197 research outputs found
Occupy: in theory and practice
This paper situates the discourse of the Occupy movement within the context of radical political philosophy. Our analysis takes place on two levels. First, we conduct an empirical analysis of the âofficialâ publications of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Occupy London (OL). Operationalising core concepts from the framing perspective within social movement theory, we provide a descriptive-comparative analysis of the âcollective action framesâ of OWS and OL. Second, we consider the extent to which radical political philosophy speaks to the discourse of Occupy. Our empirical analysis reveals that both movements share diagnostic frames, but there were notable differences in terms of prognostic framing. The philosophical discussion suggests that there are alignments between anarchist, post-anarchist and post-Marxist ideologies at the level of both identity and strategy. Indeed, the absence of totalising anti-capitalist or anti-statist positions in Occupy suggests that â particularly with Occupy London â alignments are perhaps not so distant from typically social democratic demands
Decomposing the misery index: A dynamic approach
YesThe misery index (the unweighted sum of unemployment and inflation
rates) was probably the first attempt to develop a single statistic to measure the level
of a populationâs economic malaise. In this letter, we develop a dynamic approach to
decompose the misery index using two basic relations of modern macroeconomics:
the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and Okunâs law. Our reformulation of the
misery index is closer in spirit to Okunâs idea. However, we are able to offer an improved
version of the index, mainly based on output and unemployment. Specifically,
this new Okunâs index measures the level of economic discomfort as a function of
three key factors: (1) the misery index in the previous period; (2) the output gap in
growth rate terms; and (3) cyclical unemployment. This dynamic approach differs
substantially from the standard one utilised to develop the misery index, and allow
us to obtain an index with five main interesting features: (1) it focuses on output,
unemployment and inflation; (2) it considers only objective variables; (3) it allows
a distinction
between short-run and long-run phenomena; (4) it places more
importance
on output and unemployment rather than inflation; and (5) it weights
recessions
more than expansions
A simple framework for analysing the impact of economic growth on non-communicable diseases
YesNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) are currently the leading cause of
death worldwide. In this paper, we examine the channels through which economic
growth affects NCDsâ epidemiology. Following a production function approach, we
develop a basic technique to break up the impact of economic growth on NCDs into
three fundamental components: (1) a resource effect; (2) a behaviour effect; and (3)
a knowledge effect. We demonstrate that each of these effects can be measured as
the product of two elasticities, the output and income elasticity of the three leading
factors influencing the frequency of NCDs in any population: health care, healthrelated
behaviours and lifestyle, and medical knowledge
Measuring Individual Material Well-Being Using Multidimensional Indices: An Application Using the Gender and Generation Survey for Russia
This paper suggests a new and comprehensive approach to the assessment of the material well-being at the individual level by constructing a multidimensional index. Using this approach, material well-being is understood as a generic notion that covers a number of different domains, whereas the concept of domain is used to distinguish between different aspects of peopleâs resources, including income security, basic needs, durables, housing and subjective material well-being. Each dimension is measured independently, using the best indicators available, to generate a score or domain index for each aspect of material well-being. The procedure of re-weighting the indicators within the separate domains enables us to account for the disparity in resources and consumer preferences across different population subgroups. The final domain scores, combined with explicit weighting, are then used to generate a summary material well-being index. The domain indices and the summary material well-being index are validated by exploring their relationships to key socio-economic attributes, which were previously shown to be strongly associated with individual material well-being. The results showed that the summary indices of material well-being are characterized by greater differentiation in relation to such measures, as occupational class and judgments of satisfaction with oneâs life. This allows us to conclude that our summary indices capture the latent concept of material well-being better than any of our domain indices used separately. Although the index is constructed using the Russian Gender and Generation Survey data for 2007, the methodological approach that we applied can be easily replicated in other surveys which contain information on several aspects of material well-being
Class in contemporary Britain: comparing the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (CCSE) project and the Great British Class Survey (GBCS)
The paper discusses the salience of class in Britain in relation to the experiment of the BBCâacademic partnership of the Great British Class Survey (GBCS). It addresses the claimed inauguration of a third phase in class analysis in the UK sparked by the experiment. This is done by considering three main issues. First, the GBCS experiment is situated in the context of various explorations of cultural class analyses, and chiefly in relation to the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (CCSE) project (ESRC funded 2003â6). Secondly, the focus is on the influence of the academic turn to big data for the procedures and claims of the project, and some implications of the methodological choices. Thirdly, attention is turned to the deleterious effects of commercial and institutional pressures on the current research culture in which the experiment exists
Taxes and Fiscal Sociology
This article reviews recent research in fiscal sociology. We specifically examine contributions to the study of taxation that illuminate core issues in the sociology of contemporary capitalism, including the causes of poverty and inequality in rich countries and of inequality between rich and poor countries. Research on developed countries suggests that tax policy changes are important for explaining rising income inequality, tax policies may structure durable inequalities of race and gender, and earnings-conditional tax subsidies may alleviate poverty more effectively and with less stigma than means-tested social spending. Scholars also find the most generous welfare states rely the most heavily on regressive taxes, although there is disagreement over how this association arises. Comparative research on developing countries shows consumption taxes are more conducive to growth than taxes on income, tax-financed spending benefits growth if it is spent on productive investments, and taxation strengthened democracy and state building in medieval and early modern Europe. However, there is disagreement as to whether taxation contributes to state building in contemporary developing countries and whether foreign aid undermines democracy by undermining taxation. These questions are the focus of considerable current research
A Review of occupation-based social classifications for social survey research
This article is a review of issues associated with measuring occupations and using occupation-based socio-economic classifications in social science research. The review is orientated towards researchers who undertake secondary analysis of large-scale micro-level social science datasets. This article begins with an outline of how to handle raw occupational information. This is followed by an introduction to the two main approaches to measuring occupations and a third lesser known but intellectually innovative approach. The three approaches are social class schemes, social stratification scales and the microclass approach. International comparisons are briefly described and a discussion of intersectionality with other key variables such as age and gender is provided. We are careful to emphasise that this article does not advocate the uncritical adoption of any one particular occupation-based socio-economic measure over and above other alternatives. Rather, we are advocating that researchers should choose from the portfolio of existing socio-economic measures in an informed and empirically defensible way, and we strongly advocate undertaking sensitivity analyses. We conclude that researchers should always use existing socio-economic measures that have agreed on and well-documented standards. We strongly advise researchers not to develop their own measures without strong justification nor to use existing measures in an un-prescribed or ad hoc manner
HIV Partner Notification: Predictors of Discussion and Agreements from Provider Reports
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