Have regional inequalities in life expectancy widened within the European Union between 1991 and 2008?

<b>BACKGROUND:</b> Health inequalities have widened within and between many European countries over recent decades, but Europe-wide sub-national trends have been largely overlooked. For regions across the European Union (EU), we assess how geographical inequalities (i.e., between regions) and sociospatial inequalities (i.e., between regions grouped by an area-level measure of average household income) in male and female life expectancy have changed between 1991 and 2008.<p></p> <b>METHODS:</b> Household income, life expectancy at birth and population count data were obtained for 129 regions (level 2 Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units, 'NUTS') in 13 European countries with 1991-2008 data (2008 population = 272 million). We assessed temporal changes in the range of life expectancies, for all regions and for Western and Eastern European regions separately.<p></p> <b>RESULTS:</b> Between 1991 and 2008, the geographical range of life expectancies found among European regions remained relatively constant, with the exception of life expectancy among male Eastern Europeans, for whom the range widened by 2.8 years. Sociospatial inequalities in life expectancy (1999-2008 data only) remained constant for all regions combined and for Western Europe, but more than doubled in size for male Eastern Europeans. For female Eastern Europeans, life expectancy was unrelated to regional household income.<p></p> <b>CONCLUSIONS:</b>Regional life-expectancy inequalities in the EU have not narrowed over 2 decades, despite efforts to reduce them. Household income differences across European regions may partly explain these inequalities. As inequalities transcend national borders, reduction efforts may require EU-wide coordination in addition to national efforts.<p></p&gt

Housing in the Euro Area Twelve Markets One Money

This paper examines developments in the euro area housing market, with particular reference to the last ten years.

Knowing what is good for you: Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the 'objective good'

This paper aims to test empirically if certain frequently used measures of well-being, which are regarded as valuable properties of human life, are actually desired by people. In other words, it investigates whether the "expert judgments" in social science overlap with social consensus on what the "good life" is. The starting hypothesis is that there is an overlap between these two in the case of basic needs. For the analysis, individuals' self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for "utility", based on survey data, which includes about 30 000 individuals from 21 different European countries. The results indicate that the commonly used measures of well-being - labour market situation, health, housing conditions and social relations - significantly influence people's satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Next, the stability of preferences is tested using Hungarian data from the 1990s. The results indicate that there was only very limited change in the relationship between life satisfaction and basic measures of well-being despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation.quality of life, capabilities, happiness, basic needs, economic transition

Bringing macroeconomics back into the political economy of reform: The Lisbon Agenda and the 'fiscal philosophy' of EMU

The Lisbon Strategy supports reform of member states’ tax-benefit systems while the ‘fiscal philosophy’ of the EU postulates that governments should allow only automatic stabilisers, built into tax-benefit systems, to smooth aggregate income. We ask whether these two pillars of EU economic governance are compatible. By exploring how structural reforms affect fiscal stabilisation, we complement a political economy literature that asks whether fiscal consolidation fosters or hinders structural reforms. We conclude, based on simulations in EUROMOD, that Lisbon-type reforms may worsen the stabilising capacity of tax-benefit systems

Dynamics of income inequality and welfare in Latvia in the late 1990s

This paper analyzes the dynamics of poverty and income inequality during the recovery phase of the transition that characterized the Republic of Latvia in the late 1990s. Despite a continued rise in income inequality, empirical evidence suggests an improvement in living standards, owing largely to a significant surge in per capita income growth, particularly in urban areas. In a context of rising income inequality and widening urban-rural income and poverty gaps, the benefits of growth were not equally distributed, and poverty persisted in a number of regions (particularly the regions of Latgale and Vitzeme) and among some socioeconomic groups (particularly households deriving their main income from social benefits). In addition to income inequality and asset endowments, poverty appears to be highly correlated with a number of labor market-related variables, particularly unemployment, suggesting that the labor market could be an important transmission channel from growth to poverty. However, though positive, the association between poverty and unemployment is non linear, especially in urban areas, where the labor market and demand are the most important channels of transmission through which growth and macroeconomic development affect household income and living standards.Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Inequality,Environmental Economics&Policies,Safety Nets and Transfers,Rural Poverty Reduction,Services&Transfers to Poor

Knowing what is good for you. Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the 'objective good'

This paper aims to test empirically if certain frequently used measures of well-being, which are regarded as valuable properties of human life, are actually desired by people. In other words, it investigates whether the “expert judgments” in social science overlap with social consensus on what the “good life” is. The starting hypothesis is that there is an overlap between these two in the case of basic needs. For the analysis, individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for “utility”, based on survey data, which includes about 30 000 individuals from 21 different European countries. The results indicate that the commonly used measures of well-being - labour market situation, health, housing conditions and social relations - significantly influence people’s satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Next, the stability of preferences is tested using Hungarian data from the 1990s. The results indicate that there was only very limited change in the relationship between life satisfaction and basic measures of well-being despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation.quality of life, capabilities, happiness, basic needs, economic transition

Knowing what is good for you. Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the “objective good”

The paper argues that there is a cherishable overlap between “objective good” and people’s preferences in measures of well-being. Firstly, using recent survey data from twenty European countries I analyse the determinants of individual’s “experienced utility”. The proxy for utility is overall life satisfaction. The results indicate that various measures of well-being which are normally used for assessing people’s quality of life do indeed significantly influence people’s utility. The estimated micro-econometric life satisfaction equations suggest that an individual’s labour market situation, housing conditions and social relations significantly contribute to his overall life satisfaction, over and above the level of his income. The findings also imply that the use of non-income measures in standard analyses of well-being is justified on the grounds that these measures do have intrinsic value for the people over and above their incomes. In the second part of the paper, the stability of the relationship is tested using survey data from Hungary from the 1990s. The results show that there was only very limited change in this relationship despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation. Entrepreneurs have become more satisfied, but there is no change in the relationship of income and life satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Overall, thus the relationship between basic measures of objective well-being and people’s preferences seems to be stable.

What Explains Trends in Household Debt in Canada?

Similar to the experiences in many other countries, household indebtedness in Canada has exhibited an upward trend over the past 30 years. Both mortgage and non-mortgage (consumer) credit have contributed to this development. In this article, the authors use microdata to highlight the main factors underlying the strong trend increase since the late 1990s. Favourable housing affordability, owing to factors such as income growth and low interest rates, has supported significant increases in home-ownership rates and mortgage debt. Much of the rise in consumer credit has been facilitated by higher housing values (used as collateral for loans) and financial innovation that makes it easier for households to access this credit.

Some Stylized Facts on the Finance-Dominated Accumulation Regime

While there is an agreement that the Fordist accumulation regime has come to an end in the course of the 1970s, there is no agreement on how to characterize the post-Fordist regime (or if a such is already in place). The paper seeks put together various arguments related to financialization (in the broad sense) from a macroeconomic point of view and investigate the relevance of these arguments by means of an analysis stylized facts for EU countries. The paper discusses changes in investment behaviour, consumption behaviour and government expenditures, investigating to what extent changes are related to financialization. Households experience higher debt levels. Rising profits of businesses come with only moderate investment. The notion of a “finance-dominated” accumulation regime is proposed to highlight that financial developments crucially shape the pattern and the pace of accumulation. The finance dominated accumulation regime is characterized by a mediocre growth performance and by higher volatility. However, so far deregulated financial markets have not lead to major financial crises in advanced capitalist economies. A possible reason for this is that the size of the state sector has not been substantially reduced despite neoliberal attempts to do so.financialization, finance-dominated accumulation regime, macroeconomics consumption, investment, financial system, financial stability