A Decade of Changing Pattern of Poverty in Great Britain

It has been noted in the literature that failure to meet the target set by government for reducing the headcount ratio of child poverty in Britain is partly due to the success of government policy in generating economic growth. Apart from missing the argument that absolute poverty is not a meaningful idea, this apology for the failure of government to meet poverty targets also misses wider problems embedded in recent trends in household income distribution. For example, inequality measures that are sensitive to the distribution of income amongst the poor suggest that the experience of those who have failed to benefit from government policy and remained poor has worsened. Also, households containing no children have been neglected.household income distribution, poverty reduction

Changing Pattern of Poverty 1997-2004

It has been noted that failure to meet the target set by government for reducing the head count ratio of child poverty in Britain is partly due to the success of government policy in generating economic growth. Apart from missing the argument that absolute poverty is not a meaningful idea, this apology for the failure of government to meet poverty targets also misses wider problems embedded in recent trends in the household income distribution. For example, inequality measures sensitive to the distribution of income amongst the poor suggest that the experience of those remained poor may have worsened.Poverty, Child Poverty, Income Distribution, FGT, Great Britain.

Vani K Borooah & Colin Knox, The Economics of Schooling in a Divided Society: The Case for Shared Education

Abstract. Our identity is defined by the stories we tell about the past and the stories that we suppress. Segregation in schooling by religion at an early age inculcates a narrative of identity that excludes the other. That is not helpful for either peace or prosperity. This book discusses one aspect of the peace process in a conflict society, Northern Ireland, which is attempting to break the circle of violence. The authors examine the potential benefits of integrated education.Keywords. Majoritarian Democracy; School Quality; Ulster.JEL. D72; I2; P16

Do credit markets have faith in IMF imprimatur?

This paper examines the effect of the IMF imprimatur on the cost of borrowing in the international capital markets by investigating over 2600 loan contracts issued to public and private sector borrowers located in countries experiencing balance of payments problems between 1993 and 2001. The data are grouped into two samples. Both the samples comprise countries characterised by similar balance of payments problems, but only one of them comprise countries that have availed of IMF assistance. The IMF assisted countries paid more for short term loans and had obtained fewer long term loans compared to their non-IMF peers for the financing of similar purpose projects

An introduction to issues concerning European Trade

Professor Shanti Chakravarty at Bangor University has provided an introduction to issues concerning European Trade.

Judging Justice: Profiling in policing revisited

Government rhetoric about unbiased policing in both the USA and the UK sits uneasily with the practice of targeting disproportionately for scrutiny individuals belonging to certain minority groups in search of law breakers. Disproportionality may be derived from profiling by group membership, reading evidence of the past to predict future behavior. If that exercise fails adequately to account for diversities within groups, interpretation of evidence becomes contaminated by prejudice, stereotyping individuals because of who they are thought to be and not what they are. If the interpretation of evidence is not clouded by prejudice against or animus towards any group, then profiling contributes to technical efficiency, also called efficiency, according to defenders of profiling. Profiling methods having come under attack for potential conflation of prejudice with probability of criminality, a strand of the literature in economics has emerged claiming to bypass the need to examine the profiling method to devise a statistical test for bias in policing. A test for efficiency as a test for the absence of bias is cleverly crafted not requiring knowledge of data and methods used in profiling. We argue that such a test cannot be a sufficient criterion because of what is missed out by the model. The cost to innocents of being targeted in search for the guilty and external costs which may give rise to endogeneity are ignored in the model. We construct numerical examples to illustrate that efficient strategies suggested by models which do not explicitly scrutinize profiling methods can result in troubled outcomes

Analysis of corporate control: how good is the straffin index?

In this paper, Straffin index as a viable voting power index, particularly in corporate analysis is described. Voting power distribution anomaly, practical limitation and lack of clear meanings are listed as possible factors hindering the application of the index. More importantly, this paper introduces ways to determine voter affiliations, two possible lines of enquiry into the meaning behind this index and speculates as to the possible consequences