Suchergebnisse

Housing subsidies for low income households are a central pillar of many welfare systems, but an expensive one. This paper investigates the consequences of an unusual policy aimed at reducing the cost of these subsidies by rationing tenants' use of space. Specifically, we study a policy introduced by the UK Government in 2013, which substantially cut housing benefits for tenants deemed to have a 'spare' bedroom – based on specific criteria related to household composition. Our study is the first to evaluate the impacts of the policy on its target group using a strategy that compares the observed changes in behaviour of the treated households to those of a control group. The treatment and control groups are defined by the detail of the policy rules. We find that – as expected – the treated group loses housing benefits and overall income. Although the policy was not successful in encouraging residential moves (despite efforts to make mobility within the social sector easier), it did incentivise people who moved to downsize – suggesting some success in terms of one of the policy goals, namely reducing under-occupancy. The policy did not incentivise people to work more and we find no statistically significant effects on households' food consumption or saving behaviour. The implication of our findings is that this type of policy has limited power to change housing consumption or employment in the short run. While it might reduce the costs of housing subsidies to the taxpayer, it does so by imposing a direct financial cost to social tenants unable or unwilling to downsize.

Purpose
Attention on the issue of individual level conflict between work and life roles remains a feature of studies on work-life balance. However, few studies have examined gender differences in the work-to-life conflict (WLC) and the life-to-work conflict (LWC) over a given period in Spain. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature.


Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a two-wave (2009–2014) sample of working employees with children from an industrial sector in Spain.


Findings
The 2009 results showed no gender differences in WLC; however, women experienced LWC significantly more than men. Conversely, the 2014 results showed more men suffered WLC and no gender differences were found for LWC.


Research limitations/implications
One limitation is that we do not know if the same respondents answered the questionnaires in both time periods. Second, we did not analyse the inter-role conflict experienced by childless or single employees. Finally, and as stated before, findings may not be generalisable to other countries or sectors of activities.


Social implications
Our findings are discussed in the context of the economic crisis, the labour market and family co-responsibility in Spanish society.


Originality/value
Few studies have explored gender differences on inter-role conflict at two time points, and helps to identify key findings in terms of co-responsibility. Furthermore, this research is conducted in Spain, which is under-researched in WLB terms. The paper also identifies two distinct constructs of the inter-role conflict.

We provide empirical evidence of the dynamics of city size distribution for the whole of the twentieth century in U.S. cities and metropolitan areas. We focus our analysis on the new cities that were created during the period of analysis. The main contribution of this paper, therefore, is the parametric and nonparametric analysis of the population growth experienced by these new-born cities. Our results enable us to confirm that, when cities appear, they grow very rapidly and, as the decades pass, their growth slows or even falls into decline. This is consistent with the theoretical framework regarding mean reversion (convergence) in the steady state and with the theories of sequential city growth.

El gravísimo problema de caída de la actividad económica y desempleo en España encuentra un fiel reflejo en el círculo vicioso que genera el cierre de empresas, aproximado en este trabajo por la figura legal del concurso de acreedores. Este artículo se propone examinar el fenómeno desde un punto de vista geográfico para analizar el posible contagio entre provincias. Los resultados muestran que no hay efecto contagio del fracaso en el sector de la construcción, pero sí en el industrial. Es en este sector donde se contagia a la economía vista en su conjunto, pero sólo para los años anteriores a la crisis. En el periodo de recesión parece que tienen más fuerza los factores macroeconómicos negativos que afectan a la totalidad de las empresas que el contagio, que es un efecto particular que ejercen sobre cada compañía las empresas próximas con las que tiene relación

The aim of this work is to analyze the factors that help companies avoid liquidation following the spirit of the Spanish insolvency law. This work focuses on the phase starting when companies file for bankruptcy and ending with the completion of the common phase. We apply the agency theory to explain how insolvency administrators and court characteristics influence the outcome of the bankruptcy process (liquidation or reorganization). We analyze unique accounting data from 2,627 companies that filed for bankruptcy during the period 2008–2014. The findings reveal the significant roles played by the liquidation trustee, Big 4 administrators, and higher remunerations, along with the type of court in charge. Processes are more likely to result in reorganization if they are handled by specialized courts, managed by the Big 4, and if the insolvency administrator has longer experience in bankruptcy filing and receives a higher remuneration. These findings have important implications for all the agents involved. It is necessary to rationalize the filing process, foment better training for insolvency administrators, provide courts with more funds, and create more specialized courts. The principal contribution of this article is to examine the role played by insolvency administrators and the courts, and their influence on the outcome of the insolvency process. JEL CLASSIFICATION C35; D21; D22; G33; G38

En este artículo se describe, se analiza las necesidades relevantes de la ausencia del escaso espacio de opiniones de la ciudadanía en los medios radiales de la ciudad de Babahoyo son espacios que deben facilitar a los ciudadanos para solucionar los problemas que afecta a la comunidad. Promueve la participación de los habitantes sus necesidades a cerca de los problemas sociales que se presenta en cada determinado sector del cantón y su inconformidad con sus autoridades. Los propietarios y directores de programaciones de radios tienen ´poco interés de facilitar espacios de opinión pública una programación es pagada. En esta ciudad existen dos emisoras, Radio Libre FM Estéreo 93.9 y Radio Fluminense FM Etéreo 101.5 importante para nuestra comunidad.

36 páginas, 11 figuras, 7 tablas. ; We assess the occurrence and extent of cold-water coral (CWC) species Madrepora oculata and Dendrophyllia cornigera, as well as gorgonian red coral Corallium rubrum, in La Fonera canyon head (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea), as well as human impacts taking place in their habitats. Occurrence is assessed based on Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) video imaging. Terrain classification techniques are applied to high-resolution swath bathymetric data to obtain semi-automatic interpretative maps to identify the relationship between coral distribution patterns and canyon environments. A total of 21 ROV immersions were carried out in different canyon environments at depths ranging between 79 and 401 m. Large, healthy colonies of M. oculata occur on abrupt, protected, often overhanging, rocky sections of the canyon walls, especially in Illa Negra branch. D. cornigera is sparser and evenly distributed at depth, on relatively low sloping areas, in rocky but also partially sedimented areas. C. rubrum is most frequent between 100 and 160 m on highly sloping rocky areas. The probable extent of CWC habitats is quantified by applying a maximum entropy model to predict habitat suitability: 0.36 km2 yield M. oculata occurrence probabilities over 70%. Similar predictive models have been produced for D. cornigera and C. rubrum. All ROV transects document either the presence of litter on the seafloor or pervasive trawling marks. Nets and longlines are imaged entangled on coral colonies. Coral rubble is observed at the foot of impacted colonies. Some colonies are partially covered by sediment that could be the result of the resuspension generated by bottom trawling on neighbouring fishing grounds, which has been demonstrated to be responsible of daily increases in sediment fluxes within the canyon. The characteristics of the CWC community in La Fonera canyon are indicative that it withstands high environmental stress of both natural and human origin. ; This research was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme project PERSEUS (287600), the Spanish project ROV-CAÑONES (CTM2009-06778-E), and a Catalan Government Grups de Recerca Consolidats grant (2014 SGR 1068). ; Peer reviewed