Second‐Order Devolution and Administrative Exclusion in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program

With the passage of welfare reform in 1996, state and local governments gained substantial authority to design and implement their own welfare programs. Proponents of devolution asserted that, under devolution, local governments would be better able to tailor program administration to meet local economic needs. However, opponents contended devolution could lead to local governments seeking to control costs by limiting access to welfare. Meanwhile, existing research suggests that economics will not play an important role in determining welfare provision. This article investigates these competing claims by assessing the relationship between economic conditions and administrative exclusion, which is making programs so hard to access that potential and current recipients decide to forgo benefits, in a state that gives counties significant authority over welfare provision. To do so, I assess whether county application denial, sanctioning, and case closure rates are influenced by changes in local economic characteristics. I find that, even during periods of substantial economic distress, county practices related to administrative exclusion are largely unresponsive to changes in unemployment, child poverty, and fiscal constraints. These findings call into question the responsiveness of the devolved social safety net for poor families.     

我国大学生就业城市选择意愿及其影响因素分析

引导大学生合理的就业流动是促进各类城市协调发展的有效途径。本文以不同类型的就业城市为研究对象,通过全国7个城市的1600余份调查问卷,利用多项Logit模型分析了我国大学生就业城市的选择意愿及影响因素。研究表明,大学生倾向以自身生源地为界限对劳动市场的地域进行二元划分,职业发展机遇和家庭因素在就业地的选择中最为重要,地区特质和自然生态环境的影响最弱,生源地和个人观念都与就业地的选择显著相关。在此基础上提出引导大学生就业流动的政策建议。     

Gender, space, and the location changes of jobs and people: a spatial simultaneous equations analysis

This article summarizes a spatial econometric analysis of local population and employment growth in the Netherlands, with specific reference to impacts of gender and space. The simultaneous equations model used distinguishes between population- and gender-specific employment groups, and includes autoregressive and cross-regressive spatial lags to detect relations both within and among these groups. Spatial weights matrices reflecting different bands of travel times are used to calculate the spatial lags and to gauge the spatial nature of these relations. The empirical results show that although population–employment interaction is more localized for women's employment, no gender difference exists in the direction of interaction. Employment growth for both men and women is more influenced by population growth than vice versa. The interaction within employment groups is even more important than population growth. Women's, and especially men's, local employment growth mostly benefits from the same employment growth in neighboring locations. Finally, interaction between these groups is practically absent, although men's employment growth may have a negative impact on women's employment growth within small geographic areas. In summary, the results confirm the crucial roles of gender and space, and offer important insights into possible relations within and among subgroups of jobs and people.     

Colonizing China’s Northern Frontier: Yan and Her Neighbors During the Early Western Zhou Period

The establishment of the Yan state by the Zhou court during late eleventh century BCE had fulfilled the attempt by the dynastic power to colonize and control the local population of northern Hebei. The Yan and the two local groups, one active in the Yan mountainous region and the other in the Jing, Jin, and Tang area, developed a cooperative relationship during the early Western Zhou period. The cooperation between Yan and local elites was mutually beneficial. While local elite culture was heavily influenced by that of the Shang and Zhou, local traditions continued to be present.     

杨德周《玉田识略》研究

晚明的东南地区出现了不少有特色的私修志书,杨德周《玉田识略》是其代表之一。此志刊成于崇祯七年（1634年）,而不是崇祯六年（1633年）。至于纂修之因,主要是受万历中叶正史纂修、地方人士积极修志影响。《玉田识略》是研究明代古田县的第一手资料,也是研究杨德周治理思想的第一手资料,收录了作者本人不少诗文作品。《玉田识略》给人的启迪是,私修志书可以不求全,且以文献为主,像这样有个性的志书不嫌多。     

On the ‘Arab Inequality Puzzle’: The Case of Egypt

This article surveys and discusses prominent protagonists of the debate on socio-economic inequality in the Arab region, with a special focus on the World Bank and Egypt. According to official data, the region holds remarkably low Gini coefficients in a context of declining inequality. This contradicts the popular perception of high social inequality as a major cause of regional protests since the Arab Spring; hence the reference to a ‘puzzle’ in mainstream literature. The debate about the reality of social inequality in the region has developed since 2011 — particularly in regard to Egypt, where income and consumption data are periodically collected by means of household surveys. Inequality measures based on this method alone, while income taxation data are inaccessible, are highly questionable and conflict with various observations and calculations based on other indicators such as national accounts, executive income or house prices. Yet, the World Bank upholds official inequality findings in portraying the Arab upheaval as the revolt of a ‘middle class’ that aspires to greater business freedom, in consonance with the neoliberal worldview.     

Urban Policy in the Nordic Countries—National Foci and Strategies for Implementation1

In this paper we discuss the emergence and practise of an urban policy in the Nordic countries. We find that although the focus and organization vary among the five countries, there are common trends. Firstly, the emergence of an urban policy has challenged the Nordic welfare model because it emphasizes specific and geographically varied qualities, rather than general equity. Secondly, the emergence of an urban policy has challenged the traditional thinking about “urban” as a necessary evil, and replaced it with the notion of the “urban” as a positive driving force in society's well-being. Thirdly, the way urban policies are conceived and implemented has supplemented planning and regulations with programmes and initiatives involving local actors in governance based ways, but the state still has a strong role to play. The paper discusses these three statements based on a case study of the implementation of urban policies in the five Nordic countries.     

The PCI,reforms and welfare between the 1960s and 1970s

This article deals with the question of the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI), the strategy of ‘riforme di struttura’ and reforms in Italy between the 1960s and 1970s, with particular reference to the construction of a modern welfare system. The goal of a universal social security system was set by the PCI from at least 1956. Later, the dialectic with the centre-left governments induced the Communists to strengthen and articulate their proposals on welfare, linking them to the overall design of an advanced democratization of the state and society. In the 1970s, and in particular during the ‘solidarietà democratica’, various proposals made by the Communist Party and the CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) in previous years finally became law, beginning with the establishment of the National Health Service organized into local health units. The Communist Party insisted on performance quality rather than quantity. However, the welfare state is now suffering difficulties throughout the Western world.     

On the Informational Basis of Regional Innovation Policy: From Growth to Capabilities

The shift from the linear to the innovation system-based approach has resulted in the emergence of differentiated regional innovation policy. However, certain common presumptions bind these location-specific policies together. The set of information that is used to design these policies and the set of information excluded are fairly similar. The theoretical sections of this paper provide a critical review on the informational basis of regional innovation policy by contrasting the interpretations of the welfare effects of technological change in the utilitarian tradition and in Sen's capability approach. The empirical sections analyse the correspondence of the innovation capacity and welfare (well-being) situation in a Hungarian micro-regional data set. We conclude that the conventional informational basis of innovation policy is too narrow from a welfare perspective. Not only should the differences in the innovation systems, but also the peculiarities of the region's welfare situation be considered during the design of innovation policy.     

Investigating Difference: Applications of Wealth Ranking and Household Survey Approaches among Farming Households in Southern Zimbabwe

Wealth ranking and household survey approaches to understanding wealth stratification are applied in tandem for a sample of farming households in southern Zimbabwe. While conventional surveys usually stratify sample populations according to criteria chosen by the researcher, wealth ranking is based on criteria offered by local people. Patterns of wealth and well-being over time, between ecological zones and in relation to local indicators are explored with focus groups of men and women. The rankings emerging from these discussions are compared with survey data for the same household sample. The wealth rankings are highly correlated with livestock ownership, farm asset holdings, crop harvests and crop sales. Wealth ranks derived from farmers' analyses are then compared with a cluster analysis of the survey data, with both discrepancies and overlaps discussed. It is concluded that wealth ranking provides an accurate indicator of relative wealth and that ranking can be a useful complementary method to be employed alongside survey assessments. In addition, qualitative discussions during ranking exercises reveal details of the historically, socially and economically constructed understandings of wealth and well-being of different actors. The conventional assumption that surveys always provide ‘better’ data is thus questioned.     

Inter- and intraregional inequality in a spatial economy

In this paper, we develop a three-region economic geography model with workers of heterogeneous skills and mobility rates to consider how first-nature, regional differences impact both inter- and intraregional inequality. In our model, the skill premium within a region summarizes both the degree of intraregional inequality between mobile, skilled workers and immobile, unskilled workers and the interregional inequality through differences in the welfare of unskilled workers across regions. Regions with the highest skill premium have the greatest degree of intraregional inequality and provide the lowest level of welfare to unskilled workers, relative to other regions. We find that the skill premium will be higher in regions with a greater supply of unskilled labor, lower supply of housing, or are more remote. An increase in a region's housing supply or centrality will lower intraregional inequality and raise the welfare of the local, unskilled workforce. However, the magnitude of these changes are declining in the initial number of skilled workers in the region. The model is extended to consider imperfectly elastic housing supply. The larger the price elasticity of housing, the larger the range of values, such that more populated regions will host a disproportionate share of skilled workers, have lower levels of intraregional inequality, and provide higher levels of welfare for unskilled workers.     

Contextualizing Welfare's Work Disincentive: The Case of Female-headed Family Poverty

The conventional model of the relationship between welfare incentives and poverty rates holds that welfare payments produce an income-enhancement effect that removes families from poverty until some threshold. Beyond this point increased payments engender a work-disincentive effect resulting in increased rates of poverty. We challenge the model's assumption that poverty levels are a simple and spatially invariant response to welfare incentives, contending instead that local employment conditions may substantially alter the relation. Our reformulation of the conventional modeling approach is based on the expansion method. Specifically, we extend the model to include the effects of local labor-market conditions on the response of poverty levels to welfare incentives. In contesting the invariance assumption, the expansion method allows us to determine where and in what contexts welfare is “work discouraging.” The empirical analysis, which is undertaken at the county level, indicates that welfare payments vary in their influence on poverty rates across different employment contexts. A national map portraying this parameter instability demonstrates that female-family poverty rates are most responsive to welfare assistance in the rural South and least responsive in the metropolitan Northeast. Finally, we examine two sharply contrasting locales to illustrate how poverty is governed by specific employment and welfare characteristics.     

LAST CALL BEFORE THE UNDERTAKER: A COMMUNITY’S PERCEPTION OF THE LOCAL WORKHOUSE AND OLD PEOPLE’S CARE BEFORE AND AFTER THE INCEPTION OF THE WELFARE STATE

Abstract

Workhouses were no doubt the first old people’s homes. Sick old people without social or financial resources had no alternative other than admission to one of these state institutions . These institutions instilled fear in local communities and admission represented a failure in society. Due to medical advances and improved social conditions, people lived for longer and during the 20th century the majority of the inmates were old people. After the inception of the welfare state institutional care for older people was mainly in buildings inherited from the poor law. Consequently, even after I948, for many old people admission to an institution still carried a stigma. By using oral histories of relatives and professionals who cared for old people during this time, alongside documentary sources, this article examines how the process of transition from poor law to welfare state affected families in Oxford. This first-hand perspective, missing from most studies on the history of ageing, explores how caring for old people at a time of great social change was influenced by the local workhouse.     

1987年以来我国入境旅游区域差异特征与演变趋势分析

本文使用基尼系数分析了1987年以来我国入境旅游的区域差异特征及演变趋势。分析表明：一方面,1987以来我国入境旅游区域差异非常明显,入境旅游在全国省区之间、东部与中西部地区之间以及东、中、西部地区内部存在广泛的差异;另一方面,这种区域差异总体呈现缩小的演变趋势。通过使用分省的面板数据模型进行计量检验,发现经济发展水平、国际航线数、旅游产品丰富程度、海外市场接近度和基础设施状况是决定入境旅游区域差异的显著因素。最后,本文根据分析结果提出了相应的政策建议。     

Constraints on Local Welfare Discretion in an Era of Second‐Order Devolution

Under devolution, state and local governments are expected to use the greater authority granted to them to design new and innovative programs that are tailored to local needs. Existing research on the devolution of welfare programs has reported substantial variation in the policies adopted by states in the wake of welfare reform. However, under second‐order devolution, local governments also gained discretion over welfare services. Some have argued that, while devolution should increase flexibility, local governments face constraints that limit their functional discretion. Using California as an example, I assess whether there is variation in the service priorities adopted by local governments and whether these priorities translate to frontline practices. I show differences in the service priorities of local governments; however, these priorities are not associated with differences in sanctioning or time‐limit exemptions. Thus, while local governments may formally adopt different priorities, state and federal policy choices, as well as client characteristics, may restrict priorities from translating into differences in caseworker behavior.     

Sik Bilong Ples: an Exploration of Meanings of Illness and Well-Being Amongst the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea

This paper examines indigenous concepts of health and well-being amongst the Wosera Abelam, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Indigenous conceptual frameworks for understanding human well-being are remarkably resilient despite the use of western medical services and nutritional advice from health clinics. Their resilience is probably attributable to their embeddedness within a wider worldview that emphasises the social context of health and well-being and thus makes them resistant to change. Whilst the Wosera Abelam are open and receptive to modern health services, their response to these services remains considerably influenced by indigenous concepts of health and illness.     

西安市微区域收入及贫困空间格局研究

以街道办事处为研究单元,以居民收入数据为基础,采用FGT指数法和矢量数据符号法,分别从收入等级、收入差距、贫困程度等方面对西安市主城区的收入及贫困空间格局展开研究。结果表明:①1收入等级空间特征为"南高北低,西高东低"、"中心城区,高低交错";②街道办之间平均收入差距不大,街道办内部个人收入差距较大;③贫困地区主要集中在老城衰退区、老工业区、城中村棚户区及近郊城乡交错区;④收入高低、收入差距分别与贫困程度呈现反比和正比关系。本文的研究为政府部门从街道层面制定脱贫对策提供参考。     

Information Technology Impacts on Urban Spatial Structure in the Chicago Region

This paper examines the impact of information technology on urban spatial structure in the Chicago region. Urban scientists are challenged to understand in what ways information technology has influenced the distribution of urban economic activities: concentration or dispersion. Using data collected in the Chicago region, orientation of establishments toward the center is tested to separate the impact of locational features of centers from the impact of information technology. The result reveals that information technology has attraction as well as spillover effect on urban spatial structure and thus concentration rather than dispersion is dominant at a local scale in the Chicago region. It was found, however, that center‐orientedness varies depending on the sector.     

18-20世纪人体测量史:理论、研究方法、史料以及最初的结果

男性身高的变化能够反映出俄国人口福利状况的变化。1700—1980年,俄国男性士兵身高资料及与之相应的生活状况和福利评估大体分为9个阶段,人的生活状况提高、降低和稳定阶段分别为150、100和30年,280年间男女的身高分别增加了10—11厘米。每逢战争和激烈改革时期,赋税增加和连年歉收,人口的身高、生活状况和福利无不下降;而每逢战争过后,政策得当,社会稳定,风调雨顺之时,人口的身高、生活状况和福利均提高。总之,18世纪俄国民众的整体生活水平下降,而19—20世纪俄国,特别是1921—1980年苏联时期的人口福利提高。这些结论察前人所未察,发他人所未发。     

A perfect storm? Welfare, care, gender and generations in Uruguay

This article claims that welfare states modelled on a contributory basis and with a system of entitlements that assumes stable two-parent families, a traditional breadwinner model, full formal employment and a relatively young age structure are profoundly flawed in the context of present-day challenges. While this is true for affluent countries modelled on the Bismarckian type of welfare system, the costs of the status quo are even more devastating in middle-income economies with high levels of inequality. A gendered approach to welfare reform that introduces the political economy and the economy of care and unpaid work is becoming critical to confront what may very well become a perfect storm for the welfare of these nations and their peoples. Through an in-depth study of the Uruguayan case, the authors show how the decoupling of risk and protection has torn asunder the efficacy of welfare devices in the country. An ageing society that has seen a radical transformation of its family and labour market landscapes, Uruguay maintained during the 1980s and 1990s a welfare state that was essentially contributory, elderly and male-oriented, and centred on cash entitlements. This contributed to the infantilization of poverty, increased the vulnerability of women and exacerbated fiscal stress for the system as a whole. Furthermore, because of high levels of income and asset inequality, the redistribution of risk between upper- and lower-income groups presented a deeply regressive pattern. The political economy of care and welfare has begun to change in the last decade or so, bringing about mild reforms in the right direction; but these might prove to be too little and too late.