Benchmarking the Lisbon Strategy

This paper reviews the governance framework of the Lisbon Strategy and discusses the specific option of increasing the role of benchmarking as a means of improving the implementation record of structural reforms in the European Union. Against this background, the paper puts forward a possible avenue for developing a strong form of quantitative benchmarking, namely ranking. The ranking methodology relies on the construction of a synthetic indicator using the “benefit of the doubt” approach, which acknowledges differences in emphasis among Member States with regard to structural reform priorities. The methodology is applied by using the structural indicators that have been commonly agreed by the governments of the Member States, but could also be used for ranking exercises on the basis of other indicators. JEL Classification: D02, P11, P16, C43, C61.Lisbon Strategy, economic governance, benchmarking, benefit of the doubt weighting.

A 'credible' response to persons fleeing armed conflict

This contribution addresses two key issues in relation to the plight of those who are fleeing armed conflict: firstly and more briefly, the UK’s reluctance to participate in the UN’s resettlement scheme for Syrian refugees; and secondly the role of ‘credibility’ within the process of determining eligibility for international protection. The relationship between credibility and the 'benefit of the doubt' principle is explored, particularly in the light of the UK Upper Tribunal's determination in KS (benefit of the doubt) [2014] UKUT 552 (IAC). It is argued that a narrow understanding of credibility overlaps with one dimension of the benefit of the doubt, and sees it as confined to the admissibility of the applicant’s unsupported statements; statements which, by giving applicants the benefit of the doubt, should be allowed to enter into the balance towards satisfying the low standard of proof as long as they are ‘credible’ in the sense of not being demonstrably false

Benchmarking Sustainable Development: A Synthetic Meta-index Approach

The need for monitoring countries’ overall performance in Sustainable Development (SD) is widely recognized, but the methods for aggregating vast amounts of empirical data remain rather crude. This paper examines the so-called ‘benefit-of-the-doubt’ weighting method as a tool for identifying benchmarks without imposing strong normative judgement about SD priorities. The weighting method involves linear optimization techniques, and allows countries to emphasize and prioritize those SD aspects for which they perform relatively well. Using this method, we construct a meta-index of SD (MISD), which combines 14 existing aggregate SD indices (developed by well-established organizations and/or expert teams) into a single synthesizing overall SD index. Within a sample of 154 countries, our index identifies 6 benchmark countries (3 high-income countries and 3 upper-middle-income countries), but also a number of seriously under-performing countries. We view this approach as a first step towards more systematic international comparisons, aimed at facilitating diffusion of the best practices and policies from the benchmark countries to the less developed world.Sustainable Development, Integrated Assessment, Benchmarking, benefit of the doubt weighting, Data Envelopment Analysis

Sovereign Debt Repurchases: No Cure for Overhang

We show, in a reasonably general model, that if a highly indebted country has good investment projects available to it, then it will not benefit from using any of its resources to buy back debt at market prices. Debt buybacks and debt-equity swaps only make sense for the country if these programs are heavily subsidized by creditors. This result holds for all buyback programs large and small, so long as they involve voluntary creditor participation and are not part of a larger deal including offsetting concessions from lenders. Our analysis therefore casts doubt on the popular argument that unilateral debt repurchases benefit HICs by relieving "debt overhang".

Benefits of interprofessional education in health care.

This article examines some of the literature regarding the benefits of interprofessional education (IPE) in the field of health care. These benefits in relation to service users (and carers), higher education institutions, service providers and students are all explored. Barriers to IPE are being broken down by many of the various stakeholders working towards a similar agenda. However, currently there remains some doubt as to whether IPE has a direct positive impact on the health gain of service users and carers. Research is needed to demonstrate if service users and carers benefit directly from IPE and if they do not, the reason for pursuing it needs to be questioned

CBA at the PTO

What are the costs and benefits of patent laws? While Congress and the courts are often able to evade this difficult question, there is one institutional actor that is not only well-advised but also required to consider costs and benefits: the Patent and Trademark Office, which—as an administrative agency—is required by executive order to conduct cost-benefit analysis of all economically significant regulations. Yet the agency’s efforts have been less than satisfactory. In its cost-benefit analysis, the PTO overlooks crucial functional considerations, misunderstands basic precepts of patent economics, and resists quantification when quantification is required. In combination, these shortcomings suggest that the PTO has not correctly measured the social costs and benefits of the rules it creates, in part because it has adopted an overly limited view of the welfare effects of intellectual property and the agency’s own role in promoting or discouraging IP. In other instances, the PTO has promulgated rules that will likely have tremendous economic significance without recognizing their importance or conducting a cost-benefit analysis. These errors cast doubt on whether the PTO’s regulations will increase or diminish social welfare. Before the PTO is granted any additional substantive authority, reform will be necessary

Microfinance as a Poverty Reduction Tool—A Critical Assessment

This paper attempts to provide a critical appraisal of the debate on the effectiveness of microfinance as a universal poverty reduction tool. It argues that while microfinance has developed some innovative management and business strategies, its impact on poverty reduction remains in doubt. Microfinance, however, certainly plays an important role in providing safety-net and consumption smoothening. The borrowers of microfinance possibly also benefit from learning-by-doing and from self-esteem. However, for any significant dent on poverty, the focus of public policy should be on growth-oriented and equity-enhancing programs, such as broad-based productive employment creation.microfinance, poverty, employment, growth

Cost-Benefit Default Principles

In an important but thus far unnoticed development, federal courts have created a new series of "default principles" for statutory interpretation, authorizing regulatory agencies, when statutes are unclear, (a) to exempt trivial risks from regulation and thus to develop a kind of common law of "acceptable risks," (b) to take account of substitute risks created by regulation, and thus to engage in "health-health" tradeoffs, (c) to consider whether compliance with regulation is feasible, (d) to take costs into account, and (e) to engage in cost-benefit balancing, and thus to develop a kind of common law of cost-benefit analysis. These cost-benefit default principles are both legitimate and salutary, because they give rationality and sense the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, they leave many open questions. They do not say whether agencies are required, and not merely permitted, to go in the direction they indicate; they do not indicate when agencies might reasonably reject the principles; and they do not say what, specifically, will be counted as an 'acceptable' risk or a sensible form of cost-benefit analysis. Addressing the open questions, this essay urges that the principles should ordinarily be taken as mandatory, not merely permissive; that agencies may reject them in certain identifiable circumstances; and that steps should be taken toward quantitative analysis of the effects of regulation, designed to discipline the relevant inquiries. An understanding of these points should promote understanding of emerging "second generation" debates, involving not whether to adopt a presumption in favor of cost-benefit balancing, but when the presumption is rebutted, and what, in particular, cost-benefit analysis should be taken to entail.

Health Conversion Foundations

The phenomenon of nonprofit to for-profit conversion in the health industry represents the largest redeployment of charitable assets in history. Because the converting nonprofit health organization is presumed to have provided public benefit before the conversion and because the nonprofit assets have been built by and on behalf of the public, state laws typically require that converting organizations preserve their charitable assets in order to maintain the level of public benefit provided before the conversion. Often these assets are used to endow a new foundation. These foundations -- commonly called conversion foundations -- are the subject of this paper. Over the past two decades, billions of dollars in charitable assets have transferred from the health care industry into organized philanthropy, and billions more will no doubt do so.The trend of health conversions is a very recent but quickly accelerating one: The first conversion foundation was created in 1973, and over the next ten years, only four were created; most were established in the mid-1980s or mid- to late 1990s. Most are fewer than ten years old: 59% were formed between 1994 and 1999, and an additional 11% since 1999

Pollution Regulation and the Efficiency Gains from Technological Innovation

Previous studies suggest that emissions taxes are more efficient at stimulating the development of improved pollution abatement technologies than other policy instruments, such as (non-auctioned) tradable emissions permits. We present results from a competitive model that cast some doubt on the empirical importance of this assertion. For example, we find that efficiency in the market for "environmental R&D" under tradable permits is typically less than 6 percent lower than that under an emissions tax for innovations that reduce pollution abatement costs by 10 percent or less. However the discrepancy is more significant in the case of more major innovations. We also find that the presence of R&D spillovers per se does not necessarily imply large inefficiency in the R&D market. For example, efficiency in the R&D market under a Pigouvian emissions tax is generally more than 90 percent of that in the first best outcome if the private benefit from innovation exceeds 50 percent of the social benefit. Thus the R&D spillover effect must substantially limit the private benefit from R&D in our analysis for there be a potentially "large" efficiency gain from additional policies � such as research subsidies � to stimulate innovation.