Voice, Perspective, Truth, and Justice: Race and the Mountain in the Legal Academy

Sedan tidigt 90-tal har det pågått en diskussion om den evidensbaserade praktikens vara eller inte vara inom socialtjänsten. Evidensbaserad praktik är en metod där den bästa tillgängliga evidensen, den egna erfarenheten samt klientens preferenser utgör grunden för professionella beslut. För att möjliggöra en sådan praktik måste bedömningar och dokumentation inom socialtjänsten utföras mer standardiserat. Förespråkarna, däribland Socialstyrelsen, menar att arbetets och insatsers effekt måste kunna mätas för att förbättras. Importen av evidensbaserad praktik i socialtjänst är dock förknippat med en rad svårigheter och vissa menar att det är ett hot mot de professioner som finns inom det sociala arbetet. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken inställning yrkesverksamma socialsekreterare har till evidensbaserad praktik. I det här arbetet utgår vi ifrån Lipskys gräsrotsbyråkrati för att undersöka socialsekreterarnas inställning. Teorin ger möjlighet att förklara organisationers beteende utifrån enskilda socialsekreterares yrkesutövning och inställningar. Studien är kvantitativ och data har samlats in via en enkät. Fyra socialkontor deltog i studien, tre från Stockholm och ett från Katrineholm. Totalt besvarade 67 socialsekreterare enkäten och resultaten från undersökningen är ganska lika resultat från tidigare forskning. Resultatet blev en ganska tydlig positiv inställning till evidensbaserad praktik, eller åtminstone till delar av evidensbaserad praktik. En möjlig förklaring till detta är socialsekreterarnas upplevda arbetsbelastning, där hög arbetsbelastning ger en mer positiv inställning till evidensbaserad praktik

On Envelope Theorems in Economics: Inspired by a Revival of a Forgotten Lecture

This paper studies how envelope theorems have been used in Economics, their history and also who first introduced them. The existing literature is full of them and the reason is that all families of optimal value functions can produce them. The paper is driven by curiosity, but hopefully it will give the reader some new insights.Envelope theorems; names and history; value functions

Food security, poverty, and economic policy in the Middle East and North Africa

In MENA, household food insecurity, which is closely related to poverty and undernourishment, is most severe in rural areas and concentrated within Iraq, Sudan, and Yemen. 25% of the MENA population may be poor and 7% undernourished. The key to increased national and household-level food security is pro-poor growth, driven by export-oriented, labor-intensive sectors. Agricultural sector policies should be subordinate to the pro-poor growth goal and not to the goal of food self-sufficiency. Such a strategy requires conflict resolution; macroeconomic stability; physical and human capital accumulation; reliance on markets and the private sector, and diffusion of ecologically friendly farming practices.food security ,Poverty ,Africa, North ,Middle East ,Development policies ,Economic policy ,

Welfare Theory: History and Modern Results

This paper contains a fairly brief, but self-contained, version of the history of welfare economics, as well as the more modern welfare results. We introduce public goods and asymmetric information, and we hint at some of the modern mechanism design results. The paper also contains a section on welfare measures in a dynamic economy.Welfare Theory;

Sick Pay, Health and Work

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of different sickness insurance regimes on the employee decision reporting sick or not. We can think of the design problem as a representative employer’s decision to determine the optimal relationship between the wage and the sickness pay. The employee bases her decision to work or not on this relative price and her exogenously given health status that varies between individuals. We believe that the incentives present in the model are able to tell as about relevant aspects of the incentives involved in a state managed sickness insurance system. We calculate how the control variables depend on parameters such as the average productivity of the worker, the average productivity of the substitute, the wage of the substitute, and the search cost to find a substitute. Since we assume that the health status of the work force is heterogeneous and represented by a distribution function, we are also able to calculate the change in the work participation rate, as a function of the parameters.Sickness insurance design; wage setting; and labour force participation

On the Choice of Metrics in Dynamic Welfare Analysis: Utility versus Money Measures

This paper is concerned with the choice of metrics for social cost-benefit analysis and dynamic welfare comparisons. In a utility-theoretic framework, we show that there is always a money measure that can serve as a substitute for the maximized utility wealth. Thus, under the non-arbitrage course of discount rate, the choice between utility and money measures has no real effect on project evaluations. We also define a generalized comprehensive net national product measure with a consumer surplus term incorporated, which is completely consistent with the Weitzman foundation. It is shown that while a green (comprehensive) NNP growth simply reflects the income effect, the change in consumer surplus captures the welfare effect of relative price changes. We argue that the reason for green NNP to be a weak welfare indicator is not due to its choice of money metric per se but the ignorance of a consumer surplus term.Dynamic cost-benefit analysis; green national accounting; utility versus money metrics; Weitzman´s theorem

Using Ex Post Data to Estimate the Hurdle Rate of Abatement Investments – An Application to the Swedish Pulp and Paper Industry and Energy Sector

We propose a method for estimating hurdlerates for firms' investments in pollution abatement technology, using expost data. The method is based on a structural option value model where thefuture price of polluting fuel is the major source of uncertainty facing thefirm. The econometric procedure is illustrated using a panel of firms fromthe Swedish pulp and paper industry, and the energy and heating sector from2000 to 2003. The results indicate a hurdle rate of investment of almost 3in the pulp and paper industry and almost 4 in the energy and heating sector.option value; fuel price uncertainty; carbon emissions abatement; price uncertainty; panel data

Evaluating Projects in a Dynamic Economy: Some New Envelope Results

This paper is concerned with the modern theory of social cost-bene.t analysis in a dynamic economy. The theory emphasizes the role of a comprehensive, forward- looking, dynamic welfare index within the period of the project rather than that of a project.s long-term consequences. However, what constitutes such a welfare index remains controversial in the recent literature. In this paper, we attempt to shed light on the issue by deriving three equivalent cost-bene.t rules for evaluating a small project. In particular, we show that the direct change in net national product (NNP) quali.es as a convenient welfare index without involving any other induced side e¤ects. The project evaluation criterion thus becomes the present discounted value of the direct changes in NNP over the project period. We also illustrate the application of this theory in a few stylized examples.dynamic cost-bene.t analysis; net national product; project evaluation; welfare index

Genuine Saving under Stochastic Growth

The concept of genuine saving appeared for the first time in a proof of a now well known theorem in Weitzman (1976). It was reinvented and used as a local welfare indicator by Pearce and Atkinson (1993). The purpose of this paper is to generalize this welfare measure to a stochastic Brownian motion context. We will use a stochastic version of a growth model introduced by Ramsey (1928). The particular model was developed by Merton (1975). Although the model is simple, it is enough to understand what its welfare results will look like in a general case.Welfare measures under growth and uncertainty; diversified risk versus undiversified risk