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Kako Ito

Public insurance and the least well-off | Lane Kenworthy - 6 views

lanekenworthy.net/surance-and-the-least-well-off

public insurance economics welfare poor nordic model universalism targeting redistribution income inequality

shared by Kako Ito on 27 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Public insurance also boosts the living standards of the poor. It increases their income, and it provides them with services for which they bear relatively little of the cost.
  • Critics charge that public social programs tend to hurt the poor in the long run by reducing employment and economic growth. Are they correct?
  • Does public insurance erode self-reliance? Is a large private safety net as helpful to the least well-off as a large public one? Are universal programs more effective than targeted ones? Are income transfers the key, or are services important too?
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Once again we see no indication that public insurance generosity has had a damaging effect
  • Note also that the employment rate increased in nearly all of the countries during this period. On average, it rose by nine percentage points between 1979 and 2013. That’s not what we would expect to see if generous public insurance programs were inducing large numbers of able adults to withdraw from the labor market
  • What we see in the chart is that countries with more generous public insurance programs tend to have less material deprivation.
  • With globalization, the advance of computers and robots, increased pressure from shareholders for short-run profit maximization, union weakening, and other shifts, wages have been under pressure. Couple this with the fact that many people at the low end of the income ladder have labor market disadvantages — disability, family constraint, geographic vulnerability to structural unemployment — and we have a recipe for stagnation in the market incomes of the poor.
  • here’s a good reason for these shifts: government provision offers economies of scale and scope, which reduces the cost of a good or service and thereby makes it available to many people who couldn’t or wouldn’t get it on their own.
  • Government provides more insurance now than it used to. All of us, not just some, are dependent on it. And life for almost everyone is better because of it
  • hese expenditures are encouraged by government tax advantages.22 But they do little to help people on the bottom of the ladder, who often work for employers that don’t provide retirement or health benefits.
  • To make them more affordable, the government claws back some of the benefit by taxing it as though it were regular income. All countries do this, including the United States, but the Nordic countries do it more extensively. Does that hurt their poor? Not much. The tax rates increase with household income, so much of the tax clawback hits middle- and upper-income households.
  • Another difference is that public services such as schooling, childcare, medical care, housing, and transportation are more plentiful and of better quality for the poor in the Nordic countries. Public services reduce deprivation and free up income to be spent on other needs. It’s difficult to measure the impact of services on living standards, but one indirect way is to look at indicators of material deprivation,
  • Targeted transfers are directed (sometimes disproportionately, sometimes exclusively) to those with low incomes and assets, whereas universal transfers are provided to most or all citizens.
  • Targeted programs are more efficient at reducing poverty; each dollar or euro or kroner transferred is more likely to go to the least well-off. Increased targeting therefore could be an effective way to maintain or enhance public insurance in the face of diminished resources.
  • “the more we target benefits to the poor … the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality.”
  • Korpi and Palme found that the pattern across eleven affluent nations supported the hypothesis that greater use of targeting in transfers yields less redistribution
  • The hypothesis that targeting in social policy reduces political support and thereby lessens redistributive effort is a sensible one. Yet the experience of the rich countries in recent decades suggests reason to question it. Targeting has drawbacks relative to universalism: more stigma for recipients, lower take-up rates, and possibly less social trust.44 But targeting is less expensive. As pressures to contain government expenditures mount, policy makers may therefore turn to greater use of targeting. That may not be a bad thing.
  • Public insurance programs boost the incomes of the least well-off and improve their material well-being. If such programs are too generous, this benefit could be offset by reduced employment or economic growth, but the comparative evidence suggests that the world’s rich nations haven’t reached or exceeded the tipping point.
  • Spending lots of money on social protection is not in and of itself helpful to the poor. Total social expenditures in the United States are greater than in Denmark and Sweden, because the US has a large private welfare state. But relatively little of America’s private social spending reaches the poor.
  • Public services are an important antipoverty tool. Their benefit doesn’t show up in income data, but they appear to play a key role in reducing material hardship. Services expand the sphere of consumption for which the cost is zero or minimal. And they help to boost the earnings and capabilities of the poor by enhancing human capital, assisting with job search and placement, and facilitating work-family balance.
  • Kako Ito on 27 Sep 15
     
    Through this article I have gained a deeper insight in how public expenditures and public goods promote wealth equality in a society. "Public services are an important antipoverty tool."
  • ...2 more comments...
  • olivialum on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article really helped me deepen my understanding of redistributing wealth downwards. I never thought about it, but things like social security, affirmative action programs, and public education are actually insurances that attempt to provide everybody with more equality when it comes to living standards as well as basic human rights.
  • samoshay on 29 Sep 15
     
    Yeah, it is a very common argument to say that social expenditures disincentives workers; interesting analysis on how wealthy countries haven't reached the "tipping point." I am curious to see what happens to labor force participation and employment in the next decades as robots further divorce economic growth from labor supply/demand.
  • charlesleesohn on 29 Sep 15
     
    Cool theory in regards to "the tipping point". Interesting, and solid criticism of large social expenditures. Wonder how socialists view this, as opposed to free-market economists.
  • smowat on 29 Sep 15
     
    "Public services are an important antipoverty tool. Their benefit doesn't show up in income data, but they appear to play a key role in reducing material hardship." INteresting to see the statistics and how social expenditures help reduce poverty and the wealth gap.
Kay Bradley

Why It's Hard to Get Strongmen to Step Down - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...zimbabwe-strongmen.html

shared by Kay Bradley on 27 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • to avoid prosecution
  • maintain wealth gained through corruption
  • or in some cases avoid death at the hands of adversaries
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Charles G. Taylor, Liberia
  • he ended up standing trial in an international court for war crimes for his role in neighboring Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, charged with murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
  • Mr. Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison. It was the first time since the Nuremberg trials that a former head of state was convicted by an international tribunal.
  • Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
  • Mr. Mubarak stepped down in February 2011.Just two months later, the military government to which he handed power arrested him.
  • He was put on trial for a series of charges, at times wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital bed.
  • he was freed this year and escorted by armed guard to his mansion in the Heliopolis neighborhood of Cairo.
  • Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya
  • Mr. Qaddafi remained defiant even as it became clear he would not maintain his grip on the country, as rebels overran his fortresslike compound and seized full control of Tripoli in August 2011.Just months later in October 2011, Mr. Qaddafi died at the hands of rebel groups while trying to flee.
  • Joseph Kabila, Democratic Republic of Congo
  • was supposed to step down last December at the end of his second term, as constitutionally mandated. But he refused, s
  • his fears for his safety and his wealth.
  • Mr. Kabila first came to office in 2001, after his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, was assassinated.
  • he has been widely accused of amassing wealth at the expense of the state
  • Investigators and some government officials say that Mr. Kabila has looted millions of dollars in public assets
  • Elections have been pushed back to December 2018,
Kay Bradley

More Wealth, More Jobs, but Not for Everyone: What Fuels the Backlash on Trade - The Ne... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...els-the-backlash-on-trade.html

shared by Kay Bradley on 09 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • But trade comes with no assurances that the spoils will be shared equitably. Across much of the industrialized world, an outsize share of the winnings have been harvested by people with advanced degrees, stock options and the need for accountants. Ordinary laborers have borne the costs and suffered from joblessness and deepening economic anxiety
  • Policy makers under the thrall of neoliberal economic philosophy put stock in the notion that markets could be trusted to bolster social welfare.
  • From 2000 to 2010, the United States lost some 5.6 million manufacturing jobs
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Only 13 percent of those job losses can be explained by trade
  • The rest were casualties of automation or the result of tweaks to factory operations that enabled more production with less labor.
  • American factories produced more goods last year than ever, by many indications. Yet they did so while employing about 12.3 million workers — roughly the same number as in 2009, when production was roughly three-fourths what it is today.
  • a symphony of motion greets every arriving container ship. Cranes rev, lifting containers
  • Robots Running Things in Rotterdam
Thomas Peterson

Russia Legislators Use Inquiries Into Wealth to Settle Scores - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...o-wealth-to-settle-scores.html

Russia corruption

shared by Thomas Peterson on 02 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Thomas Peterson on 02 Sep 12
     
    MOSCOW - When the Russian authorities began a series of investigations this spring into the business affairs of a prominent opposition lawmaker, it was widely viewed as thinly veiled political retribution. But in a sign of how quickly the tables can now be flipped in such disputes, allies of the politician, Gennady V.
  • Thomas Peterson on 02 Sep 12
     
    This article concerns attempts by Russian lawmakers to target opposition party members who they believe have violated Duma policy by "engaging in business or other paid activities". The controversy over the hypocrisy present in the aforementioned investigations sheds light on a question that interests me greatly: will Russia's corrupt and billionaire-driven government be sustainable in the long term? This particular case also raises questions about the mechanisms used by the ruling party, United Russia, in maintaining control over the Russian government.
  • Kay Bradley on 03 Sep 12
     
    This article also speaks to political culture, a key part of comparative politics analysis. Russia's transition to democracy has been halting, and many CoPo scholars say this is because Russia has a civic (and by extension political) culture that is used to authoritarianism of one sort or another. The notion of rule by democratic law is taking a long time to take hold. Is this explanation adequate? Compared to other countries?
Kay Bradley

Don't Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ich-tax-inequality-itself.html

wealth inequality taxes inequality tax

shared by Kay Bradley on 21 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • at some point the concentration of economic power could undermine the democratic requisite of dispersed political power.
  • It would be bad for our democracy if 1-percenters started making 40 or 50 times as much as the median American.
  • a tax that would limit the after-tax incomes of this club to 36 times the median household income.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Importantly, our Brandeis tax does not target excessive income per se; it only caps inequality. Billionaires could double their current income without the tax kicking in — as long as the median income also doubles. The sky is the limit for the rich as long as the “rising tide lifts all boats.” Indeed, the tax gives job creators an extra reason to make sure that corporate wealth does in fact trickle down.
  • Our Brandeis tax is conservative in that it doesn’t attempt to reverse the gains of the wealthy in the last 30 years. It is not a “claw back” tax. It merely assures that things don’t get worse.
  • Ian Ayres, a professor of law at Yale, is the author of “Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done.” Aaron S. Edlin, a professor of law and of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is co-editor of “The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take On Today’s Problems.”
samueld2022

Pandora Papers: Secret wealth and dealings of world leaders exposed - BBC News - 1 views

www.bbc.com/world-58780465

shared by samueld2022 on 04 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • samueld2022 on 04 Oct 21
     
    It's interesting to see the wealth many leaders have been hiding from the public. It is also interesting to see how many of these leaders were or still are in charge of democratic nations which I did not expect.
anays2023

Barbados becomes a republic and parts ways with the Queen - BBC News - 5 views

www.bbc.com/...world-latin-america-59470843

shared by anays2023 on 30 Nov 21 - No Cached
  • anays2023 on 30 Nov 21
     
    Important decolonialist move from a once firm common wealth nation. Will this inspire other crown holdings to split? How will rev for the crown change? What will the longer term impact be?
  • cole_reynolds on 30 Nov 21
     
    I was also wondering what the long-term impact will be. Barbados is staying within the commonwealth, so it seems like a more symbolic move.
Kay Bradley

Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate | Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...venezuela-crisis

petroleum petrostate Latin America

shared by Kay Bradley on 15 Nov 21 - No Cached
  • Punto Fijo pact, which guaranteed that state jobs and, notably, oil rents would be parceled out to the three parties in proportion to voting results. While the pact sought to guard against dictatorship and usher in democratic stability, it ensured that oil profits would be concentrated in the state.
  • OPEC. V
  • OPEC embargo on countries backing Israel in the Yom Kippur War quadrupled oil prices and made Venezuela the country with the highest per-capita income in Latin America.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • mismanagement. Analysts estimate that as much as $100 billion was embezzled between 1972 and 1997 alone.
  • A country that discovers a resource after it has formed robust democratic institutions is usually better able to avoid the resource curse, analysts say. For example, strong institutions in Norway have helped the country enjoy steady economic growth since the 1960s, when vast oil reserves were discovered in the North Sea,
  • Strong democracies with an independent press and judiciary help curtail classic petrostate problems.
  • Many countries with vast resource wealth, such as Norway and Saudi Arabia, have established sovereign wealth funds (SWF) to manage their investments
  • climate change.  
  • Analysts anticipate that a global shift from fossil fuel energy to renewables such as solar and wind will force petrostates to diversify their economies. Nearly two hundred countries, including Venezuela, have joined the Paris Agreement, a binding treaty that requires states to make specific commitments to mitigate
  • Summary Venezuela is an example of a decaying petrostate, where the government is highly dependent on income from fossil fuels, power is concentrated in an elite minority, and corruption is widespread.  Petrostates are vulnerable to what economists call Dutch disease, a dynamic in which a government develops an unhealthy dependence on natural resource exports, and other important industrial sectors are deprived of investment. Venezuela has descended into economic and political turmoil under President Nicolas Maduro, as its once-substantial oil outflows have slowed to a trickle. Absent a power transition, analysts say the country’s prospects are grim.
  • Jeffrey Sachs,
Stuart Suplick

Cry, the beloved country - 0 views

www.economist.com/...t-continent-clawing-its-way-up

economy corruption cronyism monopoly of political power South Africa leadership

shared by Stuart Suplick on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Stuart Suplick on 11 Nov 13
     
    Argues that the "incompetence" of the ANC has not been conducive for economic growth and has angered South Africans because "too little wealth trickles down" due to less economic competition from ANC's corruption. Says that the ANC needs more political competition, or should split to accurately reflect it's composition for voters: "the populist left and the fat-cat right". Contrasts this political one-sidedness with the rest of African countries. As I read this article, I wondered how the political conflict will affect the country--probably not to the point where development regresses, but it serves as a reminder that NICs have their own problems.
samoshay

Why Britain is not so unequal after all - 15 views

www.economist.com/...redistribution-britain

shared by samoshay on 26 Sep 15 - No Cached
samoshay liked it
  • samoshay on 26 Sep 15
     
    Super interesting article; ties in to the week's big themes; I highly recommend a read.
  • ...5 more comments...
  • anishakaul on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article was interesting because it was analyzing many of the aspects of political economy that we have read/discussed this past week. I also was very interested by the graph about a single person's welfare benefits over a life span because I had never seen information about this topic displayed in a graphic like this one.
  • jacquelinec56 on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article brought really counter intuitive points up - though backed by data, specifically how inequality at an instance is often lower than over a lifetime because people do not remain incredibly poor for most of their lives.
  • quinnlewis on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article points out how much an income can vary over a lifetime which is super important because it illegitimizes a lot of data collected on a yearly basis in that id does not incorporate the full picture or provide context. This question of legitimacy could serve as an argument for people pro and against welfare because they can disregard data collected based on the idea that income can vary, making it unable to represent current conditions accurately without considering other variables.
  • olivialum on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article was really informative and I really liked the visual components. The article was easy to read and very clear about the how the British taxation system redistributes income downwards.
  • kylerussell on 29 Sep 15
     
    As simple as it seems, the idea of government taxation in your youth and "getting back" in your retirement seems to have lost attention on many political platforms. In addition, it is quite interesting too look at not just the inequality gap, but who actually is a part of the top middle and bottom.
  • alexamikataga on 29 Sep 15
     
    I found it very interesting that the poorest in a given year, are not necessarily the poorest for their entire lives. As well as the point that income is distributed over one's lifetime, versus given in one particular moment--> which helps redistribute wealth, instead of letting it go stagnant.
  • sawyerthompson on 29 Sep 15
     
    Super interesting how little effect cutting or expanding government benefits has on long term poverty.
Rachel Katzoff

EU enlargement: The next eight - 4 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-europe-11283616

EU

shared by Rachel Katzoff on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Rachel Katzoff on 12 Oct 10
     
    This article talks about the next eight countries trying to gain entry into the EU. The most likely country to join the EU is Croatia and they may be approved as early as 2011. Each of the countries that applied as some internal issues they have to work out before they will be admitted. The process of being admitted is interesting to me because the countries first have to submit and application, get confirmed as a candidate, and then they begin talks. In the case of Turkey, the process has been going on since 1987.
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Curtis Serrano on 14 Oct 10
     
    Its incredible what the EU requires of joining nations, turkey has been trying for over 20 years. Its also interesting that many of these countries seem to be denied based on organized crime problems.
  • Kay Bradley on 17 Oct 10
     
    If you refer to the graphic representation of national debt among EU nations, bookmarked above, you'll see that wealth disparities among member nations is a potential deal breaker too.
  • anonymous on 18 Oct 10
     
    I think it's fairly comical how the EU is really a gentlemen's club for the golden boys of Europe and how they are now fiercely attempting to reject their less desirable neighbors while maintaining this facade of being open and welcoming. Of course, it's hard to embrace someone when you're holding onto your wallet with both hands.
  • Rick Rodgers on 18 Oct 10
     
    I think the problems in Greece point to why the EU has to be careful about who is let and who is not. That being said, this process with regards to Turkey is taking way too long. It would be a big step if Europe could build strong ties with Turkey, as it is one of the most accessible means of diplomatic and cultural communication with the ME (Israel is useless). Perhaps in this case, it would be best for the EU to forgive Turkey some minor problems in Cyprus, recognize that they have made improves with the "Kurd problem" and just let them in the damn club already. Perhaps greater improvements with internal Turkish issues that don't appeal to the UN could be made even more easily once Turkey has already joined.
  • Catherine Binder on 18 Oct 10
     
    I had no idea that it was this difficult to become a member of the European Union - being confirmed as a candidate can take more than a decade. Poor Turkey began the process 23 years ago, and is expected to require at least 10 more years to be fully prepared for membership. What an endeavor!
  • Gregory Freiberg on 18 Oct 10
     
    I think this is very interesting and I cannot agree with Jack more. When these countries are thinking only with their pocket books it is hard to be genuinely welcoming to other nations. In my opinion, making Turkey wait 20+ years to join is far too long and a bit ridiculous especially when you compare it to the time other countries had to wait. Croatia joined in less than 5. Very unfair...
Kay Bradley

As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe - NYTimes.com - 12 views

www.nytimes.com/...otests-surge-around-globe.html

NYTimes.com wealth inequality WTO globalization protests vote surge

shared by Kay Bradley on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • income inequality
  • these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.
  • they have little faith in the ballot box.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • high unemployment
  • social spending
  • cuts in social spendin
  • protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups
  • their political leaders, regardless of party, had been so thoroughly captured by security concerns, ultra-Orthodox groups and other special interests
  • could no longer respond to the country’s middle class.
  • anticorruption measure
  • less hierarchical, more participatory
  • the political system has abandoned its citizens.”
  • That consensus, championed by scholars like Francis Fukuyama in his book “The End of History and the Last Man,” has been shaken if not broken by a seemingly endless succession of crises
  • continuing European and American debt crisis —
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