Inventing the Needy offers a powerful, innovative analysis of welfare policies and practices in Hungary from 1948 to the last decade of the twentieth century. Using a compelling mix of archival, ...interview, and ethnographic data, Lynne Haney shows that three distinct welfare regimes succeeded one another during that period and that they were based on divergent conceptions of need. The welfare society of 1948-1968 targeted social institutions, the maternalist welfare state of 1968-1985 targeted social groups, and the liberal welfare state of 1985-1996 targeted impoverished individuals. Because they reflected contrasting conceptions of gender and of state-recognized identities, these three regimes resulted in dramatically different lived experiences of welfare. Haney's approach bridges the gaps in scholarship that frequently separate past and present, ideology and reality, and state policies and local practices. A wealth of case histories gleaned from the archives of welfare institutions brings to life the interactions between caseworkers and clients and the ways they changed over time. In one of her most provocative findings, Haney argues that female clients' ability to use the state to protect themselves in everyday life diminished over the fifty-year period. As the welfare system moved away from linking entitlement to clients' social contributions and toward their material deprivation, the welfare system, and those associated with it, became increasingly stigmatized and pathologized. With its focus on shifting inventions of the needy, this broad historical ethnography brings new insights to the study of welfare state theory and politics.
This article investigates a structural ownership model that is used to protect firms from unwelcome capital market intrusion: a multiple-share arrangement. It details the evolution of one of the ...United Kingdom’s most successful former family firms, Whitbread, in the post-World War II era. In investigating the formation and operation of the so-called Whitbread Umbrella, the study poses the question of whether it was a positive factor in long-term strategic decision making at Whitbread. The emerging popularity of multiple-share ownership structures in the United States, as well as their endurance in other jurisdictions, positions this historic analysis in wider debates on structure, ownership, and corporate governance in the finance, economics, and general management literature.
A large body of theoretical literature suggests that capital structure plays an important role as a managerial incentive mechanism. What of the evidence for the agency approach? Cross-sectional ...empirical studies have identified a positive effect of leverage on expected performance (measured by Q) for firms with low growth opportunities. However, this evidence does not take into account the endogeneity of capital structure decisions. Our paper investigates the determinants of capital structure and performance, allowing for endogeneity and dynamics. Our results suggest that conclusions reached by previous studies which did not take into account the endogeneity issue should be treated with caution.
Empirical studies estimating the impact of firm performance on executive pay have primarily concentrated on the short-run response. In this study, we present estimates of the complete dynamic ...response of CEO pay to firm performance. We find that (1) the cumulative response of pay to performance is roughly 10 times that of the contemporaneous response, (2) a onetime innovation in firm performance typically raises pay over the next 4-5 years, and (3) compensation arrangements have shifted toward greater performance sensitivity and longer-term pay arrangements over the 4 decades studied.
The welfare effects of vertically imposed exclusive territories and the appropriate antitrust policy toward them have long been debated. This paper sheds light on the exclusive‐territory controversy ...by examing the effects of Indiana's 1979 ban on the grant of exclusive territories to beer wholesalers. Using time‐series data for 1948–1990 we find the ban reduced beer consumption in Indiana by 6 percent. Coupled with previous evidence that Indiana's ban reduced price, our results suggest that exclusive territories in the beer industry increase demand and enhance welfare by stimulating the provision of dealer services.
Growth in U.S. agriculture is linked to the non-farm economy through domestic terms of trade and factor market adjustments. With almost stable input growth, the relatively large contributions from ...growth in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) are passed on to intermediate and final consumers in the form of declining real prices for primary farm products. The resulting net growth in the real value of farm output (GDP) is relatively low (0.25% per annum). The decomposition of TFP suggests that public agricultural stock of knowledge and infrastructure are "robustly" associated with TFP growth, while spill-overs from private agricultural and economy wide research and development (R&D) are positive but, relatively small.
We present tests of long-run monetary neutrality using an empirical framework that allows for the effects of real shocks on the long-run behavior of both output and monetary aggregates. Our findings ...support long-run monetary neutrality as a feature of the post World War II U.S. economy. We further find that permanent innovations in labor supply, as measured by working-age population, are a principal factor in the long-run movements in U.S. output and monetary aggregates.
This paper examines the role that family planning played in the decline of fertility in Malta. In 1993 the authors carried out a survey of family planning, similar to one carried out by one the ...authors in 1971. The analysis of these two surveys suggests that the practice of family planning has not increased significantly in this period. However, there has been a sharp change in the type of method used. More specifically, there has been a shift away from traditional methods (such as coitus interruptus) to more efficient methods (such as the contraceptive pill). There are now a range of affordable methods of contraception available in Malta. Regression techniques are used to model the choice of contraceptive method. The main aim of the empirical analysis is to establish what characteristics are associated with the use of efficient methods of contraception. /// Cet article examine le rôle joué par le planning familial sur la baisse de la fécondité à Malte. Pour ce faire, les auteurs ont mené, en 1993, une enquête sur le planning familial, semblable à celle qu'ils avaient déjà réalisée en 1971. L'analyse de ces deux enquêtes suggère que la pratique du planning familial n'a pas augmenté de façon significative au cours de cette période. Cependant, il y a eu des changements importants dans les types de méthodes utilisées. De façon plus spécifique, il y a eu un déplacement des méthodes traditionnelles (telles que le coït interrompu) vers des méthodes plus efficaces (telles que la pilule contraceptive) conduisant maintenant à un assortiment des méthodes de contraception disponibles à Malte. Des analyses de régression ont pu être utilisées pour modéliser le choix de la méthode contraceptive. L'objectif principal de cette analyse est d'établir les caractéristiques qui sont associées à l'utilisation de méthodes contraceptives efficaces.
