborate and search for alternative governance constellations. In this discourse, port development is only recently receiving attention. In March 2018, ports around the world signed the World Ports Sustainability Program declaration, which aims to contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), whilst a number of national port (master) plans have started to include social along with environmental standards. Extant studies on partnering and stakeholder inclusion in port development are proliferating but are primarily aimed at environmental rather than social (inclusion) issues. This paper adopts an exploratory research design to consider conditions for inclusive port development. A novel taxonomy considers port development as a driver for inclusive growth, where partnerships are the missing link between micro-level business strategies and macro-level effects in the port region and economy at large. This paper shows the first findings and delineates areas for further research.

This chapter analyses the major trends in Rotterdam's migration history in three periods: the early-modern period (1600–1800), the era in which the Working Class Port City was created (1850–1940), and the post-war period until the 1980s. Rotterdam's pre-industrial history convincingly reveals a multi-ethnic and religious diverse society. Small foreign minorities could have a significant influence on Rotterdam's cultural, political and economic development. Even strong national identities did not restrict a strong sense of local attachment. The port city of the nineteenth century was less diverse, considering the smaller number of foreign migrants that settled in the city. The migration narrative of the port city in this period is inexorably linked to that of the working city. This narrative became highly popular in the post-war reconstruction period. The offspring of Rotterdam's nineteenth century rural-urban migrants had rebuilt the city after the fatal German bombardment in May 1940 and had been responsible for its successful post-war industrial port development. The arrival of non-Western migrants in the 1960s and 1970s challenged Rotterdam's nineteenth century popularised migration narrative. Policy-makers have suggested that this post-war migration process is fundamentally different from older migration patterns. In general, we tend to be too pessimistic about the post war integration and too optimistic about patterns of integration in the past, particularly during the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding the fact that by then the large majority of the migrants were Dutch, marginalisation and exclusion took place on a larger scale than realised. Our long-term perspective hopes to contribute to link earlier migration narratives to Rotterdam's recent superdiversity.

his article critically examines and problematises the 'taken for granted' status of economic growth within modern politics and political economy. It views economic growth is an ideology and structural interest of the capitalist state, one that serves the interests of a specific class or elite rather than, beyond a threshold, the interests of a majority in society. The article outlines some of the historical and institutional origins of economic growth as a core state imperative. It focuses on the immediate post-WW2 period, the Cold War, and the role of the OECD (and its predecessor the OEEC) in systematically disseminating and promoting GDP growth in Western European countries as a key part of the US led competition of the 'free capitalist world' against the Communist bloc. The article suggests that economic growth is s a powerful idea that has become a keystone of the (initially Keynesian-based) political ideology of growth, which in turn enabled and empowered state and supra-state institutions, and acted as a legitimating ideology throughout capitalist societies.