Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn Norway, immigrants receive higher levels of social assistance than natives. How can we explain this difference? After controlling for differences in take‐up rates through a two‐step Heckman procedure, we attempt to answer this question by exploiting rich data from administrative registers. We operationalise social assistance in the Norwegian context by employing a composite variable that includes: (a) financial assistance, (b) housing allowance and (c) qualification benefit. We quantitatively analyze the difference in benefit levels of social assistance between the first and second generations of immigrants and the benchmark levels of the non‐immigrant population through a Kitagawa‐Oaxaca‐Blinder (KOB) decomposition exercise. The results of the analysis indicate that a significant portion of the gap in benefit reception between immigrant groups and natives is due to observable characteristics (42% for immigrants and 69% for their descendants), with unobservable cultural and behavioural factors explaining the remaining portion of the gap.

Urban areas are major consumers of environmental resources and thus often place unsustainable demands on natural resources. As half of the world's population (55%) lives in urban areas, the environmental degradation produced by cities threatens the health and quality of life of a fair share of the world's population. For these reasons, progress towards sustainable urban development must be monitored and measured through suitable indicators. With reference to the assessment of air quality as a specific dimension of environmental quality in urban areas, existing studies have introduced various methodologies that mostly focus on objective measures (typically, exposure to outdoor air pollutants) while neglecting measures based on individual perceptions. Our goal is to contribute to filling this gap. To this end, we explore the relationship between objective and subjective measures of urban air quality in European countries. While the objective indicator is based on concentrations of PM2.5, our subjective indicator is reconstructed from individual perceptions collected through the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) sample survey. Finally, through a cluster analysis, we classify the countries into homogeneous groups based on the values of these indicators. Our analysis reveals several differences in the country rankings according to the two indicators. For one group of countries, both approaches converge, thus leading to more definitive conclusions. For other countries, the mismatch between the two indicators suggests that either approach alone is not able to capture the full picture on air quality in urban environments.

AbstractThis article analyses wage differentials between permanent and temporary workers in the 25–40 age bracket using the 2010 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU‐SILC) wave data for France, Germany and Italy. Applying a Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regression and a reweighting estimation technique, we investigate the contribution of personal and job characteristics to wage differentials across the wage distribution. Results point to a large unexplained component of the wage gap across the whole distribution in Italy, while this component is weaker in France among highly paid employees and insignificant in Germany. These findings highlight potential policy considerations and areas for future research.

RésuméLes auteurs étudient les disparités salariales chez les jeunes (25–40 ans) dans trois pays européens (Allemagne, France et Italie) en utilisant les statistiques de l'EU‐SILC (2010). La méthode fait appel à des régressions fondées sur la fonction d'influence recentrée et à des techniques d'estimation par repondération. Elle vise à faire apparaître le rôle des caractéristiques relatives à l'individu et au poste de travail aux différents points de la répartition des salaires. La part de l'écart qui reste inexpliquée est considérable en Italie, pour tous les centiles. En France, elle s'atténue dans le haut de la répartition. En Allemagne, elle n'est jamais significative.

ResumenSe analizan las diferencias salariales entre trabajadores permanentes y temporales de 25 a 40 años de edad con datos de la Encuesta europea sobre la renta y las condiciones de vida (EU‐SILC) sobre Alemania, Francia e Italia de 2010. Mediante una regresión con función de influencia recentrada y una técnica de reponderación, los autores investigan la contribución de las características personales y del puesto de trabajo a la brecha en toda la distribución salarial. Los resultados indican que el componente no explicado sigue siendo muy grande en Italia en toda la distribución y se debilita en Francia en el tramo superior, mientras que en Alemania no es significativo.

The main aim of this paper is to assess whether there is a statistically significant environmental impact of cities within European countries. Second, starting from the estimated environmental impact of cities within European countries, the paper investigates whether cross-country variation can be explained by macro-economic factors and government policies which can play a role in mitigating such an impact. We start from individual evidence (EU-SILC data) to obtain a measure of the environmental impact of cities within countries, and then correlate the latter with macro variables to explain European heterogeneity. These estimates confirm that the environmental risk for households is particularly perceived in more densely populated urban agglomerations, although the marginal effects are quite heterogeneous between countries. Macroeconomic factors such as inequality, wealth, taxation and public spending on the environment, and macroeconomic constraints such as the public finance disequilibrium produce a strong heterogeneity between countries in determining the marginal effects of urban metropolises on household environmental risk.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a statistically significant relationship exists between environmental quality, as measured by consumption-related air pollution, and public debt in Europe. In addition, since the debt burden is one of the most important indicators of fiscal soundness within the European Union (EU) Treaty and the subsequent fiscal compact, the authors propose a simple test to determine whether participation in EU Treaties has shaped the empirical relationship between fiscal policy/public debt and environmental performance.Design/methodology/approachTo this end, the authors built a panel data set that covers 24 European countries over the period 1996–2015.FindingsThe aspect that the authors want to underline is a possible trade off, which is confirmed in the empirical analysis, between the public finance equilibrium and the maintenance of a public good such as air quality. However, there are important non-linearities that shape the interaction between public debt and environmental pollution. Similarly, threshold effects arise when the authors examine the interaction between EU regulation and public debt and when the authors separately examine high debt and low debt countries. When the authors account for the stabilization rules introduced by EU Treaties, a negative effect on pollution is evident; in this way, fiscal consolidation limits the positive effect of fiscal policy.Practical implicationsThe results point out the existence of a potential trade-off between the role of EU as a regulator aiming to mitigate environmental pollution, and its role within the Stability and Growth Pact. The analysis highlights that fiscal consolidation policies, while facilitating the achievement of macroeconomic stability within EU, might have a negative side effect on the environment quality, which spreads beyond the borders of one single country.Originality/valueWhile a number of studies have suggested that fiscal spending might contribute to the level of pollution in European countries, there is scant evidence of the effect of public debt on environmental performance. This lack of scientific knowledge is a serious shortcoming, since it may allow for an underrepresentation of the wide-ranging consequences of stabilization programmes targeting the debt-to-GDP ratio, which could affect environmental quality.

Come hanno evidenziato alcuni studi recenti in Italia, la crisi economica del 2008 ha ampliato le differenze di reddito tra i ceti sociali più elevati e le classi sociali più svantaggiate evidenziando il sensibile peggioramento delle condizioni dei ceti po-polari e ultrapopolari, in particolar modo delle famiglie con occupazione operaia. All'interno di questo quadro di riferimento, il saggio analizza l'impatto della crisi economica sui redditi dei lavoratori stranieri presenti in Italia rispetto ai lavoratori "autoctoni" in un'ottica comparata con quanto è avvenuto in alcuni paesi europei (Francia, Grecia, Spagna e Paesi scandinavi - Svezia, Finlandia e Danimarca sono stati trattati all'unisono). Lo studio è stato condotto utilizzando le indagini EU-SILC che offrono microdati coerenti a livello internazionale su reddito, povertà, esclusione sociale e condizioni di vita con elevati livelli di comparabilità tra paesi e tempi, con particolare attenzione alle sei rilevazioni realizzate tra il 2011 e 2016.