Archive
Mobility Regimes and Parental Wealth: The United States, Germany, and Sweden in Comparison
Mobility Regimes and Parental Wealth: The United States, Germany, and Sweden in Comparison
Source: University of Michigan Populations Studies Center
We study the role of parental wealth for children’s educational and occupational outcomes across three types of welfare states and outline a theoretical model that assumes parental wealth to impact offspring’s attainment through two mechanisms, wealth’s purchasing function and its insurance function. We argue that welfare states can limit the purchasing function of wealth, for instance by providing free education and generous social benefits, yet none of the welfare states examined here provides a functional equivalent to the insurance against adverse outcomes afforded by parental wealth. Our empirical evidence of substantial associations between parental wealth and children’s educational success and social mobility in three nations that are marked by large institutional differences is in line with this interpretation and helps us re-examine and extend existing typologies of mobility regimes.
World Cities Culture Report 2012
World Cities Culture Report 2012 (PDF)
Source: Mayor of London (UK)
The Mayor of London’s World Cities Culture Report 2012 is the biggest international survey of its kind. It has collected an unprecedented amount of data on the scope and impact of the cultural assets and activities that are produced and consumed in 12 major cities:
Berlin
Istanbul
Johannesburg
London
Mumbai
New York
Paris
São Paulo
Shanghai
Singapore
Sydney
Tokyo
Using 60 indicators and reports from each of the participating cities, the World Cities Culture Report 2012 shows that culture is seen as important as finance and trade and sits at the heart of public policy.
Grandparenting and mothers’ labour force participation: A comparative analysis using the Generations and Gender Survey
It is well known that the provision of public childcare plays an important role for women labour force participation and its availability varies tremendously across countries. In many countries, informal childcare is also important and typically provided by the grandparents, but its role on mothers’ employment is not yet well understood. Understanding the relationship between labour supply decisions and grandparental childcare is complex. While the provision of grandparental childcare is clearly a function of the social and institutional context of a country, it also depends on family preferences, which are typically unobserved in surveys.OBJECTIVEWe analyze the role of informal childcare provided by grandparents on mothers’ labour force participation keeping unobserved preferences into account.METHODSBivariate probit models with instrumental variables are estimated on data from seven countries (Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Russia and The Netherlands) drawn from the Generations and Gender Survey.RESULTSWe find that only in some countries mothers’ employment is positively and significantly associated with grandparents providing childcare. In other countries, once we control for unobserved preferences, we do not find this effect.CONCLUSIONSThe role of grandparents is an important element to reconcile work and family for women in some countries. Our results show the importance of considering family preferences and country differences when studying the relationship between grandparental childcare and mothers’ labour supply.COMMENTSOur results are consistent with previous research on this topic. However, differently from previous studies, we conduct separate analyses by country and show that the effect of grandparental childcare varies considerably. The fact that we also include in the analyses Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia and Georgia is an important novelty as there are no studies on this issue for these countries.
Germany — The Prospects of the Baby Boomers: Methodological Challenges in Projecting the Lives of an Aging Cohort
In most industrialized countries, the work and family patterns of the baby boomers characterized by more heterogeneous working careers and less stable family lives set them apart from preceding cohorts. Thus, it is of crucial importance to understand how these different work and family lives are linked to the boomers’ prospective material well-being as they retire. This paper presents a new and unique matching-based approach for the projection of the life courses of German baby boomers, called the LAW-Life Projection Model. Basis for the projection are data from 27 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel linked with administrative pension records from the German Statutory Pension Insurance that cover lifecycle pension-relevant earnings. Unlike model-based micro simulations that age the data year by year our matching-based projection uses sequences from older birth cohorts to complete the life-courses of statistically similar baby boomers through to retirement. An advantage of this approach is to coherently project the work-life and family trajectories as well as lifecycle earnings. The authors present a benchmark analysis to assess the validity and accuracy of the projection. For this purpose, they cut a significant portion of already lived lives and test different combinations of matching algorithms and donor pool specifications to identify the combination that produces the best fit be-tween previously cut but observed and projected life-course information. Exploiting the advantages of the projected data, the authors compare the returns to education – measured in terms of pension entitlements – across cohorts. The results indicate that within cohorts, differences between individuals with low and high educational attainment increase over time for men and women in East and West Germany. East German boomer women with low educational attainment face the most substantial losses in pension entitlements that put them at a high risk of being poor as they retire.
Despite Increasing Concerns about High Health Care Costs, New Survey Finds Little Support among Americans for Decisions That Limit Use of High-Cost Prescription Drugs and Treatments
A new survey by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Alliance for Aging Research finds that a majority (62%) of Americans oppose decisions by the government or health insurance plans where prescription drugs or medical or surgical treatments are not paid for because the payors determine that the benefits do not justify the cost. The exception is if there’s evidence that something else works equally well but costs less. A majority (64%) of Americans believe the government or health insurance plans should not pay for a more expensive prescription drug or medical or surgical treatment if it has not been shown to work better than less expensive ones. Majorities in Italy and Germany share both of these beliefs with the U.S. public. In the United Kingdom, at least a plurality shares these beliefs.
New 2011 Survey of Patients with Complex Care Needs in Eleven Countries Finds That Care Is Often Poorly Coordinated
New 2011 Survey of Patients with Complex Care Needs in Eleven Countries Finds That Care Is Often Poorly Coordinated
Source: Commonwealth Fund
An international survey of adults living with health problems and complex care needs found that patients in the United States are much more likely than those in 10 other high-income countries to forgo needed care because of costs and to struggle with medical debt. In all the countries surveyed, patients who have a medical home reported better coordination of care, fewer medical errors, and greater satisfaction with care than those without one.
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Key Findings
- Sicker adults in the U.S. stood out for having cost and access problems. More than one of four (27%) were unable to pay or encountered serious problems paying medical bills in the past year, compared with between 1 percent and 14 percent of adults in the other countries. In the U.S., 42 percent reported not visiting a doctor, not filling a prescription, or not getting recommended care. This is twice the rate for every other country but Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.
- In the U.S., cost-related access problems and medical bill burdens were concentrated among adults under age 65. Compared with Medicare-aged adults 65 or older, adults under 65 were far more likely to go without care because of the cost or to have problems paying bills.
- Adults with complex care needs who received care from a medical home—an accessible primary care practice that knows their medical history and helps coordinate care—were less likely to report experiencing medical errors, test duplication, and other care coordination failures. They were also more likely to report having arrangements for follow-up care after a hospitalization and more likely to rate their care highly.
- Sicker adults in the U.K. and Switzerland were the most likely to have a medical home: nearly three-quarters were connected to practices that have medical home characteristics, compared with around half in most of the other countries.
New Study: U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths, Lagging Behind as Others Improve More Rapidly
New Study: U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths, Lagging Behind as Others Improve More Rapidly
Source: Commonwealth Fund (Health Policy)
The United States placed last among 16 high-income, industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective health care, according to a Commonwealth Fund–supported study that appeared online in the journal Health Policy this week and will be available in print on October 25th as part of the November issue. According to the study, other nations lowered their preventable death rates an average of 31 percent between 1997–98 and 2006–07, while the U.S. rate declined by only 20 percent, from 120 to 96 per 100,000. At the end of the decade, the preventable mortality rate in the U.S. was almost twice that in France, which had the lowest rate—55 per 100,000.
In “Variations in Amenable Mortality—Trends in 16 High Income Nations,” Ellen Nolte of RAND Europe and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed deaths that occurred before age 75 from causes like treatable cancer, diabetes, childhood infections/respiratory diseases, and complications from surgeries. They found that an average 41 percent drop in death rates from ischemic heart disease was the primary driver of declining preventable deaths, and they estimate that if the U.S. could improve its preventable death rate to match that of the three best-performing countries—France, Australia, and Italy—84,000 fewer people would have died each year by the end of the period studied.
“This study points to substantial opportunity to prevent premature death in the United States. We spend far more than any of the comparison countries—up to twice as much—yet are improving less rapidly,” said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. “The good news is we know lower death rates are achievable if we enhance access and ensure high-quality care regardless of where you live. Looking forward, reforms under the Affordable Care Act have the potential to reduce the number of preventable deaths in the U.S. We have the potential to join the leaders among high-income countries.”
+ Variations in Amenable Mortality—Trends in 16 High-Income Nations
Importance of E-services for Cultural Tourism
Importance of E-services for Cultural Tourism (PDF)
Source: Research Papers in Economics
Despite a busy lifestyle – or perhaps as a result of a stressful lifestyle – more people than ever before make leisure trips, sometimes for a long time but in many cases just for short periods. Modern telecommunication technology brings attractive tourist destinations directly into the living rooms of potential travellers, also destinations that would otherwise have been difficult to find, such as certain cultural heritage objects. In this contribution, we will address the relevance of e-services in urban cultural tourism. Its aim is to map out the relative drivers of cultural visitors to cities with a particular view on the importance of modern e-services in the tourist sector. We focus on three case-study cities: Amsterdam, Leipzig and Genoa. We use discrete choice models and factor analysis to analyse the preferences of tourists for cultural heritage and e-services. Interestingly, in all three cities, the most important group of tourists, the cultural heritage enthusiasts, are often international tourists. This stresses the importance of multilingual e-services in order to maximise their impact on cultural heritage visitors and the tourism sector in general. In addition, it is also important to note that certain e-services become more important for tourists from further away, such as online booking systems.
The Hidden Costs of U.S. Health Care for Consumers
The Hidden Costs of U.S. Health Care for Consumers
Source: Deloitte
From press release:
Rising health care costs, coupled with the current state of the economy, have prompted many consumers across the globe to delay care, alter household spending and worry about their ability to pay for future health care costs according to the 4th annual Deloitte Center for Health Solutions “2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers.”
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Deloitte surveyed more than 15,000 health care consumers in 12 different countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States during April and May.In the United States, three in four (75 percent) consumers say the recent economic slowdown has impacted their health care spending. Four in 10 (41 percent) are being more cautious about it, 20 percent cut back on spending, and 13 percent have reduced it considerably. In addition, 63 percent say their monthly health care spending limits their household’s ability to purchase other essentials such as housing, groceries, fuel and education. To save money, 36 percent of prescription medication users have asked their doctor to prescribe a generic drug instead of a brand name drug. These findings follow Deloitte’s, “The Hidden Costs of U.S. Health Care for Consumers: A Comprehensive Analysis,” published in March 2011, which revealed consumers spend $363 billion more on health care than traditionally reported, outpacing housing and utility costs as a discretionary household expense.
Additionally, one in four (25 percent) U.S. consumers skipped seeing a doctor when sick or injured. Of those consumers who decided not to see a doctor in the past year, those that did so due to costs ranged from a high of 49 percent in the United States, followed by Belgium (39 percent), China (35 percent) and Mexico (34 percent), to a low of 5 percent in Canada and 7 percent in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg.
More than half of all respondents from the 12 countries surveyed, with the exception of the United Kingdom (24 percent) and Canada (39 percent), also confirmed that household spending on health care limits their ability to spend on other household essentials. Additionally, between 4 in 10 and 5 in 10 respondents experienced an increase in household spending on health care in the past year with the exception of the United Kingdom (22 percent), Canada (29 percent) and China (37 percent).
Sexual Satisfaction and Relationship Happiness in Midlife and Older Couples in Five Countries
Sexual Satisfaction and Relationship Happiness in Midlife and Older Couples in Five Countries (PDF)
Source: Archives of Sexual Behavior (via Kinsey Institute)
Sexuality research focuses almost exclusively on individuals rather than couples, though ongoing relationships are very important for most people and cultures. The present study was the first to examine sexual and relationship parameters of middle-aged and older couples in committed relationships of 1–51 years duration. Survey research was conducted in Brazil, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the U.S. targeting 200 men aged 40–70 and their female partners in each country, with 1,009 couples in the final sample. Key demographic, health, physical intimacy, sexual behavior, sexual function, and sexual history variables were used to model relationship happiness and sexual satisfaction. The median ages were 55 for men and 52 for women; median relationship duration was 25 years. Relationship satisfaction in men depended on health, physical intimacy, and sexual functioning, while in women only sexual functioning predicted relationship satisfaction. Models predicting sexual satisfaction included significant physical intimacy and sexual functioning for both genders and, for men, more frequent recent sexual activity and fewer lifetime partners. Longer relationship duration predicted greater relationship happiness and sexual satisfaction for men. However, women in relationships of 20 to 40 years were significantly less likely than men to report relationship happiness. Compared to men, women showed lower sexual satisfaction early in the relationship and greater sexual satisfaction later. Within the long-term committed relationship context, there were significant gender differences in correlates of sexual and relationship satisfaction, with sexual functioning a common predictor of both types of satisfaction and physical intimacy a more consistent and salient predictor for men.
Comparing BRICs and G6 nations in fossil fuels
Comparing BRICs and G6 nations in fossil fuels
Source: Deloitte
A new report, “If not BRICs, then what? Comparing BRICs and G6 nations in fossil fuels” compares the up-and-coming BRIC nations to the G6 in fossil fuels. Long acknowledged by analysts and the media as new regions of economic growth, the same does not necessarily hold true when comparing reserves, production and consumption of fossil fuels. The report is authored by Global E&R FAS Leader, Jean-Michel Gauthier and Mark L Robinson, Marketing Leader for Global Energy & Resources.
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+ Full Report (PDF)
Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany
Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany
Source: Social Science Research Network
How persistent are cultural traits? This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared. We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party. In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.
Investigation Update: Outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O104 (STEC O104:H4) Infections Associated with Travel to Germany
Investigation Update: Outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O104 (STEC O104:H4) Infections Associated with Travel to Germany
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC is monitoring a large outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O104:H4 (STEC O104:H4) infections ongoing in Germany. The responsible strain shares virulence characteristics with enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC). As of June 2, 2011, case counts confirmed by Germany’s Robert Koch Institute* include 520 patients with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) – a type of kidney failure that is associated with E. coli or STEC infections – and 11 deaths.
In the United States, four suspected cases of STEC O104:H4 infections have been identified in persons who recently traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where they were likely exposed. One case of HUS has been reported in each of three states: Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Additionally, one case of Shiga toxin-positive diarrheal illness is still under investigation. All four cases are pending laboratory confirmation.
CDC is working with state health departments to learn more about these suspected cases and obtain bacterial isolates from them for further characterization. In addition, CDC has alerted state health departments of the ongoing outbreak and requested information about any persons with either HUS or Shiga toxin-positive diarrheal illness, with illness onset during or after travel to Germany since April 1, 2011.
Country Specific Information: Germany
Country Specific Information: Germany
Source: U.S. Department of State
May 27, 2011
COUNTRY DESCRIPTION: Germany is a modern and stable democracy. Tourist facilities are highly developed. In larger towns, many people can communicate in English. You can obtain additional information by reading Department of State’s Background Notes on Germany.
Background And Selected Issues Related To The U.S. International Tax System And Systems That Exempt Foreign Business Income
Background And Selected Issues Related To The U.S. International Tax System And Systems That Exempt Foreign Business Income (PDF)
Source: Joint Committee on Taxation, United States Congress
The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a public hearing for May 24, 2011 on the rules in certain foreign jurisdictions for taxing foreign income. This document, prepared by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, describes the U.S. international tax rules applicable to foreign income of resident taxpayers, provides a general overview of a territorial system of taxation, including a brief discussion of basic design considerations, and summarizes the rules of nine selected countries for the taxation of foreign income.
OECD — Doing Better for Families
Doing Better for Families
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
From press release:
Poverty in households with children is rising in nearly all OECD countries. Governments should ensure that family support policies protect the most vulnerable, according to the OECD’s first-ever report on family well-being.
Doing Better for Families says that families with children are more likely to be poor today than in previous decades, when the poorest in society were more likely to be pensioners.
Download the underlying data in Excel
The share of children living in poor households has risen in many countries over the past decade, to reach 12.7% across the OECD. One in five children in Israel, Mexico, Turkey, the United States and Poland live in poverty. (The OECD defines poor as someone living in a household with less than half the median income, adjusted for family size).
+ Chapter 1. Families are changing (PDF)
Individual country reports also freely available. Full report available for purchase.
The Impact of Legislation on Credit Risk – Comparative Evidence From the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany
The Impact of Legislation on Credit Risk – Comparative Evidence From the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany
Source: International Monetary Fund
This study investigates the link between bankruptcy and security legislation and potential credit losses faced by banks based on a cross-country study for the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany. Focusing on corporate credit, we find that legislation produces the highest credit risk in the US, followed by Germany, while UK law is found to be most favorable for banks. US banks gains from the higher number of informal restructurings (without losses) but lose from the low level of recovery in formal proceedings. German banks demand more credit risk mitigants than UK and US banks do, but still recover less than do UK banks. To be at par with UK banks, US banks would have to recover more than twice as much in formal proceedings, while German proceedings would have to be shortened by about one half.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (PDFs)
Source: Brookings Institution
New research findings at the Spring 2011 conference of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) by leading academic, business, and government economists covered the following topics.
+ Financially Fragile Households: Evidence and Implications
+ Let’s Twist Again: A High-Frequency Event-Study Analysis of Operation Twist and Its Implications for QE2
+ An Exploration of Optimal Stabilization Policy
+ The Evolution of Inflation Dynamics and the Great Recession
+ What Explains the German Labor Market Miracle in the Great Recession?
+ Job Search, Emotional Well-Being and Job Finding in a Period of Mass Unemployment: Evidence from High-Frequency Longitudinal Data
How health systems make available information on service providers: Experience in seven countries
How health systems make available information on service providers: Experience in seven countries
Source: RAND Corporation
The report reviews and discusses information systems reporting on the quality or performance of providers of healthcare (‘quality information systems’) in seven countries: Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. Data collection involves a review of the published and grey literature and is complemented by information provided by key informants in the selected countries using a detailed questionnaire. Quality information systems typically address a number of audiences, including patients (or respectively the general public before receiving services and becoming patients), commissioners, purchasers and regulators. We observe that as the policy context for quality reporting in countries varies, so also does the nature and scope of quality information systems within and between countries. Systems often pursue multiple aims and objectives, which typically are (a) to support patient choice (b) to influence provider behaviour to enhance the quality of care (c) to strengthen transparency of the provider-commissioner relationship and the healthcare system as a whole and (d) to hold healthcare providers and commissioners to account for the quality of care they provide and the purchasing decisions they make. We emphasise that the main users of information systems are the providers themselves as the publication of information provides an incentive for improving the quality of care. Finally, based on the evidence reviewed, we identify a number of considerations for the design of successful quality information systems, such as the clear definition of objectives, ensuring users’ accessibility and stakeholder involvement, as well as the need to provide valid, reliable and consistent data.
