Suchergebnisse

We identify regional public investment priorities by studying the development of the water pipe system in the largest district in Poland. For this purpose, we take advantage of a major administrative re-form, implemented on 1 January 1999, which substantially changed the structure of Polish local government and reduced the number of top-tier administrative regions from 49 to 16. We treat the reform as a natural experiment, and apply the difference-in-differences approach to study developments along the boundary of the new Mazovian voivodeship. We find strong and positive implications for the development of the water pipe system in municipalities within the Mazovian voivodeship compared with those just outside its boundaries. The overall post-reform difference in the length of the total water pipe network is 25% and the difference in the per-capita length of the network is 30%. Local public investment priorities at the voivodeship level, potentially related to effective use of EU funds, are the most likely determinants of these differences.

We analyze the effects of persecution and labor market discrimination during the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia using a representative life history sample from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We find strong effects of persecution and dispossession on subsequent earnings, with most severe implications of job loss due to persecution on earnings in subsequent jobs and on career degradation. Accumulated long-term effects in the form of initial retirement pensions paid during the communist regime are even greater. These pension penalties disappear by 2006 largely as a result of compensation schemes implemented by democratic governments after 1989. We use unique administrative data on political rehabilitation and prosecution to instrument for the endogenous variables. Finally, we survey transitional justice theory and document reparations programs in other countries.

Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions such as subjective poverty or low relative value of wealth significantly increase the probability of transition to poor health among the healthy and reduce the chance of recovery from poor health over the time interval analysed. In addition to this the subjective measure of poverty has a significant effect on mortality, increasing it by 40.3% among men and by 58.3% among those aged 50-64. Material conditions matter for health among older people. We suggest that if monitoring of poverty in old age and corresponding policy targets are to focus on the relevant measures, they should take into account broader definitions of poverty than those based only on relative incomes. ; Wir untersuchen den Einfluss materieller Umstände auf die Gesundheit der Bevölkerung 50+ in Europa. Dafür analysieren wir die Ergebnisse des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), einer repräsentativen Befragung von Personen im Alter 50+ aus 12 europäischen Ländern über einen Zeitraum von vier Jahren. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Leben in Armut, definiert über das relative Einkommen, keinen Einfluss auf die Gesundheit ausübt. Bei weiter gefassten Definitionen von Armut, wie der subjektiven Armut oder einem niedrigen relativen Vermögen, erhöht sich hingegen die Wahrscheinlichkeit, einen schlechteren Gesundheitszustand zu erreichen, die Genesungswahrscheinlichkeit im analysierten Zeitraum reduziert sich. Des Weiteren ergeben unsere Untersuchungen, dass das subjektive Armutsempfinden die Sterblichkeitsrate signifikant erhöht. Diese Wahrscheinlichkeit ist für Männer um 40,3 Prozent höher, bei den 50- bis 64-Jährigen sogar 58,3 Prozent höher. Solche Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass die materiellen Lebensumstände entscheidend für die Gesundheit der älteren Generation sind. Wir empfehlen, dass sich die Messung von Armut innerhalb der älteren Generation sowie die Zielsetzung in der Politik auf weiter gefasste Armutsdefinitionen stützen sollte als lediglich über das Einkommen definierte.

We analyze the extent and effects of job-related persecution under communist regimes in the Czech Republic and Poland using a representative sample of individuals aged 50+ from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Retrospective information collected in the SHARELIFE interview offers a unique chance to relate past and current labor market outcomes to experiences of persecution reflecting the historical developments in Central Europe in the 20th century. Individual level data with details on labor market histories is matched with information on the experiences of state oppression. On-the-job persecution is found to have significant effect on job quality assessment and is strongly related to reporting of distinct periods of stress in both countries. Consequences of on-the-job persecution seem to have been much more severe and longer lasting in the Czech Republic, with significant financial effects of job loss or discrimination. This is explained by the greater degree of state control over the labour market in the former Czechoslovakia compared to Poland and different characteristics of the dissident groups in both countries.

This paper discusses developments in the Netherlands concerning unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance and disability insurance. The emphasis is on how financial incentives for individual workers and firms affect flows of benefit recipients. The main message is that it is indeed helpful to screen workers who want to enter the benefit system, to establish counseling and monitoring of workers that are in the benefit system and to impose sanctions on workers or employers that abuse the system. The Dutch experience in reconstructing social security provides clear lessons for other countries. ; In diesem Beitrag stellen wir eine Methode vor, mit der die Wirkungen von finanziellen Anreizen des Steuer- und Transfersystems auf die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation anhand von Veränderungen im Beschäftigungsstatus geschätzt werden. Der Ansatz ist flexibel, wenige theoretische Annahmen erlauben es, die analysierte Population gegenüber Strukturmodellen auszuweiten. Dadurch können behinderte und nichtbehinderte Personen gemeinsam analysiert werden. Die finanziellen Anreize werden detailliert abgebildet. Mit dem Modell können Beschäftigungswirkungen von geringfügigen Änderungen der Grenzbelastungen als auch größere Reformen der britischen Arbeitsmarktpolitik - wie etwa die Einführung des Working Families' Tax Credit durch die Labour-Regierung - analysiert werden. Die Methode basiert auf Matching-Verfahren, mit denen Querschnitts-Erhebungen und Panel-Daten zusammengeführt werden. Sie kann auch in anderen Ländern eingesetzt werden, in denen keine detaillierten Einkommensdaten im Rahmen von Panel-Studien erhoben werden.