scholarly journals Busting the myth of the ‘greedy elderly’

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Us ◽  
Optimal Policies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract Background The politics of ageing are both personal, involving judgements about specific family members as well as broad social groups. This chapter evaluates the argument that governments implement packages of policies that are favorable to the elderly, but that are societally sub-optimal, because of political pressure from the elderly. It begins by laying out the core premises of the “greedy geezer” narrative: because pension transfers, high-cost medical care, and policies that protect transferable assets like housing are highly salient to the elderly and their advocates, intense preferences for these types of policies communicated to politicians and policy-makers will eventually crowd out other, more societally-optimal policies. Methods Looking at public opinion data on ageing, intergenerational transfers, and the welfare state this chapter wants to understand both how different publics understand and frame ageing and health as well as what priorities these publics identify, and why? Results The elderly and their organized representatives (e.g. pensioner parties, pensioner unions, and advocacy groups) in some contexts do push for policies that are “greedy” in the sense of being beneficial for the elderly or their own children, but not for society as a whole. However, this phenomenon is far from universal: It is especially pronounced in the US and the UK, but much less so in other national contexts. Moreover, the policy packages adopted by national governments are generally motivated by concerns other than appeasing the elderly. Conclusions Characterizing the elderly as uniformly “greedy” obscures the fact that inequality among the elderly means that many need more support than they actually receive.

Foreign States in Domestic Markets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Thatcher ◽  
Tim Vlandas
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Sovereign Wealth Funds ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Domestic Markets ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Domestic Economies

Political economy debates have focused on the internationalization of private capital. But foreign states increasingly enter domestic markets as financial investors. How do policy makers in recipient countries react? Do they treat purchases as a threat and impose restrictions or see them as beneficial and welcome them? What are the wider implications for debates about state capacities to govern domestic economies in the face of internationalization of financial markets? In response, the book develops the concept of ‘internationalized statism’—governments welcoming and using foreign state investments to govern their domestic economies—and applies it to the most prominent overseas state investors: Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). Many SWFs are from Asia and the Middle East and their number and size have greatly expanded, reaching $9 trillion by 2020. The book examines policies towards non-Western SWFs buying company shares in four countries: the US, the UK, France, and Germany. Although the US has imposed significant legal restrictions, the others have pursued internationalized statism in ways that are surprising given both popular and political economy classifications. The book argues that the policy patterns found are related to domestic politics, notably the preferences and capacities of the political executive and legislature, rather than solely economic needs or national security risks. The phenomenon of internationalized statism underlines that overseas state investment provides policy makers in recipient states with new allies and resources. The study of SWFs shows how and why internationalization and liberalization of financial markets offer national policy makers opportunities to govern their domestic economies.

13 Resolution in the UK and US: Variations to the Same Goals

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krimminger Michael
Keyword(s):  
Deposit Insurance ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Insurance Fund ◽  
Troubled Asset Relief Program ◽  
Point Of Entry ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Federal Deposit Insurance ◽  
National Governments

This chapter explores the US and UK’s response to the 2007–9 Global Financial Crisis. In both cases, funding for the resolution and restructuring of failing financial companies came from public sources-generally national governments and central banks funded by the private creditors or other private sources. In the UK, the resolution actions relied solely on taxpayer financing. In the US, the government’s actions relied on Federal Reserve funding, Treasury funding through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) funding from the Deposit Insurance Fund. The chapter also assesses the role of bail-in under the Resolution Authorities and concludes with a brief summary of the UK and EU approach to single point of entry (SPOE) strategy.

scholarly journals Banking on exclusion: Data disclosure and geographies of UK personal lending markets

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 2046-2064 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Henry ◽  
J Pollard ◽  
P Sissons ◽  
J Ferreira ◽  
M Coombes
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Access To Finance ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Access To Credit ◽  
Financial Exclusion ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

In 2013, the UK Government announced that seven of the nation’s largest banks had agreed to publish their lending data at the local level across Great Britain. The release of such area based lending data has been welcomed by advocacy groups and policy makers keen to better understand and remedy geographies of financial exclusion. This paper makes three contributions to debates about financial exclusion. First, it provides the first exploratory spatial analysis of the personal lending data made available; it scrutinises the parameters and robustness of the dataset and evaluates the extent to which the data increase transparency in UK personal lending markets. Second, it uses the data to provide a geographical overview of patterns of personal lending across Great Britain. Third, it uses this analysis to revisit the analytical and political limitations of ‘open data’ in addressing the relationship between access to finance and economic marginalisation. Although a binary policy imaginary of ‘inclusion-exclusion’ has historically driven advocacy for data disclosure, recent literatures on financial exclusion generate the need for more complex and variegated understandings of economic marginalisation. The paper questions the relationship between transparency and data disclosure, the policy push for financial inclusion, and patterns of indebtedness and economic marginalisation in a world where ‘fringe finance’ has become mainstream. Drawing on these literatures, this analysis suggests that data disclosure, and the transparency it affords, is a necessary but not sufficient tool in understanding the distributional implications of variegated access to credit.

Administrative Law Values and National Security Functions

2020 ◽  
pp. 634-655
Author(s):  
Laura A. Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Executive Discretion ◽  
The Uk

This chapter focuses on the case of extraterritorial military detention by the US and the UK—two countries that quickly deployed and then repeatedly refined their detention policies during the nearly two decades following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Military detention is arguably one of the quintessential national security functions where deference to executive discretion is strongest. As such, it is an activity that differs markedly from the types of practices that form the core work of many domestic administrative agencies, and administrative law scholarship tends to ignore the national security domain. Yet even here, in a realm seemingly so insulated from administrative law norms, agencies in both the US and the UK have implemented a variety of administrative rules and procedures, as well as non-judicial administrative tribunals to assess the status of detainees. Although the US and the UK followed different pathways, both countries have ultimately come to embrace administrative law frameworks for military detention. And both countries have gradually moved to protect, at least to a limited extent, the core administrative law values of rationality, transparency, participation, and procedural protection even as they have rejected fully judicialized detention processes. This comparative case study therefore illustrates the significance of administrative law values in the area of national security and points toward the need for further scholarship at the intersection of national security law and administrative law.

Factors for Global Diffusion of the Internet

2011 ◽  
pp. 1522-1526
Author(s):  
Ravi Nath ◽  
Vasudeva N.R. Murthy
Keyword(s):  
The Internet ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
Internet Diffusion ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Diffusion Rates ◽  
The Uk

There is overwhelming evidence that the use of the Internetenabled applications and solutions provide unprecedented economic growth opportunities. However, the Internet diffusion rates remain low in many countries. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), in 2004, less than 3% of the Africans used the Internet, whereas the average Internet subscription rate for G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK, and the US) is about 50%. Also, in nearly 30 countries the Internet penetration rates still remain below 1% (ITU, 2006). So, what are the key factors that explain this wide variation in Internet subscription rates in countries around the world? An understanding of these factors will be highly useful for policy makers, economic developmental agencies and political leaders in establishing and implementing suitable national developmental strategies and policies.

The Legacy of the Financial Crisis

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Andrew Smithers
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Asset Prices ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Weak Growth ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Post Hoc

The reputation of liberal democracy has fallen not only internationally but even within the UK and the US, which on current policies risk a decline in living standards and an even worse outcome should more to populist policies be implemented. Weak growth followed the financial crisis but was not caused by it. Holding otherwise is an example of the ‘post hoc fallacy’. Weak growth was caused solely by adverse changes in demography and poor productivity. Addressing both economists and the wider audience of those concerned with our economic and political future, this chapter shows that the adverse changes in demography and productivity have causes which predate the financial crisis by many years. The financial crisis was due to poor theory which led central banks to ignore the risks of high asset prices and excess debt. Poor theory today inhibits policy makers from recognizing that bonus culture policy has stifled growth.

A Comparison of Budgeting and Accounting Reforms in the National Governments of France, Germany, the UK and the US

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowan Jones ◽  
Evelyne Lande ◽  
Klaus Lüder ◽  
Marine Portal
Keyword(s):  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Governments

scholarly journals COVID-19 and people's health-wealth preferences: Information effects and policy implications

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Hargreaves Heap ◽  
Christel Koop ◽  
Konstantinos Matakos ◽  
Asli Unan ◽  
Nina Sophie Weber
Keyword(s):  
Information Provision ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Health Costs ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Relative Valuation

Policy makers responding to COVID-19 need to know people’s relative valuation of health over wealth. Loosening and tightening lockdowns moves a society along a (perceived) health-wealth trade-off and the associated changes have to accord with the public’s relative valuation of health and wealth for maximum compliance. In our survey experiment (N=4,618), we randomize information provision on economic and health costs to assess public preferences over this trade-off in the UK and the US. People strongly prioritize health over wealth, but the treatment effects suggest these priorities will change as experience of COVID-19 deaths and income losses evolves. Information also has heterogeneous/polarizing effects. These results encourage policy caution. Individual differences in health-wealth valuation highlight this study’s importance because they map onto compliance with current lockdown measures.

scholarly journals Measuring Subjective Wellbeing: Recommendations on Measures for use by National Governments

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL DOLAN ◽  
ROBERT METCALFE
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Subjective Wellbeing ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Governments ◽  
Monitoring Progress

AbstractGovernments around the world are now beginning to seriously consider the use of measures of subjective wellbeing (SWB) – ratings of thoughts and feelings about life – for monitoring progress and for informing and appraising public policy. The mental state account of wellbeing upon which SWB measures are based can provide useful additional information about who is doing well and badly in life when compared to that provided by the objective list and preference satisfaction accounts. It may be particularly useful when deciding how best to allocate scarce resources, where it is desirable to express the benefits of intervention in a single metric that can be compared to the costs of intervention. There are three main concepts of SWB in the literature – evaluation (life satisfaction), experience (momentary mood) and eudemonia (purpose) – and policy-makers should seek to measure all three, at least for the purposes of monitoring progress. There are some major challenges to the use of SWB measures. Two related and well-rehearsed issues are the effects of expectations and adaptation on ratings. The degree to which we should allow wellbeing to vary according to expectations and adaptation are vexing moral problems but information on SWB can highlight what difference allowing for these considerations would have in practice (e.g. in informing prioiritisation decisions), which can then be fed into the normative debate. There are also questions about precisely what attention should be drawn to in SWB questions and how to capture the ratings of those least inclined to take part in surveys, but these can be addressed through more widespread use of SWB. We also provide some concrete recommendations about precisely what questions should be asked in large-scale surveys, and these recommendations have been taken up by the Office of National Statistics in the UK and are being looked at closely by the OECD.

Bank Resolution and Crisis Management

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gleeson Simon ◽  
Guynn Randall
Keyword(s):  
Deposit Insurance ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Bank Resolution ◽  
The Us ◽  
Bankruptcy Code ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Federal Deposit Insurance ◽  
Financial Transactions

The 2008 global financial crisis ushered in the biggest explosion in new bank regulation around the world since the Great Depression. Governments and regulators have sought to put measures in place to prevent the failure of banks, but have acknowledged the need for measures to address what happens when banks fail or are threatened with failure. This book deals with the measures which European, US, and international law and policy-makers have sought to put in place to manage failure of financial institutions. Measures such as ‘bail-out’ (protecting private shareholders and creditors against losses) and ‘bail-in’ (imposing losses on shareholders and long-term creditors without causing contagion among short-term creditors) are discussed. The work includes summaries and commentary on the EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, the UK resolution laws including the Banking Act 2009 and amendments to that Act, the Orderly Liquidation Authority under Title II of the US Dodd‒Frank Act, resolution under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, the proposed new Chapter 14 to the US Bankruptcy Code, and the bank resolution provisions of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Act. Special emphasis is given to the practical effect of such measures on financial transactions and their impact on arrangements, such as netting and set-off. There is also commentary on the role of depositor protection schemes and their role in returning money to the depositors in a failing bank.

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