Active Labour Market Programmes and Poverty Dynamics in Ireland: 1994-2001

Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which provide training and subsidised employment to the unemployed, are an important part of Ireland’s welfare state. While a good deal of existing research is concerned with the effect of these policies on employment chances and on wage rates, none addresses the connection between poverty and ALMPs. Do these policies have an effect on poverty? That is, first, to what extent do these policies serve the low-income population, as a consequence of and in addition to their focus on those in precarious labour market situations? Second, to what extent do these policies function to lift people out of poverty in the medium term? To address these issues we use longitudinal data from the Living in Ireland Survey (1994–2001) and examine how the respondents’ situation in one year predicts participation in employment and training schemes in the next year, and then how participation in these schemes affects poverty status in the following year. Participants on both sorts of schemes are much poorer than the population average, and those on employment schemes (but not training schemes) are even poorer than one would expect given their observed characteristics. Employment schemes and training schemes serve different purposes and different populations. A conventional logistic regression analysis seems to suggest that employment schemes (but not training schemes) positively increase the risk of poverty in the following year. This finding is not considered reliable, but rather it reflects the selection processes whereby those on employment schemes are in particularly vulnerable situations, in respects that are not picked up in the data set. A more rigorous analysis, using propensity score matching, reveals that employment schemes are neutral on poverty risk. Training schemes have a weak but insignificant protective effect. Considering the risk of poverty approximately one year after participation begins, employment schemes (and to a lesser extent, training schemes) do not provide a mechanism for immediately exiting poverty. We add the caveat that it may be desirable to consider outcomes two or more years into the future, were data available, and that other outcome measures of quality of life should also be taken into account. Ultimately, with regard to both labour market and poverty outcomes, we find no evidence that participants of training schemes or employment schemes have either raised their employment chances or reduced their risk of poverty in the year following their participation.active labour market programmes; ALMP; propensity score matching; employment policy; Ireland

Active Labour Market Programmes and Poverty Dynamics in Ireland

Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which provide training and subsidised employment to the unemployed, are an important part of Ireland’s welfare state. While a good deal of existing research is concerned with the effect of these policies on employment chances and on wage rates, none addresses the connection between poverty and ALMPs. Do these policies have an effect on poverty? That is, first, to what extent do these policies serve the low-income population, as a consequence of and in addition to their focus on those in precarious labour market situations? Second, to what extent do these policies function to lift people out of poverty in the medium term? To address these issues we use longitudinal data from the Living in Ireland Survey (1994–2001) and examine how the respondents’ situation in one year predicts participation in employment and training schemes in the next year, and then how participation in these schemes affects poverty status in the following year. Participants on both sorts of schemes are much poorer than the population average, and those on employment schemes (but not training schemes) are even poorer than one would expect given their observed characteristics. Employment schemes and training schemes serve different purposes and different populations. A conventional logistic regression analysis seems to suggest that employment schemes (but not training schemes) positively increase the risk of poverty in the following year. This finding is not considered reliable, but rather it reflects the selection processes whereby those on employment schemes are in particularly vulnerable situations, in respects that are not picked up in the data set. A more rigorous analysis, using propensity score matching, reveals that employment schemes are neutral on poverty risk. Training schemes have a weak but insignificant protective effect. Considering the risk of poverty approximately one year after participation begins, employment schemes (and to a lesser extent, training schemes) do not provide a mechanism for immediately exiting poverty. We add the caveat that it may be desirable to consider outcomes two or more years into the future, were data available, and that other outcome measures of quality of life should also be taken into account. Ultimately, with regard to both labour market and poverty outcomes, we find no evidence that participants of training schemes or employment schemes have either raised their employment chances or reduced their risk of poverty in the year following their participation.active labour market programmes; ALMP; propensity score matching; employment policy

The Role of Active Labour Market Programmes in Employment Policy

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Irish labour market since approximately 1980 with a particular focus on the central role of active labour market programmes in public policy. Active labour market programmes (ALMP) is an umbrella term for all measures aimed at increasing either the supply of or demand for labour. We will outline the theoretical rationale for labour market programmes and discuss their implementation and development in the Irish context. Specifically we will outline the levels of expenditure and throughput on labour market programmes and attempt to place Ireland in a comparative international perspective. Briefly we will examine some of the attempts which have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of labour market programmes in terms of the employment and income outcomes of participants. We will pay particular attention to long-term unemployment which was such a key feature of the Irish labour market throughout the 1980s and 1990s.Public Policy, Employment Policy, Active Labour Market Prorgammes, Active Labor Market Progams, ALMP, Ireland

Property taxes

A levy of just $2 for every$1000 of unimproved land value would raise $7 billion a year with an annual charge of$772 on the median-priced Sydney home, $560 on the median-priced Melbourne home, and lower average rates in other cities and the regions, according to this report. Summary Property Taxes, the second working paper in Grattan’s Budget Repair series, finds that a levy of just$2 for every $1000 of unimproved land value would raise$7 billion a year with an annual charge of $772 on the median-priced Sydney home,$560 on the median-priced Melbourne home, and lower average rates in other cities and the regions. The first working paper, Fiscal Challenges for Australia, found that state budgets are under pressure, with spending in health, education and other areas growing faster than GDP. State revenues are also threatened by the Commonwealth’s decision in last year’s budget to substantially reduce promised funding to the states for hospitals and schools. Current attention is focussed on the worsening Commonwealth deficit, but states and territories have a looming funding gap, and have provided little insight into how they are going to fill it. A broad-based property levy calculated from the council rates base would be the best revenue measure to fill that gap. While property taxes can be unpopular because they are highly visible and hard to avoid, they are also efficient and fair, and don’t change incentives to work, save and invest. Unlike capital, property is immobile – it cannot shift offshore to avoid taxes. Over the last 25 years, tax on property and property transactions have been the only significant growth taxes for states, with revenues keeping pace with the economy. Grattan’s proposal is manageable for property landowners, and protects low-income people. Low-income retirees with high-value houses could defer paying the levy until their house is sold. The levy could also be used to fund the reduction and eventual abolition of stamp duties, among the most inefficient and inequitable state taxes. Shifting from stamp duty to a property levy would provide more stable revenues for states and add up to $9 billion in annual GDP. &nbsp

Block Motion Changes in Japan Triggered by the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake

Plate motions are governed by equilibrium between basal and edge forces. Great earthquakes may induce differential static stress changes across tectonic plates, enabling a new equilibrium state. Here we consider the torque balance for idealized circular plates and find a simple scalar relationship for changes in relative plate speed as a function of its size, upper mantle viscosity, and coseismic stress changes. Applied to Japan, the 2011 $\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{W}}=9.0$ Tohoku earthquake generated coseismic stresses of $10^2-10^5$~Pa that could have induced changes in motion of small (radius $\sim100$~km) crustal blocks within Honshu. Analysis of time-dependent GPS velocities, with corrections for earthquake cycle effects, reveals that plate speeds may have changed by up to $\sim3$ mm/yr between $\sim3.75$-year epochs bracketing this earthquake, consistent with an upper mantle viscosity of $\sim 5\times10^{18}$Pa$\cdot$s, suggesting that great earthquakes may modulate motions of proximal crustal blocks at frequencies as high as $10^-8$~Hz

A Dataset of Gaze Behavior in VR Faithful to Natural Statistics

Eye tracking technology is advancing swiftly and many areas of research have begun taking advantage of this. Existing eye trackers project gaze onto a 2D plane, whether it be the display of a head mounted virtual reality (VR) helmet or an image of a real life scene the user is in. This allows us to easily analyze what a viewer is looking at, but limits classification of gaze behaviors from this type of signal. Instead, a system that takes into account head movements within the same space as gaze velocity allows researchers to classify more advanced gaze behaviors such as smooth pursuits and fixations resulting from vestibulo-ocular reflex. For this work data is collected in real world environments where head and gaze movements are recorded over a variety of tasks. The resulting data is then used to construct a distribution of naturally occurring gaze behaviors. This distribution is then used to drive a VR data collection experiment that elicits specific gaze behaviors such as fixations and saccades with specific velocities and directions. A dataset of 12 subjects was collected while subjects play a shooting game in the virtual world. Data was analyzed to see if the intended eye movements were produced, and also to compare the eye movements that occur in fast versus slow presentation of targets

The Application of the Hermeneutic Process to Qualitative Safety Data: A Case Study using Data from the CIRAS project

This article describes the new qualitative methodology developed for use in CIRAS (Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System), the confidential database set up for the UK railways by the University of Strathclyde. CIRAS is a project in which qualitative safety data are disidentified and then stored and analysed in a central database. Due to the confidential nature of the data provided, conventional (positivist) methods of checking their accuracy are not applicable; therefore a new methodology was developed - the Applied Hermeneutic Methodology (AHM). Based on Paul Ricoeur's `hermeneutic arc', this methodology uses appropriate computer software to provide a method of analysis that can be shown to be reliable (in the sense that consensus in interpretations between different interpreters can be demonstrated). Moreover, given that the classifiers of the textual elements can be represented in numeric form, AHM crosses the `qualitative-quantitative divide'. It is suggested that this methodology is more rigorous and philosophically coherent than existing methodologies and that it has implications for all areas of the social sciences where qualitative texts are analysed