Making a Voluntary Greek Debt Exchange Work

Within the next couple of months, the Greek government, is supposed to persuade private creditors holding about EUR 200bn in its bonds to voluntarily exchange their existing bonds for new bonds that pay roughly 50 percent less. This may work with large creditors whose failure to participate in a debt exchange could trigger a Greek default, but may not persuade smaller creditors, who will be told that their claims will continue to be fully serviced if they do not participate in the exchange. This paper proposes an approach to dealing with this free rider problem that exploits the fact that with some probability, the proposed exchange might be followed by an involuntary restructuring some time in the future. The idea is to design the new bonds that creditors are offered in the exchange in a way that make them much harder to restructure than the current Greek government bonds. This is easy to do because the vast majority of outstanding Greek government bonds lack standard creditor protections. Hence, creditors would be offered a bond that performs much worse than their current bond if things go according to plan, but much better if things do not. They will accept this instrument if (1) the risk of a new Greek debt restructuring in the medium term is sufficiently high; and (2) there is an expectation that the next restructuring probably will not be voluntary

Do voluntary international environmental agreements work?

We consider the effects of international environmental agreements, using the Sofia Protocol on the reduction of nitrogen oxides. Our analysis utilizes panel data from 25 European countries for the period 1980–96. We divide these countries into “participants” and “non-participants”—that is, those that did and those that did not ratify the Sofia Protocol, respectively. Using a difference in difference estimator, we find that signing the treaty has a significant positive impact on emission reduction. The yearly reduction is approximately 2.4 percent greater than it would have been without the Sofia Protocol.international environmental agreements; public goods; evaluation

The Baptist Church in Warren: Rehabilitation and Preservation Report

The Baptist Church in Warren is located in the Warren Waterfront Historic National Register District. Warren also has a Voluntary Historic District. Both the National Register Nomination and the Voluntary Historic District have regulations which pertain to changes to the exterior view shed of the building. Exterior work on this project will need to abide by the State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations Rehabilitation Code for existing buildings and structures and the Town of Warren Department of Building and Zoning. Exterior work done on a voluntary basis, according to the Warren Voluntary Historic District guidelines, will qualify for a 20% tax credit. The Baptist Church in Warren does not meet the requirements for the local and state tax credit

Funding for voluntary sector infrastructure: a case study analysis

This paper outlines the policy context for grant-making to voluntary sector infrastructure organisations, and describes a qualitative research programme undertaken in the UK in which a detailed study of 20 such grants were investigated from multiple perspectives in terms of their perceived impact after the projects had finished. The grants were selected on tightly determined stratification criteria, from a large pool of grants for voluntary sector infrastructure work made by the Community Fund (one of the distributors of funds to “good causes” from the UK National Lottery). Particular emphasis was placed in the study on assessing the impact on other voluntary and community organisations likely to benefit from the support given to infrastructure organisations. The paper concludes that in general terms, grant-making for voluntary sector infrastructure is an effective way of supporting the voluntary and community sector more generally, although there are important lessons both for funders and for grant-recipients to improve the effectiveness of grant-making in this field

Putting the voluntary sector in its place : geographical perspectives on voluntary activity and social welfare in Glasgow.

The growing political and social significance of the voluntary sector in contemporary welfare reform is reflected in a wide body of research that has emerged in the political and social policy literature since the mid-1980s. While this work adds considerably to our understanding of the changing role of the voluntary welfare sector, these accounts are largely aspatial. Yet, geographical perspectives offer important insights into the development of the voluntary sector at both micro-and macro-levels. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: first we wish to draw attention to what it is that geographers do that may be of interest to those working in the field of social policy; and second, we illustrate why such perspectives are important. Drawing on recently completed work in Glasgow, we demonstrate how geographical approaches can contribute to a greater understanding of the uneven development of the voluntary sector across space and how voluntary organisations become embedded in particular places. By unravelling some of the complex webs of inter-relationships that operate across the geographical and political spaces that extend from national to local we reveal some unique insights into those factors that act to facilitate or constrain the development of voluntary activity across the city with implications for access, service delivery and policy development. Hence, we maintain, that geographical approaches to voluntarism are important for social policy as such approaches argue that where events occur matter to both their form and outcome

Personalisation and its implications for work and employment in the voluntary sector

This report assesses the impact of personalisation on social care, particularly focussing on implications for the workforce. Personalisation is often presented as being transformative in the manner in which it empowers both people who use services and employees. The report considers the latter aspect in particular by assessing some of the workforce implications of personalisation. It reports research drawn from policymakers and three voluntary organisations, with interviews with managers, employees and people who use services. The main findings from the research are: Policymakers were enthusiastic about the potential benefits of personalisation with regard to the opportunities for the independence of people who receive services and enhancement of workforce skills. Policymakers feared the impact of public spending cuts and recognised the cultural and operational barriers within local authorities to the implementation of personalisation. Policymakers were enthusiastic about the role of the voluntary sector and its workforce in terms of its contribution to delivering personalised services, whilst recognising concerns about skills gaps among employees and the impact of deteriorating terms and conditions of employment on worker morale. Management in the three organisations largely embraced the principles of personalisation, whilst also recognising the pressure from local authorities to use the personalisation agenda to cut costs. Employees in the main understood the principles of personalisation but revealed limited awareness of the implications for the changes in service budgets. Organisations were changing their approach to staff recruitment in order to develop a better fit between the interests of people receiving services and employees delivering them. Management anticipated significant changes to the working hours of employees providing personalised services, which was met with a degree of anxiety among some employees. Management recognised the need to address skills gaps among employees in areas such as risk enablement, decision-making and community connecting. Employees generally welcomed the potential enhancement of their skills through personalisation. Job security concerns were apparent among the majority of front-line employees as a consequence of personalisation. Organisations were balancing the move towards risk enablement and cutting costs with the need to protect service user and worker health and safety, particularly in relation to managing challenging behavior. Personalisation brings with it the potential to fragment pay and conditions away from collective terms towards linking them more closely to the value of individual service budgets. People who receive services revealed limited awareness of changes to service budgets, their choices over the service provider, choices over who provides their services and there was limited evidence of empowerment and greater choice

Giving Miss Marple a makeover : graduate recruitment, systems failure and the Scottish voluntary sector

The voluntary sector in Scotland, as across the globe, is becoming increasingly business like. Resultantly, there is an increasing demand for graduates to work in business and support functions. In Scotland, however, despite an oversupply of graduates in the labor market, the voluntary sector reports skills shortages for graduate-level positions; a leadership deficit was also reported in countries such as the United States. Through exploratory, mainly qualitative, case study and stakeholder research, this article proposes that one reason for this mismatch between the supply of and demand for graduates is a systems failure within the sector. Many graduates and university students remain unaware of potentially suitable paid job opportunities, in part because of the sector's voluntary label. To rectify this systems failure, thought needs to be given to the sector's nomenclature and the manner in which voluntary sector organizations attract graduate recruits, for example, through levering value congruence in potential recruits

Labour status and involuntary employment: family ties and part-time work in Spain

The aim of the paper is a gender analysis of the extent to which parttime work represents an individual’s preferred labor market situation. The work includes a theoretical model that delivers some predictions about the household’s preferences over non-chosen employment states. Furthermore, it explores the impact of individual, family and job related variables on the probabilities of involuntary and voluntary part-time employment in Spain. The main empirical findings of the paper are: first, the model is sensitive to the chosen definition of (voluntary) part-time employment; second, there exist important gender asymmetries in labour market behaviour concerning the importance of the individual’s education and family characteristics; third, the marital status and having small children are important determinants of a woman’s probability of being voluntary part-time employed, whereas having grown up children or a temporary contract increases significantly a woman’s probability of involuntary part-time employment.part-time work, involuntary employment, family ties and labour supply.

Unit-Level Voluntary Turnover Rates and Customer Service Quality: Implications of Group Cohesiveness, Newcomer Concentration, and Size

Despite substantial growth in the service industry and emerging work on turnover consequences, little research examines how unit-level turnover rates affect essential customer-related outcomes. The authors propose an operational disruption framework to explain why voluntary turnover impairs customers’ service quality perceptions. Based on a sample of 75 work units and data from 5,631 employee surveys, 59,602 customer surveys, and organizational records, results indicate that unit-level voluntary turnover rates are negatively related to service quality perceptions. The authors also examine potential boundary conditions related to the disruption framework. Of three moderators studied (group cohesiveness, group size, and newcomer concentration), results show that turnover’s negative effects on service quality are more pronounced in larger units and in those with a greater concentration of newcomers

Legislation regulating voluntary work

Voluntary work is a major asset in the Finnish event production. Many of the biggest events could not function without the contribution of the voluntary workers. However, there are no certain laws set on voluntary work in Finland but, instead, clauses of various laws are used. Therefore the legislation is inaccurate and open to interpretation. The main objective of the thesis was to examine what the legislation on voluntary work consisted of, and how it was practically applied in the Finnish event production. The study mostly focused on music events, such as festivals, as well as voluntary organizations functioning in the same industry. The thesis was assigned by Niko Wilkinson who works as a producer in World Village Festival. The theoretical foundation of the thesis was based on virtual and printed literature, articles and theses related to this topic. The study was implemented by following the principles of qualitative research. Five professionals of the event production field were interviewed in order to gain information about how the legislation actualized in practice. Those interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews, and the answers were analyzed by using content analysis. Based on the interviews as well as the data collected for the theoretical foundation, a manual concerning the legislation regulating voluntary work was compiled. The manual combines the most essential aspects in one document and also maps out the biggest problems and gives solutions to them. As a result of the research, it was discovered that the legislation did actualize properly in the festivals and in the voluntary organization, and most of all, that everybody wanted to follow the legislation as well as they could. Nevertheless, when the legislation is being interpreted and applied in practice, there are as many interpretations and implementations as there are interpreters. This is because of the inaccuracy and conciseness of the legislation.Vapaaehtoistyö on tärkeä voimavara suomalaisessa tapahtumatuotannossa. Ilman vapaaehtoistyöntekijöitä monilla tapahtumilla ei olisi tarvittavia edellytyksiä toimintaansa. Vaikka vapaaehtoistyötä käytetään paljon, Suomessa ei ole yhtenäistä ja selkeää lainsäädäntöä vapaaehtoistyöstä, vaan se on hajautettu useiden työehtolakien alle. Siksi lainsäädäntö on hyvin epätarkka ja tulkinnanvarainen. Tämän opinnäytetyön tärkein tavoite oli selvittää, mistä vapaaehtoistyötä säätelevä lakinsäädäntö koostuu, ja miten se käytännössä toteutuu suomalaisessa tapahtumatuotannossa. Tutkimus keskittyi pääasiassa musiikkitapahtumiin, kuten festivaaleihin, sekä musiikin saralla toimiviin vapaaehtoistyötä käyttäviin organisaatioihin. Opinnäytetyön toimeksiantajana oli Maailma Kylässä-festivaalin tuottaja Niko Wilkinson. Tutkimus toteutettiin noudattamalla laadullisen tutkimuksen periaatteita. Tiedon saamiseksi haastateltiin viittä tapahtumatuotannon ammattilaista. Haastattelut toteutettiin puolistrukturoituina teemahaastatteluina ja vastaukset analysoitiin sisällönanalyysilla. Haastattelujen ja teorian avulla koottiin vapaaehtoistyön lainsäädäntöä käsittelevä manuaali. Manuaaliin on koottu tärkeimmät asiat, jotka tapahtumatuottajien tulee huomioida vapaaehtoistyön lainsäädännössä, kartoitettu lainsäädännön suurimmat ongelmat ja pyritty etsimään niihin ratkaisut. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että vapaaehtoistyötä säätelevä lainsäädäntö toteutuu hyvin festivaaleilla ja vapaaehtoistyötä käyttävässä organisaatiossa. Kaikki haastateltavat haluavat noudattaa lakia parhaansa mukaan. Lainsäädännön tulkinnanvaraisuuden ja epätarkkuuden vuoksi tilanne on kuitenkin se, että lakia tulkittaessa, tulkintoja on yhtä paljon kuin tulkitsijoita