In this paper, we try to measure the impact of the changes in French bankruptcy law in the 19th century focusing on the behaviour of economic agents as users of bankruptcy law for the sake of finding the best solution to their economic problems. Debtors used bankruptcy law in order to minimize their debt level when facing difficulties in servicing it, but they had to convince their creditors and/or the courts of their good faith, and faced the adverse effects of bankruptcy on their reputation and on the smooth functioning of their business. Creditors used bankruptcy law in order to force their debtors to pay, if they could. Judges - who in the French system of specialized commercial courts were elected entrepreneurs - applied the law within a specific economic context (both a specific local context and at a specific moment in the business cycle) which could affect them. The first part of the paper presents the evolution of French bankruptcy law during the 19th century in its historical context. The second part briefly describes the theoretical model we use in order to understand the choices facing debtors and creditors in the face of financial distress. The last part proposes some major stylized facts concerning bankruptcies during that period (based on contemporary official statistics) and tries to understand their relationship with the legal evolution described before. ; Cet article propose une méthode pour évaluer l'impact des changements du droit des faillites sur l'économie en se concentrant sur le comportement des agents utilisant les dispositifs juridiques disponibles pour régler au mieux leurs difficultés. Les débiteurs utilisent le droit des faillites pour minimiser leur niveau de dette lorsqu'ils font face à des difficultés de paiement, mais doivent convaincre les créanciers et les tribunaux de leur bonne foi et anticipent les effets négatifs de la faillite sur leur réputation et sur la survie de leur entreprise. Les créanciers utilisent si nécessaire le droit pour forcer les débiteurs à payer, sachant ...
In this paper, we try to measure the impact of the changes in French bankruptcy law in the 19th century focusing on the behaviour of economic agents as users of bankruptcy law for the sake of finding the best solution to their economic problems. Debtors used bankruptcy law in order to minimize their debt level when facing difficulties in servicing it, but they had to convince their creditors and/or the courts of their good faith, and faced the adverse effects of bankruptcy on their reputation and on the smooth functioning of their business. Creditors used bankruptcy law in order to force their debtors to pay, if they could. Judges - who in the French system of specialized commercial courts were elected entrepreneurs - applied the law within a specific economic context (both a specific local context and at a specific moment in the business cycle) which could affect them. The first part of the paper presents the evolution of French bankruptcy law during the 19th century in its historical context. The second part briefly describes the theoretical model we use in order to understand the choices facing debtors and creditors in the face of financial distress. The last part proposes some major stylized facts concerning bankruptcies during that period (based on contemporary official statistics) and tries to understand their relationship with the legal evolution described before. ; Cet article propose une méthode pour évaluer l'impact des changements du droit des faillites sur l'économie en se concentrant sur le comportement des agents utilisant les dispositifs juridiques disponibles pour régler au mieux leurs difficultés. Les débiteurs utilisent le droit des faillites pour minimiser leur niveau de dette lorsqu'ils font face à des difficultés de paiement, mais doivent convaincre les créanciers et les tribunaux de leur bonne foi et anticipent les effets négatifs de la faillite sur leur réputation et sur la survie de leur entreprise. Les créanciers utilisent si nécessaire le droit pour forcer les débiteurs à payer, sachant que le recours aux tribunaux a des coûts. La première partie rappelle les grands traits de l'évolution du droit des faillites français au 19ème siècle dans son contexte ; la seconde partie propose un modèle théorique simple d'analyse des choix. La troisième propose de lire à la lumière de ce modèle et des changements législatifs quelques grands traits stylisés de l'évolution des faillites telle qu'elle est mesurée par les statistiques du Compte général de la Justice.
PRC railways have played a very important role in developing the national economy and in the country's industrial revolution. However, with increasing market access under WTO, PRC railways face competitive challenges in open access, pricing, reliability, service quality, and have corresponding opportunities to develop cooperative relationships. The challenges come from other modes of transport and from within the rail sector offering lower total costs, greater reliability, and better service quality.
General characteristics and relevance of the topic. In 1995's issue of the scientific journal Public Administration Review Robert D. Behn (1995) referring to the analogy of the science of physics formulated three major questions which, in his opinion, scholars of public management should be concerned about in the 21st century. One of them was the measurement question: how public managers can measure the achievements of their agencies in ways that help to increase those achievements? After a decade the emergence of multitude of books and articles in scientific journals, changes in public sector organizations caused by implementation of models of performance measurement, performance management and quality management, governmental initiatives to implement performance measurement programmes just confirm the Behn insight on the importance of performance measurement in public organizations. For many years performance measurement as one of the major tools in the package of the New Public Management reforms has remained a significant 'management fashion' (Abrahamson, 1996) and scholars as well as practicians of traditionally more developed countries of the English speaking world and the Continental Western Europe are well aware of it. The fashion gradually comes to the post-communist Central European countries which recently joined the European Union or are in the way of doing so and which learn from the experience of more 'advanced" countries in different areas of public administration. Lithuanian public sector organizations, including municipalities, also take part in the experience transferring process and, although up to now performance measurement practices are poorly institutionalised or do not exist at all, it is likely that in the nearest future significant changes will take place in this area. Therefore, there is a great need for scientific research on public sector performance measurement of applicable nature that could provide guidelines for development of performance measurement systems, evaluate developmental opportunities and threats, and suggest prospective models. Research problem –performance measurement practices in public sector organizations and municipalities are not sufficiently analysed in the Central and Eastern European scientific literature on public administration though this topic is broadly examined by scholars of the Western countries (especially Anglo-Saxon). The topic of public sector performance measurement in Lithuania up to now has not been analysed in scientific dissertations. Goal of the dissertation is to examine the state and developmental perspectives of performance measurement in Lithuanian municipalities by applying results of scientific researches on performance measurement that were carried out in the municipalities of other countries. Tasks of the dissertation: 1. To carry out a historical overview of performance measurement practices in the municipalities of different countries and the analysis of scientific researches on the topic; 2. To develop performance measurement models that could become practically applied tools in improving performance measurement systems in Lithuanian municipalities; 3. To analyse the organisation of performance measurement systems in Lithuanian municipalities and the conditions to improve them; 4. To examine the dependence of performance measurement practices on different political, social, structural and cultural factors. Novelty of the dissertation is conditioned by its goal and tasks because municipal performance measurement practices is a new phenomenon almost never researched before in Lithuania. The researches of this dissertation are based on the methodology of action research which may appear non-traditional and innovative to the Lithuanian academic community dominated by positivistic tradition. The Local Governance Balanced Scorecard and the Municipal Performance Measurement Model developed in this dissertation are innovative models designed on the basis of the Balanced Scorecard, formulated by Kaplan and Norton in 1992 (1996, 2004), and the Common Assessment Framework which has been broadly implemented in public sector organizations as the means for evaluating quality management systems since 2000. The dissertation suggests an advanced concept of strategic management and performance measurement in the context of local governance, according to which all stakeholders should take part in processes of strategic management and performance measurement, and strategic development plans should include all goals and tasks, implementation of which needs initiative from stakeholders. Such approach to strategic management and performance measurement proceeds from the modern understanding of governance as a phenomenon opposed to government which has entrenched itself in the academic community of public administration in the last decade. The Local Governance Balanced Scorecard could be a tool to realize this approach. The Municipal Performance Measurement Model gives an opportunity to evaluate performance measurement practices that exist in municipalities. Self-evaluation of management systems according to the Municipal Performance Measurement Model can be the first step in realizing changes related to implementation of performance measurement systems in municipalities. Practical implications of the dissertation. Performance measurement systems are not developed in Lithuanian municipalities, managers and employees of municipalities lacks knowledge and skills to successfully organize performance measurement systems. Municipalities do not or almost do not apply strategic management and quality management models. Therefore, the material on performance measurement models and the experience of municipalities of different countries collected and summarised in this dissertation and the developed models of performance measurement may empower Lithuanian members of municipal councils, mayors, heads of municipality administration and employees to implement needed changes and provide with the necessary knowledge. Sources and methods of the dissertation. The dissertation is grounded on the action research methodology which is based on the pragmatic theory of knowledge. It is being argued that the pragmatic theory of knowledge following the epistemological approach, developed in the works of W.James (1995), J.Dewey (1981), J.Habermas (2004), R.Rorty (1979, 1982), differs from positivistic and interpretative theories of knowledge because under this epistemological paradigm the goals of scientific research and transformation of social reality are closely interrelated. After evaluating the action research approaches of K.Lewin, Ch.Argyris (Argyris ir kt., 1985), P.Checkland (Checkland, 1999; Checkland, Poulter, 2006) (Reason, Bradbury, 2001), a modified concept of action research, providing justification to the tasks of the dissertation and methods of their implementation, is formulated. It is argued that scientific research is the process of learning under which assumptions about social phenomena, their changes and the effectiveness of the methods of acquiring knowledge about social phenomena as well as the influence to the changes of social phenomena are formulated and tested, assumptions that are not approved by empirical facts are rejected, more accurate assumptions are postulated, etc. In other words, in the process of scientific research one learns by 'trial and error", by raising ideas and implementing them, making mistakes and avoiding their recurrence. Knowledge acquisition process in social sciences is also equated to the process of innovation creation and management, because namely discoveries and novelties - new theories, models and methods – that directly or indirectly cause positive changes in human lives, have great value in scientific cognition. Therefore, by developing this concept of scientific cognition it is possible to refer to the insights provided by the discipline of innovation management. In aiming to implement the tasks of the dissertation those research and data collection methods are used: modelling, expert survey, content analysis, e-mail survey. OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION STRUCTURE The constituent parts of the dissertation are the following: introduction, theoretical and research parts, and conclusions. The first part 'The Theoretical Analysis of Performance Measurement in Municipalities' analyses the process of performance measurement and its opportunities in improving local government, evaluates the international experience in municipal performance measurement and examines the results of scientific researches on performance measurement. This part consists of four chapters. The first chapter 'The Concept and Context of Performance Measurement in Municipalities' formulates the descriptions of the major concepts and discusses the problems of term usage, analyses the peculiarities of performance measurement in municipalities, evaluates factors and motives that determine performance measurement practices in municipalities, overviews performance measurement practices and researches in Lithuania. In the section 1.1 it is stated that the meaning of the concepts 'performance measurement', 'productivity measurement', 'performance evaluation', 'performance observation' is similar and the definition of the chosen concept 'performance measurement' is presented. Other concepts fundamental for this work and terms denoting them are discussed. Aiming to simplify the understanding of the terms used in the dissertation the glossary of major terms indicating English terms and their equivalents in Lithuanian is made. The section 1.2 raises a question, how performance measurement practices in municipalities are similar and specific as compared to other public and private sector organisations. An assumption that the differences of performance measurement practices in different organisations are conditioned by organizational si
General characteristics and relevance of the topic. In 1995's issue of the scientific journal Public Administration Review Robert D. Behn (1995) referring to the analogy of the science of physics formulated three major questions which, in his opinion, scholars of public management should be concerned about in the 21st century. One of them was the measurement question: how public managers can measure the achievements of their agencies in ways that help to increase those achievements? After a decade the emergence of multitude of books and articles in scientific journals, changes in public sector organizations caused by implementation of models of performance measurement, performance management and quality management, governmental initiatives to implement performance measurement programmes just confirm the Behn insight on the importance of performance measurement in public organizations. For many years performance measurement as one of the major tools in the package of the New Public Management reforms has remained a significant 'management fashion' (Abrahamson, 1996) and scholars as well as practicians of traditionally more developed countries of the English speaking world and the Continental Western Europe are well aware of it. The fashion gradually comes to the post-communist Central European countries which recently joined the European Union or are in the way of doing so and which learn from the experience of more 'advanced" countries in different areas of public administration. Lithuanian public sector organizations, including municipalities, also take part in the experience transferring process and, although up to now performance measurement practices are poorly institutionalised or do not exist at all, it is likely that in the nearest future significant changes will take place in this area. Therefore, there is a great need for scientific research on public sector performance measurement of applicable nature that could provide guidelines for development of performance measurement systems, evaluate developmental opportunities and threats, and suggest prospective models. Research problem –performance measurement practices in public sector organizations and municipalities are not sufficiently analysed in the Central and Eastern European scientific literature on public administration though this topic is broadly examined by scholars of the Western countries (especially Anglo-Saxon). The topic of public sector performance measurement in Lithuania up to now has not been analysed in scientific dissertations. Goal of the dissertation is to examine the state and developmental perspectives of performance measurement in Lithuanian municipalities by applying results of scientific researches on performance measurement that were carried out in the municipalities of other countries. Tasks of the dissertation: 1. To carry out a historical overview of performance measurement practices in the municipalities of different countries and the analysis of scientific researches on the topic; 2. To develop performance measurement models that could become practically applied tools in improving performance measurement systems in Lithuanian municipalities; 3. To analyse the organisation of performance measurement systems in Lithuanian municipalities and the conditions to improve them; 4. To examine the dependence of performance measurement practices on different political, social, structural and cultural factors. Novelty of the dissertation is conditioned by its goal and tasks because municipal performance measurement practices is a new phenomenon almost never researched before in Lithuania. The researches of this dissertation are based on the methodology of action research which may appear non-traditional and innovative to the Lithuanian academic community dominated by positivistic tradition. The Local Governance Balanced Scorecard and the Municipal Performance Measurement Model developed in this dissertation are innovative models designed on the basis of the Balanced Scorecard, formulated by Kaplan and Norton in 1992 (1996, 2004), and the Common Assessment Framework which has been broadly implemented in public sector organizations as the means for evaluating quality management systems since 2000. The dissertation suggests an advanced concept of strategic management and performance measurement in the context of local governance, according to which all stakeholders should take part in processes of strategic management and performance measurement, and strategic development plans should include all goals and tasks, implementation of which needs initiative from stakeholders. Such approach to strategic management and performance measurement proceeds from the modern understanding of governance as a phenomenon opposed to government which has entrenched itself in the academic community of public administration in the last decade. The Local Governance Balanced Scorecard could be a tool to realize this approach. The Municipal Performance Measurement Model gives an opportunity to evaluate performance measurement practices that exist in municipalities. Self-evaluation of management systems according to the Municipal Performance Measurement Model can be the first step in realizing changes related to implementation of performance measurement systems in municipalities. Practical implications of the dissertation. Performance measurement systems are not developed in Lithuanian municipalities, managers and employees of municipalities lacks knowledge and skills to successfully organize performance measurement systems. Municipalities do not or almost do not apply strategic management and quality management models. Therefore, the material on performance measurement models and the experience of municipalities of different countries collected and summarised in this dissertation and the developed models of performance measurement may empower Lithuanian members of municipal councils, mayors, heads of municipality administration and employees to implement needed changes and provide with the necessary knowledge. Sources and methods of the dissertation. The dissertation is grounded on the action research methodology which is based on the pragmatic theory of knowledge. It is being argued that the pragmatic theory of knowledge following the epistemological approach, developed in the works of W.James (1995), J.Dewey (1981), J.Habermas (2004), R.Rorty (1979, 1982), differs from positivistic and interpretative theories of knowledge because under this epistemological paradigm the goals of scientific research and transformation of social reality are closely interrelated. After evaluating the action research approaches of K.Lewin, Ch.Argyris (Argyris ir kt., 1985), P.Checkland (Checkland, 1999; Checkland, Poulter, 2006) (Reason, Bradbury, 2001), a modified concept of action research, providing justification to the tasks of the dissertation and methods of their implementation, is formulated. It is argued that scientific research is the process of learning under which assumptions about social phenomena, their changes and the effectiveness of the methods of acquiring knowledge about social phenomena as well as the influence to the changes of social phenomena are formulated and tested, assumptions that are not approved by empirical facts are rejected, more accurate assumptions are postulated, etc. In other words, in the process of scientific research one learns by 'trial and error", by raising ideas and implementing them, making mistakes and avoiding their recurrence. Knowledge acquisition process in social sciences is also equated to the process of innovation creation and management, because namely discoveries and novelties - new theories, models and methods – that directly or indirectly cause positive changes in human lives, have great value in scientific cognition. Therefore, by developing this concept of scientific cognition it is possible to refer to the insights provided by the discipline of innovation management. In aiming to implement the tasks of the dissertation those research and data collection methods are used: modelling, expert survey, content analysis, e-mail survey. OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION STRUCTURE The constituent parts of the dissertation are the following: introduction, theoretical and research parts, and conclusions. The first part 'The Theoretical Analysis of Performance Measurement in Municipalities' analyses the process of performance measurement and its opportunities in improving local government, evaluates the international experience in municipal performance measurement and examines the results of scientific researches on performance measurement. This part consists of four chapters. The first chapter 'The Concept and Context of Performance Measurement in Municipalities' formulates the descriptions of the major concepts and discusses the problems of term usage, analyses the peculiarities of performance measurement in municipalities, evaluates factors and motives that determine performance measurement practices in municipalities, overviews performance measurement practices and researches in Lithuania. In the section 1.1 it is stated that the meaning of the concepts 'performance measurement', 'productivity measurement', 'performance evaluation', 'performance observation' is similar and the definition of the chosen concept 'performance measurement' is presented. Other concepts fundamental for this work and terms denoting them are discussed. Aiming to simplify the understanding of the terms used in the dissertation the glossary of major terms indicating English terms and their equivalents in Lithuanian is made. The section 1.2 raises a question, how performance measurement practices in municipalities are similar and specific as compared to other public and private sector organisations. An assumption that the differences of performance measurement practices in different organisations are conditioned by organizational si
This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We wonder in particular whether changes in bankruptcy law, which are substantial during the period, suffice to explain the rise in the proportion of bankrupted firms. We first describe the main features and changes of French insolvency law and show that they contradict the evolution observed at the aggregate level. We then show that existing statistics, which include a regional dimension, allow for a better test of the impact of legal changes. We show that some legal changes had a significant impact, but not all. We also observe that regional variations in bankruptcies are huge and do not correspond to French economic geography, but may rather be understood as a diffusion process from the Paris Court towards the provinces. The major differences among regions also suggest that, even in a civil law country, the letter the law is much less important than local practices.
The proposed national model described in this report has been developed by a working group comprised of staff from the National Board of Health and Welfare, the National Centre for Priority Setting in Health Care, and other organisations involved in vertical prioritisation – including the Östergötland County Council, Stockholm County Council, Västra Götaland, the Health Services Region of Southern Sweden, the Swedish Society of Medicine, the Swedish Society of Nursing, and the Swedish Association of Health Professionals. Throughout the process of designing the model, the Swedish Federation of Occupational Therapists and the Swedish Association of Registered Physiotherapists were regularly informed and given opportunities to review and comment on the proposal. Furthermore, the report was reviewed and discussed at a meeting with invited representatives from the other county councils, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Board, and several professional interest groups. Viewpoints were also obtained at a seminar arranged by PrioNet, a network of individuals interested in prioritisation. Potentially, the working model described in Chapter 4 could be used in any context where vertical prioritisation takes place, e.g. activities arranged by the state, county councils, municipalities, hospital departments, and professional groups. This report is designed to be a useful tool for those working on development projects in priority setting. We believe that the contents must be adapted, with the help of relevant examples and some simplifications; to fit the specific needs of different projects or groups. The text must also be adapted to a target group's knowledge and previous experience in dealing with transparent priority setting. It must be the responsibility of each provider and other affected organisation to adapt the material to the given situation and project. The National Centre for Priority Setting in Health Care, the National Board of Health and Welfare, and others who have participated actively in this effort can be helpful to various target groups in adapting this report. When and how to engage in practically implementing vertical prioritisation are questions that need to be answered at the local level. Primarily, it is the duty of the local authorities/providers to take responsibility for implementation. Professional organisations also play an important role. Public agencies, universities, and knowledge centres should be sources of support for the local authorities/providers. The Riksdag's resolution on prioritisation served as the foundation for developing the model. Where there are areas of uncertainty in how to translate these guidelines in practice, or where practical implementation might conflict with the principles, we have pointed this out. Our conclusions and proposals are the following: When facing a choice – regardless of whether it involves allocating new resources for different purposes, or to implement cutbacks – it can be advantageous to rank the possible choices in order of priority. In our model, only the relevant options can be ranked by priority. The consequences of this ranking are not obvious at the outset, but can serve as a basis either to allocate more resources or ration by some means. In vertical prioritisation, it is advantageous to organise the prioritization process starting from a general categorisation of health problems/disease groups. As a rule, these categories cover many organisational units/clinical departments, specialties, or professional groups, thus providing a more multidimensional view of the problem. Furthermore, this allows the process to start from a patient/population perspective, which appears to be more goal-oriented than an organisational/staff perspective. That which is ranked, i.e. one of the choices, we refer to as a prioritization object. We suggest that prioritisation objects consist of different combinations of health conditions and interventions.1 When deciding on the appropriate level of detail, the decision must be based on the context in which prioritisation is carried out. A starting point would be to focus on typical cases, large-volumes services, and controversial care. All forms of vertical prioritisation should be based on the ethical principles that the Riksdag decided should apply in prioritising health services. However, these ethical principles must be made known, clarified, and perhaps complemented before they can be applied to practical priority setting. Furthermore, we believe that the Riksdag's four so-called priority groups should not be part of the model. The human dignity principle, i.e. that all people should have equal value and equal rights to care irrespective of their personal characteristics and function in society, is the undisputed cornerstone in priority setting. When personal characteristics such as age, gender, lifestyle, or function of a group are expressions of the presence of special needs, so that benefits of the interventions are different, these personal characteristics could be addressed in a priority at the group level. Further discussion is needed regarding the question of how external effects (i.e. the effects of an intervention on families and groups other than the individual directly affected by the intervention) should be valued in priority setting. The concept of need in health care includes both the severity level of the condition and the expected benefits of intervention. As a patient, one needs only those interventions that can be expected to yield benefits. Based on this definition of need, a person does not need an intervention that does not improve health and quality of life, i.e. an intervention with no benefit. In such cases, health services have a responsibility to refer people who seek care for some type of problem, to other appropriate services. The Riksdag's guidelines regarding the cost-effectiveness principle (applied to individual patients) are too limited to provide guidance for vertical prioritisation at the group level. From the outset, the Government's bill (Priority Setting in Health Care) highlighted the importance of differentiating a cost-effectiveness principle that applied to choices among various interventions for the individual patient (where the principle can be applied as the Commission of Inquiry proposed) and the aim of health services to achieve high cost-effectiveness in health care generally. Here we also refer to the Riksdag's directive to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Board. In its decisions on subsidising (prioritising) a drug, the Board should determine, e.g. whether the drug is cost effective from a societal perspective, which requires comparing the patient benefits of the drug to its cost. In such decisions, the cost effectiveness should be considered along with the needs and solidarity principle and the human dignity principle. The proposed working model essentially concurs with the working model used by the National Board of Health and Welfare in developing national guidelines. In describing a national working model, it is not possible to include every aspect that might be considered. Hence, one must start from the model and decide which other relevant aspects should be included. For instance, the International Classification on Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) can be used as guidance to describe the severity of health conditions. Due to the wealth of variety in outcome measures for different activities, and the limited experience in working with explicit threshold values, we believe would be premature to recommend standardised categories, e.g. risk levels. However, it is important that those working with prioritization describe their reasoning. Primarily, the categories applied by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU) to grade the scientific evidence of an intervention's effects should be used. Local prioritisation projects with limited resources at their disposal should describe (text) their appraisal of the scientific evidence and reference the scientific sources used. The strength of evidence should be expressed in numbers only when supporting a conclusion of a systematic review by SBU, or other literature reviews of good quality. Prioritisation projects having access to health economic evaluation should, until further notice, adhere to the approach used by the National Board of Health and Welfare and present cost-effectiveness on a scale from low to very high cost per life-year gained or cost per quality-adjusted life-year. Economic evidence should be presented according to the principles applied by the National Board of Health and Welfare. In local projects with limited resources, or problems in consistently acquiring information on cost effectiveness, we recommend that the authors at least discuss cost effectiveness in cases where the priority ranking would be decisively affected when costs are weighed in. A 10-level ranking list should be used. The ranking list should be complemented by a "don't do" list for methods that should not be used at all, or not used routinely, and a research and development (R&D) list for methods where the evidence still insufficient to motivate their use in standard practice. In the absence of an objective quantitative/mathematical method, a qualitative method should be used in the appraisal. Here too, we believe that it is not yet possible to establish standard criteria to determine within which ranking level a prioritisation object should fall. Results should be presented as a ranking list. The parameters used as a basis for prioritisation should also be presented in a uniform manner in ranking lists that are shared with other parties. For pedagogic reasons, details concerning language and format need to be adapted to the respective target groups. Thresholds for what constitutes an acceptable coverage of need (care quality, volume, and percentage of the patient group with access to services) are regional and local issues, and hence are not included in the national model.
The objective of this paper is to share the experiences and good practices of early business registry reformers who implemented web-enabled and automated electronic business registries (e-BRs). These lessons are hoped to be of help to EU New Member countries as they embark on delivering EU-conformant e-BRs. At the same time, policymakers in other developing countries may also find these lessons of use. This paper cites examples of good practices rather than best practices. As elsewhere in the development agenda, solutions that have worked well in some countries may not work in other local circumstances. In the case of e-BRs, success depends on a broader set of reforms; as will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, e-BRs require a supportive legal and regulatory infrastructure, such as electronic signature laws and document authentication. A needs assessment and analysis of the options in the local country context need to be conducted in order to find the most relevant best practice options for a specific country. Nevertheless, a number of practical good practices can be identified and are presented in this paper for consideration.
Until recently, child development was accepted as the perspective through which children were understood and socialization the primary way in which sociologists thought about children. An increasing number of scholars now view childhood as socially constructed and children as actors in their own social worlds rather than simply as incomplete persons who are in the process of becoming adults. Courses using this perspective explore social constructions of childhood held by adults and embodied in institutions through time and across places, and how biology, gender, social class, and social location affect the everyday lives of children in families, schools, and other social contexts.Author recommendsJohnson, Heather Beth 2001. 'From the Chicago School to the New Sociology of Children: The Sociology of Children and Childhood in the United States, 1900–1999.'Advances in Life Course Research (Children in the Millennium: Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going?) 6: 53–93.This article reviews the place of children in sociological research during the 20th century. Children were of interest as objects of socialization and when they engaged in deviant behavior, although they were largely ignored as unworthy of serious sociological attention until the last two decades of the century. Debates among recent scholars about what stance should be taken toward children in the 'new' sociology of childhood are outlined.Waksler, Frances Chaput (Ed.) 1991. Studying the Social Worlds of Children: Sociological Readings New York, NY: Falmer Press.In this classic collection, including several chapters by the editor, Waksler pulled together articles that provides evidence that sociologists' underestimate the capacity of children to make sense of their worlds and to act on them. Both theoretical statements and empirical research are included, as is a chapter that is the precursor to Waksler's book, The Hard Times of Childhood and Children's Strategies for Dealing with Them (1996, New York, NY: Falmer Press).Small, Meredith F. 2001. Kids: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Our Children. New York, NY: Doubleday.Small, an anthropologist intrigued with 'ethnopediatrics', brings together scientific research on the capacities of infants and children and evidence of the way childhood is organized in various societies.Zelizer, Viviana A. 1985. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. New York, NY: Basic Books.This classic work in economic sociology provides a wealth of detail about how children's lives in the USA were affected by their changing value/social construction, especially in the early 20th century. Many current institutions and beliefs, which are now taken for granted, were developed during this period, for better or worse.Lareau, Annette 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Findings from Lareau's extensive, ethnographic research on differences between the everyday family lives of middle‐class and working‐class children are reported in this book. The results of her analysis make clear that adults' social constructions of children shape the experience of childhood and that even within one society there can be systematic variation in the social construction of children that results in marked differences in children's everyday lives.Corsaro, William A. 2005. The Sociology of Childhood, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.Corsaro has been conducting ethnographic research with preschool children in various forms of care and reporting on it for more than 25 years. His textbook focuses primarily on preschool children and how they interact with one another to form their own peer cultures. The book includes many episodes of interaction among children that ground his arguments.Adler, Patricia and Peter Adler 1998. Peer Power: Preadolescent Culture and Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.This book presents findings from the Adlers' study of peer culture among elementary school‐aged children in a Colorado community. The importance of friendship and popularity to the children is examined, particularly in school, as well as the significance for children of extracurricular activities.Mayall, Berry 2002. Towards a Sociology for Childhood: Thinking from Children's Lives. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.Mayall brings together data from the four research projects she conducted with colleagues in Great Britain in the 1990s to write an overview of what she learned about doing research with children and from listening to their points of view. The book includes children's assessments of their lives and relationships.Lee, Nick 2001. Childhood and Society: Growing up in an Age of Uncertainty. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.Lee focuses on childhood as an institution in the late 20th century and explores the ambiguity of contrasting the social construction of adults as 'human beings' with the social construction of children as 'human becomings'. His perspective is both macro and global and includes information about how decisions made by such institutions as the United Nations and the World Bank affect children in various countries.Online materials http://www.childtrends.org/ Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that collects and analyzes data; conducts, synthesizes, and disseminates research; designs and evaluates programs; and develops and tests promising approaches to research in the field. For researchers and educators, this Web site includes a link to research that provides the latest data and information for developing, evaluating, and guiding effective programs and research relevant to the overall health and well‐being of children and youth (http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/) and includes key indicators of child well‐being. http://www.aecf.org/MajorInitiatives/KIDSCOUNT.aspx Kids Count is a national and state‐by‐state effort to track the status of children in the USA by providing policy‐makers and citizens with benchmarks of child well‐being. The Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) is working with professors to introduce Kids Count data into social science courses through course modules, exercises, and access to other data available on their Web site (http://www.ssdan.net/kidscount/). http://www.hull.ac.uk/children5to16programme/intro.htm The Economic and Social Research Council Research Programme on Children 5–16: Growing into the 21st century, under the direction of Alan Prout from 1995–2000, funded 22 different research projects that examined children's lives by treating children as social actors. The Web site includes a description of the programme, research findings, and an extensive bibliography. http://www.childstats.gov/ The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics is a working group of federal agencies that collects, analyzes, and reports data on issues related to children and families. The forum's annual report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well‐Being, provides a summary of national indicators of child well‐being and monitors changes in these indicators over time. http://www.unicef.org/ The UNICEF Web site focuses on the well‐being of children in countries around the world, particularly on their health and their mothers' ability to provide for them.Sample syllabus Course Outline and Reading Assignments 1 Recognizing the capacities of newborn children Meredith F. Small, Chapter 1, Kids' World, and Chapter 2, The Evolution of Childhood, in Kids: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Our Kids. 2 Social construction of childhood in different times and places a Children's place in the past Coldrey, Barry M. 1999. '"... a Place to Which Idle Vagrants May Be Sent": The First Phase of Child Migration during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.'Childhood and Society 13: 32–47.deMause, Lloyd 1974. 'Infanticide and the Death Wishes toward Children;''Abandonment, Nursing, and Swaddling.' Pp. 25–39 in The History of Childhood. New York, NY: Harper and Row. b Children's place in other societies Schildkrout, Enid 2002 [1978]. 'Age and Gender in Hausa Society: Socio‐Economic Roles of Children in Urban Kano.'Childhood 9 (3): 344–68. c Changing value of children in American society in the 20th century Zelizer, Viviana 1985. Selected chapters from Pricing the Priceless Child. d Children's place in American society in the 21st century Zelizer, Viviana 2002. 'Kids and Commerce.'Childhood 9 (4): 375–96.Cook, Daniel Thomas 2000. 'Childhood is Killing "Our" Children: Some Thoughts on the Columbine High School Shootings and the Agentive Child.'Childhood 7: 107–17. 3 The 'new' sociology of childhood: Agency and competence Waksler, Frances Chaput 1986. 'Studying Children: Phenomenological Insights.'Human Studies 9 (1): 71–82.Alanen, Leena 1988. 'Rethinking Childhood.'Acta Sociologica 31 (1): 53– 67.Matthews, Sarah H, 2007. 'A Window on the "New" Sociology of Childhood.' Sociology Compass: http://www.blackwell‐compass.com/subject/sociology/section_home?section=soco‐social‐psychology (doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00001.x) 4 Collecting data from and about children Christensen, Pia Haudrup 2004. 'Children's Participation in Ethnographic Research: Issues of Power and Representation.'Children and Society 18: 165–76.Davis, John M. 1998. 'Understanding the Meanings of Children: A Reflexive Process.'Childhood and Society 12: 325–35. 5 Inside the black box of early childhood socialization Clawson, Dan and Naomi Gerstel 2002. 'Caring for our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States.'Contexts 1 (4): 28–35.Corsaro, William 1979. '"We're Friends, Right?" Children's Use of Access Rituals in a Nursery School.'Language in Society 8: 315–36.Corsaro, William and L. Molinari 1990. 'From seggiolini to discussione: The Generation and Extension of Peer Culture among Italian Preschool Children.'International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 3: 213–30. 6 Children's participation in everyday life a FamilyLareau, Annette 2002. 'Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black and White Families.'American Sociological Review 67: 747–76.Dodson, Lisa and Jillian Dickert 2004. 'Girls' Family Labor in Low‐Income Households: A Decade of Qualitative Research.'Journal of Marriage and Family 66: 318–32.Nettleton, Sarah 2001. 'Losing a Home through Mortgage Repossession: The Views of Children.'Children and Society 15: 82–94. b School Sherman, Ann 1997. 'Five‐year‐olds' Perceptions of Why We Go to School.'Childhood and Society 11: 117–27.Adler, Patricia A., Steven J. Kless, and Peter Adler 1992. 'Socialization to Gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls.'Sociology of Education 65: 169–87.Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler 1995. 'Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Preadolescent Cliques.'Social Psychology Quarterly 58 (3): 145–62. c 'Free' time Lareau, Annette 2000. 'Social Class and the Daily Lives of Children: A Study from the United States.'Childhood 7 (2): 155–71.Rasmussen, Kim 2004 'Places for Children – Children's Places.'Childhood 2004: 155–73. 7 Children's rights/parental rights Smith, Anne B. and Nicola J. Taylor 2003. 'Rethinking Children's Involvement in Decision‐Making After Parental Separation.'Childhood 10 (2): 201–16.Van Krieken, Robert 1999. 'The "Stolen Generations" and Cultural Genocide: The Forced Removal of Australian Indigenous Children form Their Families and Its Implications for the Sociology of Childhood.'Childhood 6 (3): 297–311. 8 Current global issues a UN rights of the child Jans, Marc 2004. 'Children as Citizens: Towards a Contemporary Notion of Child Participation.'Childhood 11 (1): 27–44.Roche, Jeremy 1999. 'Children: Rights, Participation and Citizenship.'Childhood 6 (4): 475–93. b Children's place in the 21st century Penn, Helen 2002. 'The World Bank's View of Early Childhood.'Childhood 9 (1): 118–32.Bey, Marguerite 2003. 'The Mexican Child: From Work with the Family to Paid Employment.'Childhood 10 (3): 287–99.Aptekar, Lewis and Behailu Abebe 1997. 'Conflict in the Neighborhood: Street and Working Children in the Public Space.'Childhood 4: 477–90.Films and videosA Baby's World A Whole New World (ages newborn to 1 year) The Language of Being (ages 1–2 years) Reason and Relationships (ages 2–3 years)This series of videos, each approximately 1‐hour in length, summarizes and illustrates evidence of the remarkable and often misinterpreted capacities of infants and toddlers.The Orphan TrainsThis video is a good companion to Viviana Zelizer's book Pricing the Priceless Child. In addition to depicting conditions for some urban children in US cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, interviews in old age with the last children who were shipped West in the 1920s highlight the vulnerability of children in societies that are unprepared to take responsibility for them when their parents are unable to provide care.Michael Apted's 7 Up through 49 UpThis documentary film series, which began in 1964 with 14 7‐year‐olds whom Apted has since revisited every 7 years to produce a new film, raises questions about the relationship between childhood and adulthood.Project ideas1. This assignment is intended to make students aware of the presence (or absence) of children in their daily rounds – when, where and under what conditions they share space with children.Choose two days on which your daily schedule is different (e.g., a weekday and a weekend day) and record every instance in which you come in contact with children. Do not go out of your way to encounter children. Just go about your daily rounds. Record the time, place (including who is present if it is not obvious), age of children, your relationship to the children, and what you and the children are doing. Include children whom you know well, children with whom you are acquainted, and children who are strangers. Concentrate especially on the last category because it is the one that you probably attend to least in your daily rounds. Also be sure to indicate what your role in each setting is. Once you have collected these data, write a summary of your contact with children in your daily life. What children do you encounter, how often, under what conditions? What is your relationship to the children in your life?2. This assignment is intended to explore how children are constrained by adult rules and power.Observe children in an 'adult' setting and identify adults' rules for children in that setting. Justify the choice of setting as 'adult', e.g., children are not 'supposed' to be there (a bar/pub), children are a disturbance (an exclusive expensive restaurant). Consider both adults' rules for children's behavior in the setting and children's options and resources. Address the questions: Where do children fit in adult worlds? What roles are they expected to play?3. This assignment is used in conjunction with Annette Lareau's work on differences in the way working and middle class children are treated by adults.Students choose two school districts whose borders correspond to a community and that have widely different percentages of children who passed the fourth‐grade proficiency test in a specified year. In Ohio, this information is available on the website of the Department of Education. Students then retrieve demographic data from the Web site of the US Census about the two school districts/communities, including but not limited to:
Proportion of School Age Children = Percentage of population age 5–17 Community Stability = Percent of rental occupied housing units Community Education Level = Percentage of population aged 25 and over with Bachelor's Degree or higher Community Income Level = Median family income Poverty Level = Percent of families below poverty level
In a paper, students summarize and interpret the findings. In addition, put the data from all the districts/communities into one table with the percentages of students who passed the exam in the first column in descending order.
The New Political Economy1 is based on the postulate of homo politicus that Downs (1957) presents as the clone of homo oeconomicus, a rational agent mo- tivated by the maximisation of his material self-interest. Goodin and Roberts (1975) were the first to propose an alternative to the homo politicus postulate by introducing the notion of 'ethical voter' 2. The 'ethical voter' describes a rational agent who is not only motivated by the maximisation of his short term material self-interest but also by the promotion of what he considers as fair for the society as a whole. There have been so far only few attempts to model 'ethical voting'. Most of them liken 'ethical voting' to caring about the well-being of the worst-off when voting (see Snyder and Kramer (1988), Kranich (2001) and Galasso (2003)). Alesina and Angeletos (2005) constitute an exception. Following responsibility-based theories of justice, they assume that individuals share the conviction that one deserves the income on the basis of his skill and effort and that only luck creates unfair differences they are consequently willing to compensate. However, the 'responsibility cut' (Dworkin (1981)) used by Alesina and Angeletos (2005) lacks justification, should one consider the theoretical literature on fair redistribution or the empirical literature on individual opinions on distributive justice. I propose to analyze 'ethical voting' in a more comprehensive way. The thread of this work is a 'fair utility function'. More precisely, I specify in paper 1 a 'fair utility function' to model citizens' trade-off between their self-interest and some of their major concerns for fairness. Paper 2 and paper 3 rely on the 'fair utility function' to study voting behavior over the (re)distribution of economic surpluses in different contexts of democracy4. In paper 2, my coauthor and I compute the politico-economic equilibrium that emerges when citizens are endowed with the 'fair utility function'. We model the institutional setting of a typical Western democracy where political cleavages are mainly income-based. In paper 3, I estimate the 'fair utility function'. I base my estimation on survey data that I collected in an ethnically polarized democracy where political cleavages are mainly ethnic-based. Paper 1 investigates whether concerns for fairness influence the aggregate out- come in real life interactions so that economic analysis should complete the postulate of homo economicus with the postulate of homo ethicus. I conduct a three-step analysis addressing the following research questions: • Which are the main concerns for fairness that individuals are able to show? • Do these concerns for fairness influence the aggregate outcome in the eco- nomic field? • Do these concerns for fairness influence the aggregate outcome in the po- litical field? Based on experimental evidence, I identify three main concerns for fairness likely to influence individual behaviors besides self-interest: utilitarian altru- ism, 'Rawlsian' altruism and desert-sensitivity. Utilitarian altruism consists in maximizing the sum of all utilities. 'Rawlsian' altruism consists in maximizing the utility of the worst-off. Desert-sensitivity consists in weighting one's con- cerns for fairness towards others, should they be utilitarian altruistic concerns or 'Rawlsian' altruistic concerns, depending on these others' deservingness with respect to their responsibility characteristics. I find out that concerns for fairness have no impact on market aggregate out- comes, should I focus on markets involving complete contracts or on markets involving incomplete contracts. I provide evidence that concerns for fairness have a significant impact on po- litical aggregate outcomes. More particularly, concerns for fairness (utilitarian altruism, 'Rawlsian' altruism, and desert-sensitivity) seem to express through citizens' position on a liberalism/conservatism scale which ultimately impacts their voting behavior. However, evidence also shows that ethnic prejudice, an unambiguously unfair motivation, constitutes a serious challenger to individual concerns for fairness, even in the Western democratic context where political parties are officially divided along income-based, not ethnic-based, lines. My findings suggest that economic theory in general (and the New Political Economy in particular) should pay more attention to the modelling of ethical voting behaviors to improve its explanatory and predictive power. I propose a provisional 'fair utility function' to model citizens' trade-off between their self-interest and the three various concerns for fairness which are utilitarian altruism, 'Rawlsian' altruism and desert-sensitivity. • Which is the politico-economic equilibrium emerging in a society where individuals are endowed with the 'fair utility function'? We study a simple voting model where a unidimensional redistributive parame- ter is chosen by majority voting in a direct democracy where political cleavages are income-based. We allow for heterogeneities in productivities and preferences for consumption and leisure and incorporate the incentive effects of taxation. We show that in a society where altruistic preferences are desert-sensitive, (i) strictly lower levels of redistribution emerge in political equilibrium comparedto a society where altruistic preferences are not desert-sensitive and (ii) lower or equal levels of redistribution emerge in political equilibrium compared to a society where preferences for redistribution are purely egoistic. We then investigate the following research question: • Can our theoretical result help explain the differences between the Ameri- can and the European social contract? Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1992 dataset, we provide empirical evidence that: (i) preferences for redistribution are not purely egoistic, (ii) desert-sensitivity induces lower support for redistribution and (iii) differences in desert-sensitivity hold between both continents, inducing lower support for redistribution among Americans compared to Europeans. We see two apparent explanations helping to understand why preferences for re- distribution are more desert-sensitive among individuals in the US than among individuals in Europe (see Alesina et al. (2001) and Alesina and Glaeser (2004) for an extensive discussion). First, the myth of the US being the 'land of op- portunity' greatly entrenched its customs. Meanwhile, European perceptions are influenced by the historical (from medieval times till the nineteenth cen- tury) division of society into classes, where birth and nobility were the main determinants of wealth and success. Second, the American belief of undeserv- ingness of the poor may reflect racial prejudice against the black minority. Poor white voters might reduce their support for redistribution when they believe that poor black citizens also benefit from redistribution (see Luttmer (2001) for strong empirical evidence). Roemer et al. (2007) find out that marginal income taxes would have been much higher when racial prejudice would have been absent. They believe that racial prejudice is the major underlying factor explaining why in the US, while the past twenty years were characterized by a sharp rise in inequality, the effective marginal income taxes have fallen. • In an ethnically polarized country, does aversion towards inter-ethnic in- equity induce citizens to vote for a party promoting an equitable allocation of national resources among ethnic groups?5 or, in other words, Could ethical voting help reduce risks of conflict in ethnically polarized countries? Relying on data collected among students from Addis Ababa University, my answer is threefold. First, I show that aversion towards inter-ethnic inequity significantly lowers university students' temptation to vote for their ethnic party. This finding is encouraging. Under my initial assumption that the degree of ethical concerns of university students constitute an upper bound of the degree of ethical concerns of the average citizen, this finding indeed suggests that ethical concerns could also influence his voting behavior. In other words, nationwide civic education programmes could be a promising conflict-reducing strategy in ethnically po- larized countries. Finkel (2002, 2003) provides evidence that civic education programs have a significant impact on participants' 'political tolerance', while his concept of 'political tolerance' is close to our notion of 'aversion towards inter-ethnic inequity'. Second, I find out that, though significant, the relative impact of ethical concerns is very small in comparison to the impact of ethnic group loyalty, an important determinant of ethnic voting. This finding is discouraging since it suggests that the relative impact of ethical concerns will be even lower across a more representative sample of the Ethiopian population. In other words, the 'return' on nationwide civic education programmes in terms of switch from ethnic voting to ethical voting is expected to be low. Third, I analyse the sociodemographic determinants of university students' aver- sion towards inter-ethnic inequity and ethnic group loyalty. I provide confirma- tion that some specific sociodemographic characteristics significantly (i) increase the degree of aversion towards inter-ethnic inequity and (ii) lower ethnic group loyalty. Those characteristics have in common that they reduce the 'psycholog- ical' distance between ethnic groups, like living in a cosmopolitan city and hav- ing parents belonging to different ethnic groups (see Atchade and Wantchekon (2006) for a first evidence). Besides, I find that ethnic group loyalty is par- ticularly strong among ethnic groups experiencing a severe level of grievance. Finally, evidence shows that aversion towards inter-ethnic inequity depends pos- itively on the income of the household in which the respondent grew up in. ; La politique de la Nouvelle Economy1 est basée sur le postulat de l'homo politicus qui Downs (1957) présente comme le clone de l'homo oeconomicus, un agent rationnel mo- tivé par la maximisation de son intérêt matériel. Goodin et Roberts (1975) ont été les premiers à proposer une alternative à l'homo politicus postulat en introduisant la notion de «électeur éthique» 2. Le «éthiques des électeurs »désigne un agent rationnel qui n'est pas seulement motivé par la maximisation de son matériel à court terme l'intérêt mais aussi par la promotion de ce qu'il considère comme équitable pour la société dans son ensemble. Il ya eu jusqu'ici que peu de tentatives pour le modèle «vote éthique». La plupart d'entre eux vote éthiques assimiler »pour veiller au bien-être des plus démunis au moment de voter (Voir Snyder et Kramer (1988), Kranich (2001) et Galasso (2003)). Alesina et Angeletos (2005) constituent une exception. À la suite de la responsabilité fondée sur théories de la justice, ils supposent que les individus partagent la conviction que l'on mérite le revenu, sur la base de ses compétences et de l'effort et que la chance ne crée différences injustes, ils sont donc prêts à compenser. Toutefois, le «Couper la responsabilité» (Dworkin (1981)) utilisé par Alesina et Angeletos (2005) n'a pas justification, doit-on considérer la littérature théorique sur la redistribution équitable ou la littérature empirique sur les opinions individuelles sur la justice distributive. Je me propose d'analyser «vote éthique» d'une manière plus globale. Le fil de ce travail est une «fonction d'utilité équitable». Plus précisément, je précise en papier 1 une «fonction d'utilité équitable» au modèle des citoyens compromis entre leur intérêt personnel et certaines de leurs préoccupations majeures pour l'équité. Livre 2 et document 3 compter sur la «fonction d'utilité équitable» pour étudier le comportement des électeurs au cours de la (re) distribution des excédents économiques dans différents contextes de democracy4. Dans le document 2, mon coauteur et je calculer l'équilibre politico-économique qui émerge quand les citoyens sont dotés de la «fonction d'utilité équitable». Nous modélisons les institutionnels création d'une démocratie occidentale typique où les clivages politiques sont principalement fondée sur le revenu. Dans le document 3, je estimer la «fonction d'utilité équitable». Je me base estimation des données d'enquête que j'ai pu recueillir dans une démocratie ethniquement polarisés où les clivages politiques sont principalement fondées sur l'ethnie. Document 1 cherche à savoir si les préoccupations d'équité pour l'influence sur l'ensemble- viennent dans les interactions réelles de sorte que l'analyse économique devrait compléter le postulat de l'homo economicus avec le postulat de l'homo ETHICUS. -Je effectuer une analyse en trois étapes l'étude des questions suivantes: • Quelles sont les principales préoccupations d'équité que les individus sont en mesure de spectacle? • Ne ces préoccupations pour l'équité influence le résultat global de l'éco- domaine économique? • Ne ces préoccupations pour l'équité influence le résultat global de la po- litical domaine? Sur la base de données expérimentales, je identifier trois principales préoccupations pour l'équité susceptibles d'influencer les comportements individuels en plus de l'intérêt: utilitaire ALTRU- ISM, «l'altruisme rawlsienne et désert sensibilité. l'altruisme utilitariste consiste à maximiser la somme de tous les services publics. «Altruisme rawlsienne» consiste à maximiser l'utilité des plus démunis. Desert sensibilité consiste en un coefficient de con- préoccupations d'équité envers les autres, devraient-ils être utilitaires préoccupations altruistes ou «préoccupations altruistes rawlsienne», selon le caractère méritoire de ces autres avec fonction de leurs caractéristiques responsabilité. Je trouve que les préoccupations d'équité n'ont pas d'impact sur le marché global hors vient, dois-je mettre l'accent sur les marchés portant sur des contrats complets ou sur les marchés impliquant des contrats incomplets. Je fournis des éléments de preuve que les préoccupations d'équité ont un impact significatif sur le Po- litical résultats globaux. Plus particulièrement, les préoccupations d'équité (utilitaires l'altruisme, «l'altruisme rawlsienne», et le désert de sensibilité) semblent exprimer à travers citoyens position sur une échelle de libéralisme conservatisme qui a un impact à terme leur comportement de vote. Toutefois, la preuve montre également que les préjugés ethniques, une ambiguïté déloyale motivation, constitue un concurrent sérieux aux préoccupations individuelles pour l'équité, même dans le contexte occidental de démocratie où les partis politiques sont officiellement répartis le long de revenus, pas à base ethnique, des lignes. Mes résultats suggèrent que la théorie économique en général (et les nouveaux enjeux politiques Économie en particulier) devrait accorder plus d'attention à la modélisation de l'éthique les comportements de vote pour améliorer sa capacité explicative et prédictive. Je propose à titre provisoire «fonction d'utilité équitable» au modèle des citoyens compromis entre leurs l'intérêt et les trois différentes préoccupations d'équité qui sont utilitaires l'altruisme, «l'altruisme rawlsienne et désert sensibilité. • Quel est l'équilibre politico-économique émergent dans une société où les individus sont dotés de la «fonction d'utilité équitable»? Nous étudions un modèle simple de vote où une redistribution unidimensionnelle para- ter est choisi par vote à la majorité dans une démocratie directe où les clivages politiques sont fondées sur le revenu. Nous tenons compte de l'hétérogénéité dans les préférences et les productivités à la consommation et de loisirs et d'intégrer les effets incitatifs de la fiscalité. Nous montrons que dans une société où les préférences altruistes sont désertiques sensibles, (i) strictement niveaux inférieurs de la redistribution émerger dans comparedto équilibre politique d'une société où les préférences ne sont pas altruistes désert sensibles et (ii) inférieur à ou des niveaux équivalents de redistribution émerger dans l'équilibre politique par rapport à un société où les préférences pour la redistribution sont purement égoïstes. Nous avons ensuite étudier la question de recherche suivante: • Peut notre résultat théorique aider à expliquer les différences entre les Améri- peut et du contrat social européen? En utilisant les données de l'International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1992 dataset, nous fournir des preuves empiriques que: (i) les préférences pour la redistribution ne sont pas purement égoïste, (ii) du désert sensibilité induit support inférieur pour la redistribution et (iii) les différences dans le désert sensibilité tenir entre les deux continents, induisant support inférieur pour la redistribution entre les Américains contre les Européens. Nous voir deux explications apparentes aide à comprendre pourquoi les préférences pour les re- de distribution sont plus sensibles du désert entre les individus aux États-Unis que chez personnes en Europe (voir Alesina et al. (2001) et Alesina et Glaeser (2004) pour une discussion approfondie). Tout d'abord, le mythe des Etats-Unis étant le "pays de l'op- portunity «fortement enracinées ses coutumes. Pendant ce temps, les perceptions européennes sont influencés par les historiques (de l'époque médiévale jusqu'à la dix-neuvième de la CEN- siècle), une division de la société en classes, où la naissance et la noblesse ont été les principaux déterminants de la richesse et de succès. Deuxièmement, la croyance américaine de undeserv- disponibilité manifestée des pauvres peuvent refléter les préjugés raciaux contre la minorité noire. Pauvres électeurs blancs pourraient réduire leur soutien à la redistribution quand ils croient que les pauvres citoyens noirs aussi profiter de la redistribution (voir Luttmer (2001) pour de solides preuves empiriques). Roemer et al. (2007) constatent que marginal impôt sur le revenu aurait été beaucoup plus élevé lorsque les préjugés raciaux aurait été absent. Ils croient que les préjugés raciaux est le principal facteur qui sous-tendent expliquant pourquoi les États-Unis, tandis que les vingt dernières années ont été caractérisées par une forte hausse des inégalités, les impôts en vigueur du revenu marginal ont chuté. • Dans un pays ethniquement polarisés, ne aversion envers inter-ethniques en l'équité amener les citoyens à voter pour un parti de promouvoir une répartition équitable des ressources nationales entre les groupes ethniques? 5 ou, en d'autres termes, Pourriez vote éthiques aider à réduire les risques de conflit dans des environnements ethniquement polarisés pays? S'appuyant sur des données recueillies auprès des étudiants de l'Université d'Addis-Abeba, mon réponse est triple. Tout d'abord, je montre que l'aversion envers l'inégalité inter-ethniques réduit considérablement la tentation des étudiants universitaires à voter pour leur parti ethnique. Cette constatation est encourageant. Sous mon hypothèse de départ que le degré de préoccupations éthiques des étudiants constituent une limite supérieure du degré de préoccupations d'ordre éthique du citoyen moyen, cette constatation suggère en effet que les préoccupations éthiques pourraient également influer sur son comportement de vote. En d'autres termes, l'éducation civique à l'échelle nationale programmes pourraient être une stratégie prometteuse de réduction des conflits dans des environnements ethniquement po- tif pays. Finkel (2002, 2003) fournit la preuve que l'éducation civique programmes ont un impact significatif sur la tolérance des participants «politique», tandis que son concept de «tolérance politique» est proche de notre notion de «aversion envers l'inégalité inter-ethnique ». Deuxièmement, je trouve que, bien que significative, l'impact relatif des préoccupations d'ordre éthique est très faible par rapport à l'impact de la loyauté envers le groupe ethnique, un important facteur déterminant du vote ethnique. Ce résultat est décourageant, car elle suggère que l'impact relatif des préoccupations d'ordre éthique sera encore plus faible sur une plus échantillon représentatif de la population éthiopienne. En d'autres termes, le «retour» sur les programmes d'éducation civique à l'échelle nationale en termes de passage du vote ethnique au vote à l'éthique devrait être faible. Troisièmement, je analyser les déterminants socio-démographiques des étudiants de l'Université moyenne- sion vers l'inégalité inter-ethnique et loyauté envers le groupe ethnique. Je fournis des confir- tion que certaines caractéristiques socio-démographiques spécifiques de façon significative (i) augmenter le degré d'aversion pour l'inégalité inter-ethnique et (ii) inférieur à un groupe ethnique fidélité. Ces caractéristiques ont en commun qu'elles réduisent la «psycholo- iCal «distance entre les groupes ethniques, comme vivre dans une ville cosmopolite et HAV- ING parents appartenant à différents groupes ethniques (voir Atchade et Wantchekon (2006) pour une première preuve). D'ailleurs, je trouve que la fidélité groupe ethnique est par- particulièrement forte parmi les groupes ethniques connaît un niveau sévère de grief. Enfin, il est prouvé que l'aversion envers l'inégalité inter-ethnique dépend pos- itively sur le revenu du ménage dans lequel le répondant a grandi po