Welfare Regimes in Latin America: Capturing Constellations of Markets,Families, and Policies

This article presents both a theoretical framework and a methodology that attempt to capture the complex interactions among labor markets, families, and public policy that currently constitute Latin American welfare regimes. Drawing on cluster analysis based on available data for 18 countries, the study identifies three welfare regimes. Two are state welfare regimes: protectionist (e.g. Costa Rica) and productivist (e.g. Chile); one is nonstate familiarist (e.g. Ecuador and Nicaragua). In a region where people's well‐being is deeply embedded in family relationships, closer scholarly attention to how social structures interact with public policy bears not only academic interest but also policy implications, particularly for adapting particular welfare regimes to the local welfare mix.     

Distribution of the AMPFLPs YNZ22, 3′APOB and COL2A1 in the population of Galicia (NW Spain)

Two different electrophoretic methods were used for typing three amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AMPFLPs), (3′ApoB, YNZ22 and COL2A1) in a Galician (NW Spain) population sample. Because of the problems of anomalous mobility for the 3′ApoB system and the intermediate alleles found in the COL2A1 system, the use of automated sequencers and denaturing conditions is recommended for typing these two systems. Nevertheless, simple electrophoretic methods, such as the PhastSystem, can be used for YNZ22 typing. Although intermediate COL2A1 alleles can be distinguished with the sequencers, a binning approach was adopted for comparison purposes. The population sampled was in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the three systems using an exact test. This type of statistical analysis is more appropriate when the number of alleles in a system is high. No significant differences with other Caucasian populations were found for the three systems studied. The characteristics of the polymorphisms, shown by 3′ApoB, YNZ22 and COL2A1, reflected in the statistical parameters studied, demonstrate that these AMPFLPs are of considerable interest for forensic purposes.     

The strategic use of dismissal legislation: an empirical analysis using Spanish data

In this paper, we analyse empirically how the legal framework affects the relationship between labour market conditions and dismissals. We use a pseudo-panel of Spanish data from 1987 to 2001. We find that Labour Law reforms have effects on the use of individual and collective dismissals although such effects are much lower than those related to the business cycle. The results also show a strategic use of the different types of dismissals, distorting the work of those institutions involved in dismissals.      

Affirmative Action in Contemporary Brazil: Two Institutional Discourses on Race

In 2001, the State universities of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ and UENF) were the first Brazilian public universities to reserve 40% of their places for self-declared blacks (negros) and browns (pardos). In 2004, the University of Brasilia became the first federal university to implement an affirmative policy for black (negros) and indigenous people in Brazil. In the present article it is my intention to focus on contingent aspects in the making of these policies. While looking into both cases as two institutional discourses of race, I seek to challenge two common and equally problematic interpretations of the current race-assertive politics in Brazil, namely: (a) one that sees these affirmative action initiatives as the result of a kind of inevitable process towards the disclosure of Brazil’s hidden and actual plurality of “races;” (b) and another that, by contrast, conceives them as a sort of “imported model” that is not only imposed from abroad but also incompatible with the Brazilian symbolic order and system of racial classification.     

Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain

This paper analyzes the reforms of the Spanish electoral finance regulatory system during the nineties. We present a number of indexes to measure the impact of the reforms on parties and campaign spending. We also suggest a game theoretical model to explain why the two main parties agreed to support the legal changes in the nineties. A principal outcome of the reforms was to establish an effective limit to campaign expenses. In our view this would have not been feasible in the late seventies or eighties. Then the parties were trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma in which each party had to spend more in order to prevent other parties from gaining electoral advantage. But in the nineties the main parties, ridden with problems of soaring electoral debts and disgruntled voters, used the reform of political finance as a coordination device to achieve a Pareto efficient equilibrium.     

Patent Production at a European Research University: Exploratory Evidence at the Laboratory Level

Most studies of academic patenting focus on the university as the unit of analysis. In contrast, we examine this phenomenon at the laboratory level. Based on a sample of 83 research laboratories of Louis Pasteur University (ULP, Strasbourg, France) from 1993 to 2000, we constructed a panel data set that allows us to discriminate between patents that are owned by the university and those that are owned by firms and other organizations but invented by faculty members. We use these data to estimate a patent production function and find that university-owned patents are more responsive to specific public funding, while non-university-owned patents are more responsive to industrial funding. Our results also highlight the importance to control for disciplinary and institutional differences, since they significantly affect the production of the different kinds of ULP patents.     

Private funding of microcredit schemes: Much ado about nothing?

Microcredit, defined as small loans to people who have no regular access to credit, is an innovative strategy in the fight against poverty. Microcredit institutions can obtain funding from private institutional investors (PIIs) that channel funds from donors, private lenders, and socially responsible investors. Private financing of development aid is likely to become more important and microcredit presents an investment opportunity within this context. Microcredit institutions (MCIs) need to become more transparent, however, and require more incentive to seek commercial funding rather than relying on subsidies. With better information about MCIs, PIIs could achieve more impact with their investment.     

Ausnahmen vom Zugang zu Umweltinformationen; Unmittelbare Anwendung der Richtlinie 2003/4/EG

Keine Zusammenfassung