Search results

It is generally understood that during periods of economic hardship, some persons turn to crime to compensate for income deficiencies. The paper investigates the impact of economic misery on crime. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the relationship between economic conditions and economic misery.

An index of misery is employed that takes into account not only the rate of unemployment, but also the rate of inflation. The non-linearity of the relationship between economic misery and crime is modelled using Markov-switching (MS) models and the synchronization of their cycles is measured via the concordance index.

The paper looked at the relationship between economic misery and five types of crime: property crime, theft from motor, theft of motor, fraud and robbery. No evidence of a contemporaneous relationship between economic misery and crime was uncovered. Property and theft of motor crime respond to the state of misery with a lag of one period, supporting the criminal motivation effect. Economic misery is in the same regime as property crime 50 per cent of the time and with theft from motor crime almost 60 per cent of the time.

Most of the theoretical and empirical work is based on larger economies. The paper provides some insight into the relationship between economic conditions and economic misery in developing microstates, a niche which has been largely ignored in the literature. The use of MS models in the paper deviates from the tradition of examining linear relationships on the basis that the variables under investigation are inherently cyclical and linear analysis is likely to provide a weak fit under these circumstances.

This paper compares the contexts of the writing of T. R. Malthus’s first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798); its reception by William Godwin, to whom the Essay was addressed; its interpretation by naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace; and its interpretation by modern commentators Kenneth Boulding and A. M. C. Waterman. The analysis helps explain how an essay that was written to defend social and economic institutions from critiques in utopian visions associated with the French Revolution came to be regarded as a model predicting overpopulation and exhaustion of natural resources.

I don't think I've been mellowed in the few months of looking after NLW, but this month sees more splendours than miseries.

Diversity plays a vital role in the sustainable development of any country. Discrimination, segregation and bigotry are rampant causes of social evil and do great harm to our society. This study aims to investigate whether ethnic and religious diversity affects the country’s well-being or not, via a comparative analysis between developing and developed countries.

This study used a generalized method of moments technique for empirical analysis of 158 developing and developed countries. For measurement of ethnic and religious diversity, this study used ethnic fractionalization index of Alesina (2003).

The empirical findings indicate that ethnic and religious diversity both increases the economic prosperity for developed countries, and alternatively, it makes it more miserable for developing countries. This study suggests that organizing a diverse society is a difficult task; thus, developing countries need to promote a cohesive society like developed countries by providing equal, secure and peaceful opportunity to get fruitful results of diverse populations.

This study investigates a comparative analysis between developing and developed countries regarding impact of ethnic and religious diversity on economic development.

Metropolitan miseries ‐ 1 City of Westminster. We received in November a short sharp letter signed by most of the library staff protesting about cuts in the service. These were attributed to ‘one man's report’, a citation vague enough to account for a mild grumble from Barnes (M). ‘Trouble is’, he said in some sorrow, ‘they think it was my report.’ It wasn't. It was the doing of a councillior now elevated to chair the committee to run (down) the library service. Further misery: Harrison (K C) is reported to have bewailed the disappearance of the title ‘City Librarian’, for when Barnes (M) goes the library service gets submerged in a leisure directorate. Barnes (M) is now (at the time of reading) Guildhall Librarian, City of London. They have their own miseries there, but they are well gilded and guilded by centuries of mediaeval floohflah under a heavy top dressing of well‐established City ways with money and the making thereof. And in case you haven't noticed, the City of London is listed with all those naughty places like Hackney and Sheffield and the glc as an over‐spending local authority. It's enough to make City Common Councilmen stand guard at Temple Bar and turn back ministers and royal persons.

The purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to develop an effective tool to assess the performance of the overall economy by creating an assessment ratio that reflects the two top priorities of monetary policy, promoting economic growth and maintaining price stability, and second, to use the annual assessment ratios to build two subsamples, outperformance (better than the historical average) and underperformance, to examine and compare the changes in impacts of monetary and fiscal policy tools on important economic variables in different economic conditions, instead of different time periods.

The assessment ratio is defined as the gross domestic product (GDP) gap/standard deviation of inflation. Essentially, this Growth/Volatility ratio quantifies the price volatility-adjusted long-term output growth, that is, the long-term output growth given 1 per cent of the standard deviation of inflation. The growth has a positive impact on the ratio, while the effect of price volatility is negative. The ratio reflects not only the Fed’s dual goal but also the fundamental economic conditions. A higher value of the ratio indicates that the economy can better handle inflation risk in driving the long-term output growth. As the inflation level is adjusted in the numerator (GDP gap), not the denominator, no matter the Fed is engaging in the fight against inflation, or for reflation (promoting inflation) to prevent deflation and pursue price stability (Bernanke, 2002), the ratio remains consistent with the Fed’s dual goal and prefers a higher value.

Results of this study suggest that impacts of monetary and fiscal policy tools on key economic variables may be cyclic as the economic condition changes. The policy tools can significantly affect inflation volatility and the price volatility-adjusted long-term real output growth in the subpar economic conditions identified with lower assessment ratios. The effects become insignificant when the general economic performance exceeds the historical average. More importantly, results of this study indicate that the funds rate can effectively lower the price volatility, while the fiscal tools can promote long-term real output growth in the subpar economic conditions. Therefore, when inflation volatility spikes and the real output growth slows, the decisive and timely monetary and fiscal policy decisions become necessary to enhance policy effectiveness.

The assessments of effectiveness of monetary policy in the literature are based on some or all of four descriptive statistics: inflation, inflation volatility, output growth, and growth volatility. Each of them measures only one aspect of an economic phenomenon and cannot reflect the well-known conflicting relationship between maintaining price stability and promoting economic growth. For instance, from the policy perspective, a higher price volatility combined with a higher GDP growth rate for one period may or may not outperform another period with lower price volatility and growth rate. However, the assessment ratio created in this study considers both price volatility and economic growth simultaneously and can, therefore, be used as an effective measure of the overall economic performance.

I now conclude, from recent events, that this column would have better been entitled ‘Clangers and crises’.

This paper provides a critique of the current diagnostic and therapeutic orthodoxy in relation to the concept of depression. It argues that there are substantial problems with the conceptual validity of the diagnosis, and that both empirical and moral objections can be raised to the current preference for a therapeutic response. It makes the case for an alternative that conceptualises misery, distress and sadness as existential states arising in particular social and biographical contexts. Its central argument is that the varieties of determinism that underpin the diagnostic and therapeutic discourse obscure important aspects of human agency and diminish options for its expression in the life world of the people receiving the diagnosis of ‘depression’. On this basis the focus of interest for health workers becomes the ability, working with patients, to discover dignity, meaning and purpose in the midst of suffering and distress.

This article describes a practice initiative to reduce the incidence of young people running away from home or care. Such individuals are at risk of exploitation, offending and victimisation. The cost of dealing with runaways is also assessed. Partnership initiatives are described that achieved significant reductions in the number of running away incidents and cost savings.