scholarly journals An experiment in banking the poor: the Irish Mont-de-Piété, c. 1830–1850

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eoin McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Public Nature ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Base Group

Continental pawnbroking institutions, Monts-de-Piété, were introduced in Ireland in the 1830s and 1840s but did not establish a permanent status. Irish social reformers believed that a Mont-de-Piété system would reduce the cost of borrowing for the poor and also fund a social welfare network, thus negating the need for an Irish Poor Law. This article explores the introduction of the Mont-de-Piété charitable pawnbroker in Ireland and outlines some reasons for its failure. It uses the market incumbents, private pawnbrokers, as a base group in a comparative study and asks why the Monts-de-Piété were the unsuccessful ones of the two. The article finds that the public nature and monopoly status of Monts-de-Piété on the Continent realised economies of scale and gave preferential interest rates on capital, as well as enabling the Mont-de-Piété loan book to be cross-subsidised. These conditions were not replicated in Ireland, hence the failure of the Monts-de-Piété there.

Emigration and the New Poor Law: The Norfolk Emigration Fever of 1836

Rural History ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Howells
Keyword(s):  
Poor People ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
Surplus Labour ◽  
Public Record ◽  
British Colonies

In 1836 under the auspices of section 62 of the New Poor Law, 3,069 poor people from Norfolk were assisted to emigrate to North America. Their passages, and various other requirements including spending money, travel to the port, equipment for the voyage and settling of debts, were paid for out of the poor rates. The rationale for this outflow of people revolved around the issue of surplus labour, which was believed to have a corrosive and unsettling effect upon the state of rural society. Emigration had long been seen as a potential safety valve for surplus labour. Clause 62 can be traced back to the vigorous debate about assisted emigration associated with Robert Wilmot Horton. For one emigration season, it looked as if parochial government were capable of rising to the challenge of solving its surplus labour problems and simultaneously satisfying the needs of the labour-hungry British colonies. This paper examines the Norfolk emigration fever by using a previously unused data set of nineteenth-century emigration (Ministry of Health files held at the Public Record Office). It argues that assisted emigration was the result of a concerted rational policy, applied by the parish officers aimed to benefit emigrants and those left behind. The policy was neither haphazard nor accidental and, though inspired by fear of the consequences of implementing the New Poor Law, was not a panicked response. It argues that the arrangements for assisted emigration resulted in a process of interchange and interaction between rich and poor which makes a mockery of the term ‘shovelling out paupers’. The poor emigrants who were targeted were assisted because they were good labourers, not useless indigents incapable of providing for themselves. The findings shed further light on the nature of emigrating populations, the emigratory process and the mindset of both rich and poor at the time of the introduction of the New Poor Law.

scholarly journals The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–09

1977 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Woodroofe
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost

Although there is some truth in the comment made by Canon Barnett, rector of St Jude's, Whitechapel, and founder of Toynbee Hall, that the issue in 1909 of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws “may mark the beginning of a new epoch in our social life”, the precise reasons for the appointment of the Commission on December 4th, 1905, are not yet known. The Conservative government, which made the appointment almost on the eve of its defeat, had been in power for ten years, first under the prime ministership of Lord Salisbury and then, until his resignation in December 1905, of A. J. Balfour. During that time the cost of the Poor Law had risen steadily, and yet, until the end of 1904, either through social myopia or a preoccupation with the greater drama of events abroad, the government displayed little interest in the problem of the Poor Law or, indeed, in any of the wider questions of social reform.

scholarly journals A tale of two Sister-Principals: Mother Mary Edward (Catherine) McKinley, Sisters of Providence of St Vincent de Paul (Kingston, ON) and Mother Mary of Providence (Catherine) Horan, Sisters of Providence of Holyoke, MA

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 119-132
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Women Leaders ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Congregational Leaders ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social

This paper analyzes the career of two Sister-Principals who began their religious life in the same congregation: Mother Mary Edward (Catherine) McKinley and Mother Mary of Providence (Catherine) Horan. Depending on whose version of history you read, these women were rival religious or virtuous sisters in habit. Drawing on archival sources and their own writings, the paper analyzes the perceptions, in their own words, of the experiences Mother Mary Edward McKinley and Mother Mary of Providence Horan as Sister-Principals. It also provides an assessment of the historical significance of their careers as case studies of Sister-Principals. The careers of the two Sister-Principals reveal much: both members of the Sisters of Providence of Vincent de Paul (Kingston), both committed to the social welfare of the poor, both forced unwillingly to be Sister-Principals; both elected as congregational leaders; both memorialized in the public domain as powerful women leaders.

scholarly journals A Pervasive Economic Fallacy in Assessing the Cost of Public Funds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Support Programs ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost

In the assessment of the cost of public funds, there is a pervasive economic fallacy that is frequently repeated in public policy circles: because the cost of borrowing is higher for a private-sector firm than it is for a public-sector firm, the cost of carrying out an activity (investment, production, distribution, provision of goods and services, and borrowing) will necessarily be lower ceteris paribus in the public sector than in the private sector. The statement is erroneous because part of the government’s cost of borrowing, namely the risk borne by citizens, customers, and taxpayers, is hidden from the casual observer of market interest rates or yields. The all-inclusive borrowing cost, more generally the all-inclusive cost of capital, is the same for both the public and the private sectors. I discuss four specific real cases in which the error is present: the Quebec Generations Fund, the Québec CDPQ Infra–Réseu express métropolitain project, the Infrastructure Ontario methodology to assess the riskiness of costs, and the BC Hydro Site C hydroelectric megaproject. I also discuss a general fifth case, namely government support programs for businesses (grants, loans, guarantees, subsidies, etc.), which are generally justified on the fallacious claim that the cost of financing is lower for the government than for the private sector. I propose an auction process by which the true cost of business support programs could be made transparent. I conclude with an appeal for a more rigorous use and management of public funds because miscalculation, misinformation, mismanagement, and fallacious analysis will eventually backfire.

Economies of Scale in Public Sector Banks

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 119-139
Author(s):  
Tulchha Ram Bishnoi ◽  
Sofia Devi Sh.
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Banking Industry ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Optimum Size ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Total Cost ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Banks ◽  
The Cost

The present study attempts to analyse the cost analysis of the banking industry with special focus on optimum size of a bank. It studies the cost structure, economies/diseconomies as well as the optimum size of public sector banks for the period 1991–1992 to 2013–2014. Economies of scale relating to 26 public sector banks are worked out for selected years. The large banks operated at a scale, reaping economies in all the years, the exception being the year 2004–2005 achieving position of the minimum AC—. For the small banks, there are economies of scale in all the selected years. Both the banks groups did not show diseconomies with respect to total cost, even though there were diseconomies associated with other individual cost items. The minimum efficient size (MES) was attained by all the public sector banks in each of the years selected. JEL codes: D24, D210, D220, D240, D240, D250

From Poor Law to Positive Discrimination

1978 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-328
Author(s):  
Richard Batley
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Positive Discrimination ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Poverty

ABSTRACTThe principle of positive discrimination in favour of the poor has emerged out of a tangled history of social welfare debate about universalism and selectivity. Positive discrimination, based on the idea of ‘inclusive’ selectivity, represents something of a hybrid of the two concepts. The ‘rediscovery of poverty’ and the recognition that universal benefits were not adequate or reaching intended beneficiaries contributed to the general case for specially channelled services. But the government's response has tended to be piecemeal, responding to specific pressures and criticisms with a wide array of small and separate programmes of positive discrimination. This article traces the particular pressures, in race relations, which contributed to the emergence of the Urban Aid Programme and shows what lessons were learned from the experience of the American poverty programmes.

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