the local structure of the welfare state uneven effects of social spending on poverty within countries research has shown that there is a strong negative relationship between social spending and poverty levels among urban inequality researchers it is often assumed that compared with the usa the welfare state has mitigated social differences explaining lower levels of urban inequality in most european countries however research on the role of the welfare state is often conducted on the national level and is thus unable to draw conclusions on the effects of social spending and redistribution on a lower level failing to take the within country variation into account this study connects welfare state research to urban inequality research by investigating the effects of social spending on poverty in urban and non urban areas we have conducted a cross national multilevel logistic regression analysis using eurostat and european social survey data of 2008 our findings suggest that the effects of social spending are unequally distributed within countries

ecological modernization in the electrical utility industry an application of a bads goods dea model of ecological and technical efficiency abstract newly developed data envelopment analysis techniques permit simultaneous consideration of good and bad outputs in evaluating efficiency we use these techniques to determine joint ecological and technical efficiencies of the 437 largest fossil fueled electricity generating plants in the united states utilizing the epa s e grid and clean air markets databases and drawing on ecological modernization theory we evaluate whether innovations in organizational practices and technological solutions help achieve joint technical and environmental performance efficiencies

estimation and decomposition of technical efficiency for sugarbeet farms this study computes technical efficiency for idaho sugarbeet farms and decomposes it into pure technical efficiency scale efficiency and congestion efficiency using nonparametric procedures the results indicate that the average efficiency is 0 88 with 45 of the farms in the sample exhibiting full efficiency improper scale operation and input overutilization are the major sources of inefficiency for remaining farms technical efficiency is independent of farm size a tobit model was used to examine the impacts of variables such as farm size specialization tenancy position hired labour location and managerial ability on efficiency inefficiency in sugarbeet production results in a shortfall of potential revenues not only for producers but also for landlords and processors

communities matter institutional preconditions for community renewable energy abstract energy transitions are high on political agendas from a practical viewpoint community approaches are deemed essential in order to transition from a predominantly centralized energy supply to a decentralized one and to exploit the potential of renewable energies in this paper i discuss how the emergence of community based energy projects can be analyzed from an institutional perspective in this context a community is treated as an individual institutional order that shapes decisions i examine how community structures the implementation of biogas cooperatives in the autonomous province of south tyrol in northern italy my findings suggest that community spirit a cooperative tradition and the norms of locality and responsibility are central drivers behind the emergence and constitution of biogas cooperatives not only do these institutional features of community influence the decision concerning which farmers are in or out but also plant location and scale i argue that community is a necessary analytical category for understanding community energy

multilateral productivity comparisons with undesirable outputs in a recent paper in this journal caves christensen and diewert i982 hereafter ccd derive what they term multilateral superlative indexes for use in the comparison of output input and productivity across economic entities the indexes derived are distinguished both by transitivity and by a high degree of characteristicity a term introduced by dreschler i 973 to refer to the degree to which the weights used in a comparison are specific to the observations being compared though the indexes are presented with the application to multicountry comparisons of output input and productivity foremost in mind the authors note that they may be useful in a number of other contexts as well i e firms and industries time series and pooled time series and cross section all of the applications mentioned or implied however have this in common they involve the comparison of productive entities all of whose outputs are sold for positive prices this is not surprising of course since most products with which economists are concerned possess this characteristic however it does render incomplete or potentially misleading the comparison of productive entities which produce significant amounts of undesirable outputs such as water and air pollution since the list of such entities is rather long and includes industries critical to many national and regional economies e g chemicals paper petroleum refining copper and steel the omission of this factor from consideration may be a matter of some importance 2 consider for example a comparison of the productivity of the steel industries

the effect of welfare and wage levels on the location decisions of female headed households abstract this paper develops and estimates a model designed to calculate the impact of welfare benefit levels wages and tax rates on the location choices of female headed households the empirical model assumes that women simultaneously choose both where they will live and whether or not they will participate in the welfare system based on their expected income and expected hours of work for each location participation possibility these income and hours expectations depend in turn on the welfare benefits wage and tax rates facing each household in each location it is found that both regional welfare levels and wage rates have a significant effect on the location decisions of this population the probability of a typical female headed household with little outside income leaving an area with low welfare payments and low wages can be as much as 12 points higher over a 4 year period than the probability of leaving a high welfare high wage area

measuring and forecasting regional environmental and economic efficiency in italy abstractenvironmental and economic efficiency has being receiving growing attention among researchers in general terms this concept is related to the capability of the economic systems to employ natural resources efficiently so as to increase economic and human wealth this clearly implies that both the economic and ecological aspects of decisions ought to be considered bearing this in mind this article considers economic and ecological performance together by applying data envelopment analysis and the malmquist productivity index to investigate the efficiency of the 20 italian regions from 2004 to 2011 the results reveal that the northern regions have been more efficient than the southern ones highlighting the strong geographical differences between the two furthermore this article uses the grey system theory to forecast regional economic and environmental efficiency the results of the forecasting analysis show that the north south duality remains strong and will possibly increase since the r

the tradeoff between equality and efficiency short run politics and long run realities in concluding this paper the best way to emphasize what has been argued is to make as clear as possible what has not been argued nothing in the above argumentation or evidence can or is intended to deny that some social welfare programs genuinely serve the long run interests of the poor undoubtedly such programs exist and can be identified as successful other programs exist however that are undeniably making the poor worse off from the perspective of reducing income inequality it is obvious that the successful programs should be maintained and even expanded in ways that further assist the poor while the harmful programs should be terminated unfortunately it is simply not possible politically to select out those programs that do promote broad social goals such as reducing poverty while eliminating those programs that do not this is a point that the present paper is intended to emphasize once you open up the political transfer process to one group no matter how deserving that group may be economic rents are generated that will motivate competition among politically organized interest groups the inevitable result of this competition is a package of programs that serve a variety of interests but which on balance do little if anything to benefit those groups which it was our intention to assist

social polarisation in global cities theory and evidence this paper examines the debate over social polarisation in global cities it focuses on the claims made by sassen that the processes of economic change in such cities are leading to a growing polar

sugar beet for bioethanol production an approach based on environmental agricultural outputs abstract the eu imports both bioethanol and the raw material needed to produce it thirty percent of bioethanol is produced from sugar beets in the eu however sugar beet cultivated area and yields have fallen due to the 2006 sugar regime reform given the potential uncertainty about the future for sugar beet farmers biofuels may represent an alternative market this paper analyses potential contribution to the efficiency in terms of environmental output of the sugar beet crop both when production is oriented toward bioethanol and regarding the use of input an empirical application is performed in spain by data envelopment analysis dea the results show that 4 of farms have full technical efficiency while the rest have an average efficiency of 55 9 the figures show that inputs can be reduced over 40 and also show the low average level of input use efficiency in addition it cannot be said that there is a relationship between efficiency and farm scale the consideration of aspects such as the environmental advantages of using sugar beet production for bioethanol can open new lines of action to support this crop in the eu in addition boosting sugar beet production may reduce potential dependency on importation

a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency an application on oecd countries the role of the environment is an important issue in policy making andthe accurate assessment of the environmental conditions is vital inthis paper using nonparametric techniques an environmental efficiencyindex is developed for each of the oecd countries these indexes allowone both to do cross section comparisons on the state of each country sproduction process in its treatment of undesirable outputs and also totrace each country s modification of their production processesovertime furthermore in this study we investigate the factorsunderlying societies environmental concerns that eventually lead tochanges in the environmental efficiency the results provide furtherempirical evidence for the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis

the effect of environmental regulation on optimal plant size and factor shares the method for measuring the effects of environmental regulation on the size distribution of industrial plants and the distribution of factor shares described in this paper focuses on the 20 industries with highest per unit pollution abatement costs and the 20 with the lowest costs the study finds that compliance with environmental laws has not only reduced the number of plants in the affected industries but has placed a greater burden on small rather than on large plants besides redistributing within industry market shares environmental regulation has increased the use of capital relative to labor although the disproportionate burden placed on small plants in the high abatement cost industries may have been unintended it is likely that large firms will be less vocal opponents of environmental regulation than are small firms 22 references 12 tables

the contribution of environmental regulations to the slowdown in productivity growth abstract the radical slowdown in productivity growth since 1965 is often attributed to environmental regulations several studies varying widely in method have attempted to assess this contribution here these analyses are reviewed and critiqued and a summary appraisal of the likely contribution of environmental regulations to the observed decrease in productivity growth is offered

social polarisation economic restructuring and welfare state regimes the central argument of this paper is that it is misconceived to view social polarisation of occupational structure and incomes in global cities as either inevitable or as a direct product of econo

hypercongestion in production correspondences an empirical exploration this empirical contribution reviews the rather limited existing literature measuring congestion in production it first compares current ways to measure congestion using nonparametric specifications of technologies in particular it focuses on the magnitude and incidence of the congestion detected in empirical studies using traditional radial efficiency measures thereafter it shows the limitations of this radial measurement and how alternative measurement schemes may reveal higher amounts of congestion then the new more general methodology of measuring s congestion is presented in particular we first present a numerical example to illustrate the way the s disposable technologies allow to capture more extreme forms of congestion by setting empirically determined upper bounds to the wasting of inputs then an empirical illustration is presented based on an existing sample of data a final section concludes

accounting for the recent decline in global income inequality following nearly two centuries of growth global income inequality declined in the last decades of the 20th century to determine the causes of that historic decline we focus on income inequality across nations and find that the major equalizing force is faster than world average income growth in china and south asia industrializing regions where 40 of the world s people live apparently what matters most about economic globalization thus far is its role in the spread of industrialization throughout populous poor regions of the world if so then globalization most likely has reduced global income inequality this decline is anticipated to continue over the next few decades first because of the continued industrialization of poor regions and second because most of the growth in the world s working age population will occur in poor regions

issue in pollution control interplant cost differences and economies of scale debate on interplant pollution control cost differences focuses on the question of whether a system of taxes or transferable discharge permits should require those plants with low treatment costs to control a higher share of effluents another issue under debate is whether those industries with a large minimum size may be effectively barred by pollution control requirements evidence of the inefficiency of present institutional arrangements is shown by studying production function estimations of 30 pulp and paper mills in wisconsin and michigan a more efficient reallocation of pollution control resources could be effected with more market oriented regimes 58 references 6 tables dck

is environmental efficiency trade inducing or trade hindering abstract global efforts to identify strategies for sustainable economic growth and development underline the need for understanding important links between environmental policies and international trade in this paper by constructing an environmental efficiency index for 111 countries from 1980 to 2009 we are able to empirically test for one such link an improvement in the environmental efficiency index in terms of carbon dioxide emissions reflects a decrease in the cost of efforts to mitigate the environmental costs associated with growth countries that improve their environmental efficiency are found to experience strong international trade effects both through increased exports and increased imports while the positive link between efficiency improvements and exports is supportive of the porter hypothesis the positive link between efficiency improvements and imports is supportive of strong positive income effects on account of environmental efforts these results which are robust to alternative estimation strategies lend strong support to global efforts to improve countries environmental efficiencies

the paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality welfare state institutions inequality and poverty in the western countries the structure of welfare state institutions 2 a trade off exists between the degree of low income targeting and the size of redistributive budgets 3 outcomes of market based distribution are often more unequal than those of earnings related social insurance programs we argue that social insurance institutions are of central importance for redistributive outcomes using new data our comparative analyses of the effects of different institutional types of welfare states on poverty and inequality indicate that institutional differences lead to unexpected outcomes and generate the paradox of redistribution the more we target benefits at the poor and the more concerned we are with creating equality via equal public transfers to all the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality social scientists and social reformers have long debated how the welfare state and social policies should be designed so as to best reduce poverty and inequality this debate involves two different issues one question concerns whether social policies should be targeted or universal that is should they be organized for the poor only or should the welfare state include all citizens in the context of nontargeted programs another question concerns the level of benefits should benefits be equal for all or should they be related to previous earnings and in

exploring the existence of kuznets curve in countries environmental efficiency using dea window analysis abstract this paper using data envelopment dea window analysis and generalized method of moments gmm estimators examines the existence of a kuznets type relationship between countries environmental efficiency and national income specifically it measures the environmental efficiency of 17 oecd countries by constructing environmental efficiency ratios for the time period 1980 2002 the analysis with the application of dynamic panel data reveals that there isn t a kuznets type relationship between environmental efficiency and income allowing for dynamic effects we find that the adjustment to the target ratio is instantaneous we also find that increased economic activity does not always ensure environmental protection and thus the path of growth is important in addition to the growth itself

space and unemployment the labor market effects of spatial mismatch the aim of this article is to analyze the effects of housing discrimination on the wages and unemployment rates of black workers the unemployment effect is first analyzed using a simple minimum wage model an efficiency wage model is then adopted in order to endogenize both unemployment and wages under both models suburban housing discrimination leads to a higher unemployment rate for blacks in the central city than in the suburbs under the efficiency wage model black wages are also lower in the center the analysis thus generates a link between unemployment and a seemingly unrelated phenomenon racial discrimination in the housing market

surface mining of coal efficiency of us interior mines in this paper the relative efficiency in surface mining of us interior coal is investigated a nonparmetric non stochasitic method is applied to 186 observations and esch firm s efficiency is calculated relative to the piecewise llinesr frontier technology in adition three sources of inefficiency are identified namely scale congestion and purely technical inefficiency the outcome of the study shows among other things that on the average captive mines are more efficient than non captive mines and that unionized mines are more efficient than non unionized mines