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Book part
Publication date: 11 May 2017

Rolf van der Velden and Dieter Verhaest

The explicit assumption in most literature on educational and skill mismatches is that these mismatches are inherently costly for workers. However, the results in the literature…

Abstract

The explicit assumption in most literature on educational and skill mismatches is that these mismatches are inherently costly for workers. However, the results in the literature on the effects of underqualification or underskilling on wages and job satisfaction only partly support this hypothesis. Rather than assuming that both skill surpluses and skill deficits are inherently costly for workers, we interpret these mixed findings by taking a learning perspective on skill mismatches. Following the theory of Vygotski on the so-called “zone of proximal development,” we expect that workers who start their job with a small skill deficit, show more skill growth than workers who start in a matching job or workers with a more severe skill deficit. We test this hypothesis using the Cedefop European skills and jobs survey (ESJS) and the results confirm these expectations. Workers learn more from job tasks that are more demanding than if they would work in a job that perfectly matches their initial skill level and this skill growth is largest for those who start with a small skill deficit. The learning opportunities are worst when workers start in a job for which they have a skill surplus. This is reflected in the type of learning activities that workers take up. Workers with a small skill deficit are more often engaged in informal learning activities. Finally, workers who started with a small skill deficit are no less satisfied with their job than workers who started in a well-matched job. We conclude that a skill match is good for workers, but a small skill deficit is even better. This puts some responsibility on employers to keep job tasks and responsibilities at a challenging level for their employees.

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Skill Mismatch in Labor Markets
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-377-7

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Book part
Publication date: 18 December 2007

Klas Fregert and Roger Gustafsson

We construct yearly fiscal series for Sweden between 1719 and 2003 including expenditures, revenues, deficits and debt. We present measures for the fiscal branch of the central…

Abstract

We construct yearly fiscal series for Sweden between 1719 and 2003 including expenditures, revenues, deficits and debt. We present measures for the fiscal branch of the central government as well as for the consolidated fiscal and monetary branch, which includes fiscal seigniorage. We evaluate the reliability and consistency of the series by calculating the difference between budget deficits and the change in debt to test if the differences are serially uncorrelated around zero, which we confirm.

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Research in Economic History
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-459-1

Book part
Publication date: 28 September 2023

Tyrone De Alwis, Narayanage Jayantha Dewasiri and Kiran Sood

The goal of this study is to look into the connection between Sri Lanka’s fiscal deficit and inflation. Sri Lanka is currently experiencing one of its worst inflation crises in…

Abstract

The goal of this study is to look into the connection between Sri Lanka’s fiscal deficit and inflation. Sri Lanka is currently experiencing one of its worst inflation crises in its history, necessitating an investigation into how fiscal deficit affects inflation, as it has been experiencing an ever-increasing fiscal deficit for the last four decades. The quantitative methodology is employed in this study using annual data from 1977 to 2019 following the ARDL technique in the analysis. The findings showed that both in the long run and the near term, Sri Lanka’s fiscal deficit had a positive and significant link with inflation. The policymakers should increase the revenue through the taxes in order to bridge the fiscal deficit. As a developing country, it cannot afford to continue with the ever-increasing fiscal deficit which has become a burden to country. Also, it is the responsibility of each government to think carefully to reduce its massive expenditure which has become a common feature in the country for the last four decades. Cutting down government expenditure can improve the economic growth and well-being of the citizens too. The government should therefore concentrate on short-term investment programmes that will benefit the country while doing the same in the long run.

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Digital Transformation, Strategic Resilience, Cyber Security and Risk Management
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-009-4

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Book part
Publication date: 19 July 2021

Thomas V. Maher and Jennifer Earl

Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ…

Abstract

Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) status – play for who participates and how they do so. Age is another important axis of inequality. The pervasiveness of a youth deficit model, which casts young people as deficient and requiring benevolent adult tutelage, is of particular concern for youth. This chapter assesses whether the internalization of the deficit model influences young people's activism and how they perceive their engagement. Drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a southwestern US city, we find that many young people have internalized deficit-model assumptions, affecting when and how they participated. This was most evident among high school students, who limited their participation because they were “not old enough” or gravitated toward more “age-appropriate” forms of activism. Interestingly, we found college students were more willing to engage in online activism but also felt compelled to do significant research on issues before participating, thereby distancing themselves from the deficit model's assumptions of their political naivety. Finally, some participants felt discouraged by the perceived ineffectiveness of protest, which resonated with deficit model narratives of the futility of youth engagement. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the impacts of an internalized deficit model as well as considering age as an axis of inequality in activism. Youth engagement is best supported by seeing young people as capable actors with unique interests, capacities, and points of view.

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The Politics of Inequality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-363-0

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Book part
Publication date: 15 October 2019

Steven Pressman

This paper focuses on two books that Robert Heilbroner wrote with Peter Bernstein on public finance – A Primer on Government Spending (1963) and The Debt and the Deficit (1989)…

Abstract

This paper focuses on two books that Robert Heilbroner wrote with Peter Bernstein on public finance – A Primer on Government Spending (1963) and The Debt and the Deficit (1989). It also discusses how the economic world changed between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, and how these changes affected their books. Primer introduced Keynesian economics, and the possibility that government policy and deficits could be forces for good in the world. Debt focused exclusively on government deficits and public debt. Changing circumstances made this work a more difficult undertaking. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, government budget deficits were small, growth was sluggish, and Keynesianism was the dominant paradigm in macroeconomics. Primer explained Keynesian public finance, why tax cuts would spur spending and growth, and why we should not worry about government debt under these circumstances. By the 1980s, Keynes was vanquished, deficits were ballooning, and Keynesian public finance was under attack. Contrary to the conventional wisdom at the time, Debt advocated government deficits along the lines proposed by Keynes but not along the lines enacted during the Reagan administration. Nonetheless, there were many similarities in these two works. Both made a case for an active government role in creating a good society; and both argued that when done correctly deficit spending created no economic problems and had many benefits.

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Including a Symposium on Robert Heilbroner at 100
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-869-7

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Book part
Publication date: 6 July 2021

Thomas Elliott and Jennifer Earl

Youth political engagement is often ignored and downplayed by adults, who often embrace a youth deficit model. The youth deficit model downplays the voices and unique experiences…

Abstract

Youth political engagement is often ignored and downplayed by adults, who often embrace a youth deficit model. The youth deficit model downplays the voices and unique experiences of youth in favor of adult-led and adult-centered experiences. Like other historical deficit models, the youth deficit model also provides permission to adults to speak for or about youth, even when not asked to speak for them. We refer to this powerful construction of youth interests by adults as mediation. Fortunately, online advocacy could offer an unmediated route to political engagement for youth as digital natives. Using a unique dataset, we investigate whether online protest spaces offer an unmediated experience for youth to learn about and engage in political protest. However, we find that youth engagement, and especially unmediated youth engagement, is rare among advocacy digital spaces, though it varies by movement, SMO-affiliation, and age groups. Based on our findings, we argue that, rather than youth being primarily responsible for any alleged disengagement, the lack of online spaces offering opportunities for youth to take ownership of their own engagement likely discourages youth from participating in traditional political advocacy and renders the level of youth engagement an admirable accomplishment of young people.

Book part
Publication date: 16 February 2006

Nico Groenendijk

In its recommendation on the 2004 update of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPGs), the European Commission (2004) issued country-specific recommendations for fiscal policy…

Abstract

In its recommendation on the 2004 update of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPGs), the European Commission (2004) issued country-specific recommendations for fiscal policy in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that have recently joined the European Union (EU) (henceforth the EU-10 countries). All countries except Estonia and Slovenia were urged to reduce their general government deficits, or to pursue low budget deficits in a credible and sustainable way within the multi-annual framework of EU budgetary surveillance. Some countries have received additional recommendations (the Czech Republic to reform its health care and pension systems, Estonia and Lithuania to avoid pro-cyclical policies, and Poland to reform its pension system). Most new Member States will consequently have to reduce their fiscal deficits and/or will have to avoid pro-cyclical fiscal policies to comply with the BEPGs, but also because of the required convergence within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Bearing in mind that the government balance for the new Member States was –5.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2003, the required reduction of fiscal deficits will not be easy. This has been acknowledged by the Commission, which has argued that the need to reach and maintain sound budgetary positions will require an appropriate time path between the necessary consolidation and the appropriate fiscal stance supporting the transition. Particular attention will also need to be given to country-specific circumstances, in particular to initial budgetary positions, to ongoing structural shifts in the new Member State economies, and to the possible risks resulting from current account imbalances and strong credit growth.

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Emerging European Financial Markets: Independence and Integration Post-Enlargement
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-264-1

Abstract

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The Exorbitant Burden
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-641-0

Book part
Publication date: 29 October 2014

Scott Carter

This chapter argues that the Marxian theory of exploitation underlies the concepts of surplus and deficit industries that appear in Sraffa’s (1960) Production of Commodities by

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Marxian theory of exploitation underlies the concepts of surplus and deficit industries that appear in Sraffa’s (1960) Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. This is seen from archival research of the unpublished papers of Piero Sraffa housed at the Wren Library, Trinity College, University of Cambridge. There it is shown that the origin of these concepts lies in the Marxian theory of exploitation that Sraffa developed regarding the notion of the ‘pool of profits’ the Italian economist utilized over a 14-year period from 1942 to 1956. The chapter engages in an extensive textual study of the archival evidence and then presents a simple analytical model of these relations.

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Research in Political Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-007-0

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Book part
Publication date: 29 August 2012

Frank M. Gresham, Natalie Robichaux, Haley York and Kristen O’Leary

Social skills deficits characterize a large proportion of students with or at risk for social, emotional, and behavioral disabilities. Social skills are viewed as academic…

Abstract

Social skills deficits characterize a large proportion of students with or at risk for social, emotional, and behavioral disabilities. Social skills are viewed as academic enablers in that they are attitudes and skills that enable students to benefit from academic instruction. Alternatively, problem behaviors are viewed as academic disablers because they compete with the acquisition and performance of academic and social skills. Students lacking social skills and exhibiting competing problem behaviors are in need of systematic social skills interventions to remediate their social skills deficits. This chapter describes what is currently known about the efficacy of social skills interventions using data from both narrative reviews and meta-analyses of the social skills training literature. Based on these reviews, social skills interventions are effective with approximately 65% of students receiving these interventions. Randomized studies produce higher effect sizes, with 82% of students showing improvement compared to only 58% of students in nonrandomized studies. An example of a social skills instructional model using the Social Skills Improvement System-Intervention Guide concludes the chapter.

Details

Classroom Behavior, Contexts, and Interventions
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-972-1

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