The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on the Health and Labor Supply of Older Adults: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Older adults are at elevated risk of reducing labor supply due to poor health, partly because of high rates of symptoms that may be alleviated by medical marijuana. Yet, surprisingly little is known about how this group responds to medical marijuana laws (MMLs). We quantify the effects of state medical marijuana laws on the health and labor supply of adults age 51 and older, focusing on the 55 percent with one or more medical conditions with symptoms that may respond to medical marijuana. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to estimate event study and differences‐in‐differences regression models. Three principle findings emerge from our analysis. First, active state medical marijuana laws lead to lower pain and better self‐assessed health among older adults. Second, state medical marijuana laws lead to increases in older adult labor supply, with effects concentrated on the intensive margin. Third, the effects of MMLs are largest among older adults with a health condition that would qualify for legal medical marijuana use under current state laws. Findings highlight the role of health policy in supporting work among older adults and the importance of including older adults in assessments of state medical marijuana laws.     

Volunteering and the state

Volunteering participation rates vary greatly across countries even when the potential volunteers’ individual characteristics are controlled. We therefore analyze the volunteers’ motives against the backdrop of the predominant political and economic environment in different countries, focusing on the state’s role in influencing an individual’s decision to volunteer. Combining individual-level data from the European and World Values Survey with macroeconomic and political variables for OECD countries, we identify three channels through which governmental activities influence voluntary labor: size of the state (i.e., amount of public social expenditure), political consensus between voters and the government, and government support for democratization.     

The counter-hegemonic role of civil society: Palestinian–Arab NGOs in Israel

This paper deals with the causes and impact of the rise in the number of Palestinian–Arab Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Israel in the last two decades. It provides a multi-level model that combines economic, political and cultural factors to explain the shifts in Palestinian-Arab political mobilization in Israel and as a result to the rise of a complex network of Arab NGOs. The paper demonstrates the way in which the civil institutions and their intensive involvement in public social affairs generate social capital that has internal as well as external political impact. Arab civil society institutions, which operate mainly separately from civil institutions of the Jewish majority, assist in the empowerment and the development of Arab society. They provide services in different fields, such as education, health, and planning. They also advocate and lobby for the rights of the Arab citizens inside Israel and internationally. Arab civil society institutions also provide information necessary for political mobilization, identity formation, and cultural preservation. In this framework the paper claims that they play a counter-hegemonic role vis-à-vis the Israeli state. However, the paper also claims that the broad advocacy and lobbying activity of Arab civil institutions did not manage to fully democratize Israeli policies towards Arab society, demonstrating the centrality of state identity and power structure when it comes to democratization processes. On a different level, the paper reveals that, although the Palestinian–Arab NGOs network has managed to lead to a liberalization process within Arab society, this process is partial and selective.     

Tax policies in a globalized world: Is it politics after all?

In a panel dataset of 17 OECD countries over 1970–1997, we provide empirical support for the joint existence of the efficiency and the compensation effects of globalization. Our regression analysis shows that higher economic integration—and the associated external risk—lead to a need for social security policies that require higher taxes. The latter take the form of larger social security contributions that are part of taxes on the immobile factors (labor). The tax burden on the relatively mobile factor (capital) is affected negatively by increased economic integration.     

The Scandinavian Welfare Model in Crisis? Achievements and Problems of the Danish Welfare State in an Age of Unemployment and Low Growth

The "Scadinavian welfare model" is often considered vulnerable to mass unemployment. The Danish welfare state provides and opportunity to examine the capacities of the "Scandinavian model" to adapt to this situation. This article explores a number of alleged crisis problems of th welfare state, ground into budgetary pressures, incentive problems and legitimacy problems. It is conclude that most of these problems have been exasggerated and that the rrreal threats to the economic foundations of the welfare state should be found in political steering and incentive problems rather thant in the exogenous pressures from the social and economic system, or in pressure from th unintended side effects of welfare arrangement. It is furthermore argued that one of the main achievements of the Danish welfare state has been so prevent unemployment and labor market marginalization from developing into a broad-ranged social marginalizaton and a political po-larization which could undermine citizenship and solidarity in society.     

Understanding Informal Payments in the Public Sector: Theory and Evidence from Nineteenth‐century Sweden

Informal payments for public services such as health care are a major problem in many countries around the world. Explanations for their prevalence include cultural factors, lack of enforcement as well as insufficient funds and low wages for public employees. This paper analyzes the phenomenon from an economic perspective, arguing that they are a logical consequence of low wages in the public sector. However, informal payments from citizens to public employees for services may be preferable to a situation in which no services are delivered. Given that the informal payments thus can be seen to have a functional element, and that reforms aimed at eliminating them largely have been unsuccessful, formalization and legalization rather than increased enforcement may be a way forward. Many government employees in nineteenth‐century Sweden received their salary through semi‐informal payments (‘sportler’) from citizens. A case study reveals that politicians at the time reasoned along the lines of what could be expected from economic theory: although undesirable and problematic, sportler were necessary to finance the wages of the government employees, given the lack of tax revenue and monitoring capabilities. In contrast to previous research, this article argues that reform efforts were aimed at pragmatically improving the existing system through formalization and regulation rather than simply prohibiting the informal payments.     

Do Social Rights Affect Social Outcomes?

While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for global judicialization of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCRs), little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence of the effects of introducing three types of ESCRs into the constitution: the rights to education, health, and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960–2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of ESCRs. We do, however, document adverse medium‐term effects on education, inflation, and civil rights.     

提升社会治理效能:社会企业生产要素社会性变革及其制度优势

社会企业通过市场机制参与社会治理的行动根植于经济嵌入社会的关系之中。生产要素本身具备多种属性和功能,长期以来商品经济理论对生产要素的单向商品化使用,造成了经济与社会、文化等非商品化属性的隔离。正如波兰尼所言,土地作为自然存在,劳动力和企业管理者作为社会人,本身并不是生产出来供销售的商品,资金使用的信用、信任和合法认可也不能作为商品去生产。因此,重新审视经济行为的目的,可以发现社会企业的发展动因。社会企业以社会企业家精神为内生动力,以企业家管理才能为社会目标通向经济行动的镶嵌通道,通过制度创新改变社会问题,并运用社会管理技术系统提升社会治理效能,将组织的制度优势转化为社会治理效能,对推动良性社会运行具有积极的作用。     

The consolidation of adjustment: Implications for public administration

The governments of most developing countries have been subject to pressures, especially through structural adjustment programmes, to reduce the direct role of the state in the supply of services. New forms of service supply are emerging, in which government has only an indirect role as enabler and regulator of other actors; but there has been little practical guidance on how these ‘new’ roles are to be performed in the specific context of developing countries. The danger is then of the adoption of inappropriate practices from more advanced countries. The argument of this article is that governments face several difficulties in managing the ‘post-adjusted state’: the inheritance of social and political strains, and of reforms made abruptly under pressure; the complexity of identifying the appropriate role of the state for particular services under particular circumstances; the technical difficulty of managing new administrative roles; and the contradiction, particularly in respect of systems of accountability, between the new and the old requirements on public administration.     

Alternative action organizations across different welfare and third sector regimes during hard economic times

ABSTRACT

Since 2008, the international economic and financial crisis has been affecting the living and working conditions of European citizens in different ways and scope. Yet, the pattern is of rising unemployment, social deprivation and poverty, cuts in health, education and social security budgets. These negative socio-economic conditions have led to major transformations in collective responses, which, among others, take place through Alternative Action Organisations (AAOs). The specific organizations carry out non-mainstream activities that primarily target the economic and the social well-being of citizens, including their basic needs, health and lifestyles. Using quantitative data from the LIVEWHAT project and drawing on social origins theory and resource mobilization theory, the article investigates AAOs’ main characteristics across four European countries that have been differently affected from the recent recession as well as belong to different welfare state and third sector regimes, including Germany, Greece, Sweden and Poland. The findings stress the importance of considering the particular combinations of the welfare state and third sector regimes as well as the severity of the experienced economic crisis in understating the variation in AAOs’ main features under a comparative perspective.     

Understanding varieties of populism in times of crises

Abstract

This introduction presents the conceptual and analytical framework which constitutes the background for the special issue entitled ‘Varieties of Populism in Europe in Times of Crises’. More specifically, this contribution investigates how different populist parties in the European Union have been affected by the recent economic crisis and the more long-lasting political and cultural crises. Analytically, the article disentangles the role of the Great Recession vis-à-vis other factors (such as political and party system factors, but also structural social changes or cultural opportunities) in the growing strength of populist parties in various European countries. It argues that although the economic crisis has without any doubt provided a specific ‘window of opportunity’ for the emergence of new political actors, which have capitalised on citizens’ discontent, long-lasting political factors – such as the increasing distrust toward political institutions and parties – and the more recent cultural crisis connected with migration issues have offered further fertile ground for the consolidation of populist parties in several European countries. Furthermore, as confirmed by the articles presented in the special issue, the various crises have offered differential opportunities for different types of populism – both inclusionary and exclusionary.     

HEALTH CARE POLICY IN THE GERMAN SOCIAL INSURANCE STATE: From Solidarity to Privatization?

Statutory health insurance is a centerpiece of the German welfare state, which considers itself to be a “social insurance state.” At the same time, due to a large volume of interpersonal redistributions that occur in health insurance, it is the most ambitious branch of the country's social insurance system. The stability of the health scheme thus depends on a “culture of solidarity” to maintain the legitimacy of these redistributions. This article analyzes recent changes in the legislative framework of the statutory health insurance. It asks whether these changes which predominantly aim to contain employers’ nonwage labor costs by making the insured bear a larger share of total health care spending, are possibly weakening the moral infrastructure of the welfare state. To this end, findings from qualitative interviews with insured persons are evaluated in view of recently approved and currently proposed legislative changes to the health scheme. The analytical focus is the question whether the two equity principles of this scheme, delivering health care according to medical need and financing it according to the “ability‐to‐pay,” are becoming endangered.     

From Safety Net To Trampoline: Labor Market Activation in the Netherlands and Denmark

In recent years Denmark and the Netherlands have made dramatic shifts from passive to active labor market policies. Though often portrayed as a necessary response to high levels of structural unemployment, such changes are more than a mere technical adjustment of welfare programs to a changing economic climate. They represent new ideas about the goals of public policy and the social rights of citizenship. This article surveys the politics of labor market policies in the two countries to demonstrate that the recent activation programs reflect a departure from the ideas and goals of the postwar welfare state.     

The prospects of egalitarian capitalism in the global South: Turkish social neoliberalism in comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper studies the transformation of economic and social policy in Turkey during the 2000s. The policy mix that has emerged can be usefully conceptualized as social neoliberalism, combining relatively orthodox neoliberal economic policies and retrenchment of the protective welfare state (e.g. labour market institutions) with a significant expansion, both in terms of public spending and population coverage, of the productive welfare state (e.g. public health care). Therefore, social neoliberalism as a development model is distinct both from social democracy and orthodox neoliberalism. Its rise in Turkey during the 2000s is arguably best understood with reference to the interests of the AKP's support coalition, the salience of inequalities in access to public services, and the disconnect of social policy-making from civil society mobilization. Turkey's experience with social neoliberalism provides an important reference point for theorizing the ‘social turn’ that since the 2000s has occurred in many late-developing countries with now maturing welfare states, including Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Chile.     

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AS IMPLEMENTORS OF PUBLIC POLICY

This study expands the growing literature in comparative public policy that examines welfare services. By now, it is accepted that a combination of economic, social, and political factors are influential in the delivery of these services by the 60 states. This paper finds that similar factors are also operating at the county level in New York state. Most notably, political factors affect the distribution of welfare benefits–despite federal and state mandates that require distribution to be based solely on need. This raises a number of issues. concerning the nature of political influence and the autonomy of local bureaucracies, which require further exploration.     

Public Spheres and Urban Space: A Critical Comparative Approach*

China's mounting unemployment in recent years is an unintended but predictable consequence of the economic reform with an open labor market. It has turned into a major political crisis in a "socialist state" where not only security but also sovereign dignity of labor remain central to the constitutional mandate and, however lingering, to popular expectation as well. This article traces the origins of the crisis, explores linkage between participation and recognition, explains mutual relevance of the EuroAmerican "future of work" debate and the Chinese experience, and argues for creative adaptation toward an alternative. It concludes with an observation that participatory activities beyond salaried jobs would require guaranteed social security; and only institutional innovations in public policy that enable democratic control by citizens over resources and management can forge a new social contract for overcoming unemployment.     

Factors influencing individuals' intention to adopt mobile banking in China and Pakistan: The moderating role of cultural values

Rapid development of smartphone technologies in Asian countries has increased the demand of mobile banking in financial services and mobile commerce. Current research is conducted for mobile banking adoption in China and Pakistan. The social influence was added with technology acceptance model to investigate the direct effect on individuals' intention. Moderating role of cultural values was explored in the proposed model. Empirical study was performed for the data received from both countries to examine the developed model. Multiple and hierarchical regression analyses (IBM SPSS software) were carried out to test the proposed hypotheses. We have observed that perceived usefulness, social influence, and perceived ease of use are significant predictors of individuals' intentions to adopt m‐banking in Pakistan, whereas the perceived usefulness is an important predictor in China. The moderating role of cultural values was observed as dampening factor in positive relationship between social influence and individuals' intentions.     

THIRD WORLD URBANIZATION AND AMERICAN FOREIGN AID POLICY: DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE IN THE 1990s

Over the next decade, the demographic and economic characteristics of countries to which the United States government provides technical and financial assistance for economic development will change substantially. Rapid urban population growth, the expanding role of cities and towns in national economies, continued migration of population from rural to urban areas, explosive growth in the size of the labor force, and shifts in the occupations of the labor force from agriculture to manufacturing and ser- vices will require a reorientation of American development assistance. Yet, program objectives and budget allocations of the U.S. foreign aid program fail to reflect these changes in the characteristics of its clientele. The US. Agency for International Development lacks an overt strategy for coping with urbanization in developing nations. Without an urban strategy, the American foreign aid program is likely to incur increasing opportunity costs and fail to address critical problems arising from fundamental shifts in the economic and social structure of developing countries.     

The demographic consequences of austerity in Latin America: methodological aspects

This work reviews evidence in the literature of possible demographic effects of the austerity programs imposed on Latin American countries in the 1980s. The work focuses on methodological problems involved in assessing demographic changes and ascertaining that they were indeed attributable to the economic crisis. An introductory section describes the recession of the 1980s in Latin America, the declines in employment and living standards, and the health and social consequences of the deepening poverty. But the author argues that evaluation of health conditions, levels of nutrition, and especially factors such as infant mortality, fertility, marriage patterns, and migration as indicators of the impact of the economic depression is full of pitfalls that are not always obvious. Few Latin American countries have civil registration systems capable of providing accurate and up-to-date mortality and fertility data. Indirect methods currently in use were intended to analyze longterm levels and trends and are of little use for short-term fluctuations. Data on internal migration are scarce even in developed countries. Even when recent data are available it is often difficult or impossible to obtain data for comparison. Infant mortality and malnutrition levels, for example, are serious problems in many parts of Latin America, but series of data capable of demonstrating that they are truly consequences of the economic crisis are lacking. Another challenge is to separate the demographic effects of the debt crisis from longterm structural processes. The possibility of time lags and of different time frames may increase confusion. Almost a year must pass before effects on birth rates can be expected, for example. Neutralizing mechanisms may obscure the effects sought. Thus, the most impoverished urban sectors may return to the countryside to seek refuge in subsistence agriculture; their departure would in some measure diminish the consequences of recession in the urban economy. The type of cross-sectional analysis of differential fertility and mortality that is currently stressed in demographic studies is of limited utility for understanding the demographic impact of economic oscillations, for which a longitudinal approach is required. The next section of the article compares evidence of the effects of the recession of the 1980s with the Great Depression of the 1930s and with historical crises, suggesting that contemporary economic recessions have little in common in terms of causes or demographic consequences with historic crises. Specific studies and available data are then examined in the areas of fertility and mortality, longterm consequences of the economic recession, and migration.