bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Regulatory Framework for Strengthening Defined Benefit Pensions
Authors: Warshawsky Mark J. , McCall Neal , Worth John D. 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Recent financial market and plan termination experiences have exposed the shortcomings of existing funding, disclosure, and premium rules governing private single-employer defined benefit pension plans in the United States. These rules were designed to provide predictability for plan sponsors and administrators by insulating pension plans from the realities of economic and financial market fluctuations. Unfortunately, current practice often overlooks key financial principles that arguably should inform a responsible set of pension rules and the insurance system backing the plans. This chapter outlines the key characteristics of pension plans needed to beneficially guide rule-making and offers examples drawn from proposed funding and premium rules.
Restructuring the Defined Benefit Pension
Authors: Hammond P.Brett , Fore Douglas 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Under the traditional approach to defined benefit plans, well-intended disciplinary and regulatory regimes have sought to restrict discretion, reduce uncertainty and risk, and protect workers and employers. Nevertheless, the discouraging state of defined benefit plans indicates that past efforts have gone awry. This chapter suggests that a new approach to defined benefit plans could resurrect the key elements required for retirement income security, rather than pursuing piecemeal reform.
Market Innovations to Better Allocate Generational Risk
Authors: Valdés‐Prieto Salvador 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Mandatory old-age benefit programs tend to require periodic adjustments as a result of demographic and economic shocks. However, such discretionary adjustments create political risk for workers and beneficiaries, and raises taxpayer risk. An alternative way to handle such shocks is to use rule-based adjustment, which can be adopted in an unfunded system without incurring transition costs and without increasing public debt. This chapter explores an approach to this problem that would endow the Social Security Trust Fund with property rights over the revenue of a (much reduced) residual payroll tax paid by future workers. This revenue would be securitized and the resulting securities priced in financial markets. The new securities created in the process would allow beneficiaries to obtain safe real pensions protected from investment risk.
Bureaucratic form and the informal economy
Authors: Hart Keith 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This paper is divided into three parts. The first part is a story about fluctuations in the balance of the relationship between impersonal and personal principles of social organization, drawing heavily on Max Weber’s interpretation of western history. The second part reviews the concept of an ‘informal economy/sector’, from its origins in discussions of the Third World urban poor to its present status as a universal feature of economy. The third part asks how the combination of the formal/informal pair may be conceived, with a view to promoting development. The paper concludes with suggestions on how partnerships between bureaucracy and the people can be made more equal.
The global path: soft law and non-sovereigns formalizing the potency of the informal sector
Authors: Christensen Robert K. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThe Westphalian paradigm suggests that sovereign nation-states formally constitute the only legitimate institutions of international policy creation, enactment, and enforcement. This paper seeks to highlight the policy potency of nongovernmental organizations by turning to a debate that questions the relevancy of the Westphalian paradigm. One of the most contentious points in this debate is the role and legitimacy of the various actors involved in globalization. The mechanism of ‘soft law’ is discussed, which allows non-state actors to participate — in an increasingly formalized way — in policy processes traditionally and even exclusively populated by sovereign nation states. Ostrom et al.’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework is used to clarify the institutional implications of non-sovereigns in policy formation. Ultimately, the soft law mechanism illustrates that the informal sector is gaining access — as and through NGOs — to powerful policy networks where formal sovereignty is decreasingly relevant.
The relevance of the concepts of formality and informality: a theoretical appraisal
Authors: Sindzingre Alice 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
The concept of informality has encompassed an increasing number of meanings; referred to highly heterogeneous phenomena and measurement methods; and has been explored by development microeconomics (informal contracts) and institutional economics (informal institutions). This plurality of meanings and instruments calls into question the concept’s validity. This paper synthesizes the critical issues within both a development economics and an institutional economics perspective. First to be examined are the conceptual problems inherent in the concept of informality, especially its inconsistencies and the heterogeneity of the phenomena and measurement. The concept is then analysed according to an institutionalist perspective. A more relevant distinction than the formal-informal one is proposed, which relies on an alternative theory of institutions and different distinctions, particularly between the forms, contents, and meanings of institutions.
Formal and informal enterprises: concept, definition, and measurement issues in India
Authors: Narayana M. R. 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This paper introduces the multiplicity of official concepts, definitions, and measurements of economic contributions and performance of formal and informal enterprises in India’s manufacturing and services sectors. Conceptually, formal (or informal) enterprises are distinguished by registered (or unregistered), organized (or unorganized), and regulated (or unregulated) enterprises. Employment size is a major criterion to define these enterprises. In contrast, registered and unregistered small scale enterprises are uniquely defined by size of capital investments. Using the national level databases, the economic performance of formal, informal, and small scale enterprises is separately measured by their contributions to production, employment generation, and use of assets in rural and urban areas. This implies that the standardization of concepts and definitions are a precondition for establishing comparability between the databases, or for the measurement of economic contributions and performance of India’s formal and informal enterprises.
The impact of regulation on growth and informality: cross-country evidence
Authors: Loayza Norman V. , Oviedo Ana María , Servén Luis 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This paper studies the effects of regulation on economic growth and the relative size of the informal sector in a large sample of industrial and developing countries. Along with firm dynamics, informality is an important channel through which regulation affects macroeconomic performance and economic growth. A heavier regulatory burden, particularly in product and labour markets, reduces growth and induces informality. These effects are, however, mitigated as the overall institutional framework improves.
Turning to forestry for a way out of poverty: is formalizing property rights enough?
Authors: Andersson Krister , Pacheco Diego 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
How can formal, national-level policies be structured so that they enhance rural people’s capabilities for sustained improvements of their quality of life? This paper analyses this question in the rural context, drawing upon first-hand observations of the consequences from a recent public policy reform in Bolivia’s forestry sector. It examines the effect the new legislation on forest users’ incentives to invest in forestry activities as compared to other production alternatives. Data from six smallholder communities in the tropical lowlands showed that although formalized forestry activities can be relatively profitable for smallholders, complicated acquisition rules and traditional policy bias against agricultural activities often make forestry a less attractive land use alternative.
Voluntary contributions to informal activities producing public goods: can these be induced by government and other formal sector agents? Some evidence from Indonesian posyandus
Authors: Nugent Jeffrey B. , Swaminathan Shailender 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Indonesia’s posyandus are an excellent example of important local quasi-public goods (health care) produced largely by volunteers, but with crucial inputs from government and other formal sector providers. This paper identifies the circumstances under which the formal sector’s inputs are especially successful in inducing voluntary activities that contribute to both the quantity and quality of the care provided. Data from three rounds of Indonesia’s Family Life Survey (IFLS) are used to estimate the causal effect of formal sector interventions on the quantity and quality of the healthcare provided by the informal sector. The model includes posyandu and community level fixed effects so that the effect of the intervention is identified using only longitudinal variation in the extent of interventions.
Enforcement and compliance in Lima's street markets: the origins and consequences of policy incoherence towards informal traders
Authors: Roever Sally 
Published: September 2006

AbstractFor decades, excessive and costly regulations have provided strong incentives for people to work outside Peru’s formal economy. In the case of street vending, repeated efforts to govern street traders’ use of public space have produced a body of policy that is incoherent and ultimately unenforceable. This paper identifies two sources of such policy incoherence: (1) a lack of definitional clarity in national and metropolitan level policy; and (2) contradictory legal provisions concerning municipalities’ right to charge fees for street traders’ use of public space. It is shown how municipal policy oscillates dramatically over time as local governments experiment with different ways to implement the contradictory policies created by national and metropolitan laws. The constant improvisation at the municipal level precludes stable and effective governance of street trade.
1 ‘Introduction and Overview‘
Authors: Whiteley Paul , Seyd Patrick , Billinghurst Antony 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis introductory chapter begins with a brief history of the British Liberal Democrat Party, followed by an examination of the evolution of its policy goals over time. The Liberal Democrat Party was founded in 1988 from a merger of two hitherto independent but allied parties: the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. The former had existed in different forms for more than 300 years, whereas the latter emerged from a split in the Labour Party in 1981. An overview of the chapters included in this volume is presented.
5 Explaining Party Activism
Authors: Whiteley Paul , Seyd Patrick , Billinghurst Antony 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis chapter examines grassroots activism in the Liberal Democrat Party. The results suggest that party activism can be explained by a combination of the individual’s psychological engagement with both politics and the party, together with their judgements about the costs and benefits of political engagement. Resources play a role in this, but it appears that incentives, and the choices associated with them, are particularly important in influencing the individual’s decision to be active.
7 Electoral Performance and Prospects
Authors: Whiteley Paul , Seyd Patrick , Billinghurst Antony 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis chapter begins by looking at long-term support in elections and in the polls for the Liberal Democrats, to see how it has evolved over the last half-century or so. This provides a context within which to judge the party’s future electoral prospects. The analysis of trends in Liberal Democrat voting intentions over a thirty-year period shows that the competitive situation between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is significantly greater than the competitive situation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. It also shows that the party has to wait for its main rivals to make political mistakes and lose support before it can profit by winning over voters. This is described as the political equivalent of ‘waiting for Godot’, meaning that the Liberal Democrats are not the masters of their own electoral fate.
4 Some Actual Positions on Psychological Reality
Authors: Devitt Michael 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis chapter places some historically interesting actual positions among the possible positions on psychological reality, on linguistic competence. There is strong evidence that Chomsky is committed to the Representational Thesis (RT), but that commitment is open to question. Although Fodor, Bever, and Garrett, Bresnan and Kaplan, and Berwick and Weinberg all seem to subscribe to RT, it is often unclear what role, if any, RT plays in their theories of language use. Matthews rejects RT. His view of the psychological reality is hard to distinguish from the uncontroversial minimal position according to which the processing rules simply “respect” the linguistic rules.
7 Intuitions
Authors: Devitt Michael 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This chapter starts by arguing against the received view that the intuitive judgments of speakers are the main evidence for a grammar. Still, they are evidence and an explanation for this is required. The Chomskian explanation involves the Representational Thesis (RT): that intuitions are derived by a rational process from a representation of linguistic rules in the language faculty, a representation that constitutes the speaker’s linguistic competence. The chapter argues for a different view of intuitions in general, and hence of linguistic intuitions: they do not reflect information supplied by represented or even unrepresented rules in the language faculty. Rather, they are empirical central-processor responses to linguistic phenomena differing from other such responses only in being fairly immediate and unreflective.
9 A Case for the Psychological Reality of Language
Authors: Devitt Michael 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This chapter begins with the popular “Representational Theory of the Mind” (RTM), according to which a thought involves a mental representation. It then follows Fodor in arguing for the controversial “Language-of-Thought Hypothesis” (LOTH), according to which representation is language-like. On the basis of LOTH, it is argued that the syntactic structure of this representation is likely to be similar to that of the sentence that expresses it in the thinker’s language. The tentative proposal is that a language is largely psychologically real in a speaker in that its rules are similar to the structure rules of her thought.
Reflections on Meaning
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
The broad aim of this work is to explain how mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental/neural symbols are able to capture the world, that is, how words and sentences (in whatever medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to be true or false of reality. Paul Horwich’s answer takes off from Wittgenstein’s appealingly demystifying remark, that the meaning of a term is nothing over and above its use, and proceeds with a groundbreaking articulation and defence of that idea, showing how it can deal successfully with Quinean and Kripkean forms of scepticism about meaning, with the various normative features of thought and language, with the paradoxical phenomenon of vagueness, with the way that word-meanings combine to yield sentence-meanings, and with Chomsky-style models of the language faculty. The main lines of this theory were first suggested in Horwich’s 1998 book, Meaning. The present volume (which requires no familiarity with its predecessor) provides a host of improved, formulations, fresh arguments, responses to criticism, and extensions of the position into new areas.
The Space of Issues and Options
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of central issues that must be confronted in developing a decent account of meaning, with various positions that might be taken with respect to them, and with some of the arguments that can be given for and against these positions. Topics addressed include forms of scepticism about meaning, the pros and cons of reductionism, the relationship between language and thought, the compositionality of sentence-meanings from word-meanings, the normative import of meaning, individualism, externalism, and the promise of a deflationary theory.
A Use Theory of Meaning
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
How should we go about trying to identify which particular underlying property of a given word is responsible for its meaning? And what sort of property will that turn out to be? The answers elaborated in this chapter are that the meaning of a word, w, is engendered by whichever non-semantic feature of w is the one that explains w’s overall deployment; and that this will turn out to be an acceptance-property of the following form: ‘that such-and-such w-sentences are regularly accepted in such-and-such circumstances’ is the idealized law governing w’s use (by the relevant experts, and given certain meanings attached to various other words). Some notable features of this theory are: (i) that it rebuts Quine’s scepticism about meaning, (ii) that it rejects the idea (due to Grice) that the meanings of public-language terms derive from our intentions, (iii) that it focuses on idiolects, but can also accommodate communal meaning (i.e., social externalism), and (iv) that (a la Dummett) it embraces a limited form of meaning-holism.
The Pseudo-Problem of Error
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

AbstractIt is widely held, following Kripke, that no theory of ‘meaning as dispositions of use’ could accommodate the relationship between meaning and truth, e.g., that if a word means DOG then it is true of all dogs and only of dogs. This chapter makes explicit and criticizes the assumptions on which Kripke’s position is founded. First, that in order for the meaning of a given word (e.g., dog) to be constituted by its having a given use, we would have to be able to read off (and hence give an explanation of) the word’s extension on the basis of that use. Second, for this to be possible, there would have to be some way of weeding out those uses that are errors (i.e., cases in which the word is applied to things other than dogs). It is argued that these assumptions are incorrect, since they are affiliated with an anti-deflationary conception of truth.
The Sharpness of Vague Terms
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

AbstractAccording to the ancient sorites paradox, zero grains of sand is not enough to make a heap, and adding one single grain can never transform a non-heap into a heap, so there can be no heaps of sand! Similar reasoning applies to all vague terms. In view of this problem, some philosophers have suggested that we must modify classical logic (specifically, the law of excluded middle). This chapter argues that there is no need for this, for we should allow that one grain of sand can make the crucial difference, and more generally, that even vague terms have sharp boundaries. This idea is defended by reference to three considerations: (i) the conclusion of Chapter 3, which implies that one should not expect to be able to explain the extension of a predicate in terms of its use; (ii) an identification of what sort of meaning-constituting use-practice would engender the distinctive symptoms of vagueness, namely the existence of ‘borderline cases’ to which it is impossible to know whether the predicate applies; and (iii) a characterization and invocation of the difference between truth and determinate truth.
Norms of Truth and Meaning
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Truth and meaning each have evaluative import. However, contrary to Dummett, Gibbard, Brandom, and many others, these notions are not constitutively normative — they are not themselves evaluative concepts. One element of this argument is a discussion of why true belief is desirable. Another element is a demonstration — in case meaning is a matter of implicitly following rules for the use of words — that such rule following can be analyzed in terms that are purely naturalistic (i.e., non-normative and non-semantic).
Meaning Constitution and Epistemic Rationality
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
Our beliefs and inferential transitions are subject to evaluation as rational or irrational by reference to general epistemic norms. But what could determine certain norms as the correct ones? This chapter explores and opposes the answer that certain patterns of belief formation (e.g., in arithmetic and in deductive logic) are justified by virtue of the fact that they constitute the relevant concepts or the meanings of the relevant words (e.g., ‘number’, ‘successor’, ‘every’, ‘not’, etc.). This ‘semantogenetic’ proposal goes back to Hilbert, Poincare, and the logical positivists, and was recently defended by Boghossian, Peackocke, Hale, and Wright. Among the arguments developed against it are that although it might account for the epistemic legitimacy of certain beliefs, it cannot explain why certain commitments are epistemically obligatory; and that the practices that provide words with their meanings are ‘conditionalized’ and therefore do not coincide (even approximately) with the practices recommended by our epistemic norms.
Meaning and its Place in the Language Faculty
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis chapter considers the phenomenon of meaning from the perspective of Chomsky’s ‘I-linguistics’ and his empirical postulation of the ‘language faculty’. After a sketch of that model, the question is raised as to how meaning should be incorporated within it. In accord with the use-theoretic perspective of this book, an answer is developed whereby the association of I-sounds with I-meanings is achieved by virtue of the conceptual roles of those I-sounds, i.e., their basic acceptance-properties. It is shown that this picture compares favourably with various alternatives, including those suggested by Fodor’s mentalese, Davidson’s view of compositionality, naturalizations of the reference relation, and by Chomsky-style explicitly-represented definitions.
Deflating Compositionality
Authors: Horwich Paul 
Published: September 2006

Abstract
The meaning of any sentence derives from the meanings of its words and from how those words are syntactically combined with one another. But what explains this ‘principle of compositionality’, and what is its import? The answer is due to Davidson: that since we know (from Tarski) how to deduce the truth conditions of sentences from the referents of their words, we should explain it by identifying (or replacing) sentence-meanings with truth conditions and word-meanings with referents. This chapter offers a deflationary alternative according to which the meaning of a sentence is trivially compositional, since it is constituted by the facts concerning its structure and the meanings of its words. An important implication of this idea is that contrary to the writings of Fodor and Lepore, compositionality can place no constraint whatsoever on how word-meanings are engendered.