Place-based approaches to child and family services

This paper synthesizes the conceptual and empirical literature on place-based approaches to meeting the needs of young children and their families. A specific focus of the paper is on the potential contribution of place-based approaches to service reconfiguration and coordination. Outline The paper begins by outlining the sweeping social changes that have occurred in developed nations over the past few decades and their impact on children, families and communities. It explores the ‘joined up’ problems faced by families and communities in the contemporary world, and highlights the need to reconfigure services to support families more effectively. The paper then focuses on ‘joined up’ solutions, on what we know about how to meet the challenges posed by the complex problems that characterise our society. Next, the paper explores what a place-based approach involves, and what role it can play in supporting families with young children. The rationale underpinning place-based approaches is outlined and the evidence for the effectiveness of the approach is summarised. The paper then looks at what can be learned from efforts to implement place-based initiatives in Australia and overseas, and explores the issues that need to be addressed in implementing this strategy. The ways in which the early childhood service system might be reconfigured are also considered, and the paper ends with a consideration of the policy and implementation implications.&nbsp

Answering the Critics: Yes, ARCH Models Do Provide Good Volatility Forecasts

Volatility permeates modern financial theories and decision making processes. As such, accurate measures and good forecasts of future volatility are critical for the implementation and evaluation of asset pricing theories. In response to this, a voluminous literature has emerged for modeling the temporal dependencies in financial market volatility at the daily and lower frequencies using ARCH and stochastic volatility type models. Most of these studies find highly significant in-sample parameter estimates and pronounced intertemporal volatility persistence. Meanwhile, when judged by standard forecast evaluation criteria, based on the squared or absolute returns over daily or longer forecast horizons, ARCH models provide seemingly poor volatility forecasts. The present paper demonstrates that ARCH models, contrary to the above contention, produce strikingly accurate interdaily forecasts for the latent volatility factor that is relevant for most financial applications.

How to Allocate R&D (and Other) Subsidies: An Experimentally Tested Policy Recommendation

This paper evaluates how R&D subsidies to the business sector are typically awarded. We identify two sources of ine_ciency: the selection based on a ranking of individual projects, rather than complete allocations, and the failure to induce competition among applicants in order to extract and use information about the necessary funding. In order to correct these ine_- ciencies we propose mechanisms that include some form of an auction in which applicants bid for subsidies. Our proposals are tested in a simulation and in controlled lab experiments. The results suggest that adopting our proposals may considerably improve the allocation

Sickness Absence: An International Comparison

Previous attempts to analyse international differences in patterns of worker absenteeism have not been convincing because of the difficulty in obtaining internationally comparable data. In this paper, we apply the technique described by Barmby, Ercolani and Treble(1999) to data on full-time workers in 9 countries who have deposited Labour Force Survey returns with the Luxembourg Employment Study. We use the resulting dataset to verify relationships between absence and age, gender and other socio-economic characteristics of workers. These relationships prove to be similar across countries with widely differing mean rates of absence. Since our dataset uses individual observations we are also able to carry out a multivariate analysis of absence and its correlates. The most revealing result of the analysis is that the gender difference in absence rates that is apparent in the raw data is shown to be entirely due to differences in the age structures of the male and female workforce and their marital status.

Primary schools as community hubs: a review of the literature

Considerable work has been undertaken over several years to establish primary schools as community hubs in the City of Hume through the Hubs Strategy Group for the Hume Communities for Children Initiative and, more recently, the Supporting Parents Developing Children project. This work has highlighted the need for a primary school community hub toolkit. The purpose of this review is to inform the development of a resource (e.g. a toolkit) that can be used by other schools so that they can also establish themselves as community hubs. An agreed definition of schools as community hubs within the literature has not been reached. Rather, the notion of schools as community hubs seems to be understood in a variety of ways. For the purposes of this review we will draw on the definitions provided by Black (2008) and the Hubs Strategy Group for the Broadmeadows Communities for Children Initiative (2009). Black (2008) describes hubs as involving \u27collaboration between school education systems and the other sectors (community, business, local government and philanthropy) to support the learning and wellbeing of young people, especially those facing disadvantage\u27 (p. 6). These collaborations can range from sharing, co-locating or joint use of physical facilities, through to schools as the centre of a hub or precinct that offers multiple services for the whole community. In the City of Hume, the Hubs Strategy Group have conceptualised a hub as, a welcoming place for families that engages key service providers to work collaboratively. A hub can be a single location or a network of places working together to provide services, such as schools, kindergartens, maternal and child health, and other relevant agencies. Hubs facilitate connections between key services and professionals and represent a paradigm shift in the planning and practice of service provision. Services and their staff are required to rethink existing practice to move to an inclusive practices framework at a professional and community level. &nbsp

How to Allocate R&D (and Other) Subsidies: An Experimentally Tested Policy Recommendation

This paper evaluates how R&D subsidies to the business sector are typically awarded. We identify two sources of ine_ciency: the selection based on a ranking of individual projects, rather than complete allocations, and the failure to induce competition among applicants in order to extract and use information about the necessary funding. In order to correct these ine_- ciencies we propose mechanisms that include some form of an auction in which applicants bid for subsidies. Our proposals are tested in a simulation and in controlled lab experiments. The results suggest that adopting our proposals may considerably improve the allocation.Research; Subsidies; Experimental Economics