It would be careless for the government to have to re-openbenefit indexation

As the government reportedly plans to freeze most social security benefits for two years, before uprating them in line with wages rather than prices, Professor Deborah Mabbett investigates the politics of indexation

The regulatory rescue of the Welfare State

The regulatory state and the welfare state can be described in terms of contrasting pairs of ‘types of policies’ and ‘types of politics’ following Lowi (1972). The paradigmatic regulatory type of policy is market coordination, and its type of politics is nonmajoritarian, technical and supranational. The welfare state has redistribution as its paradigmatic type of policy, and the dominant type of politics is majoritarian, party-political and national. This paper dissects these distinctions. Public sector reforms mean that regulatory types of policy can increasingly be found within welfare service provision. Different arrangements for labour market coordination are integral to different welfare state regimes, and at the same time these regulatory arrangements are concerned with combating market failure and promoting efficiency. There are abundant examples of technical, expertocratic policy-making within the welfare state and a high level of supranational policy exchange. Delegation is important to the institutionalisation of the welfare state, as are nonmajoritarian commitments to social rights, secured for example for migrants. These findings cast doubt on the characterisation of welfare state policy-making as political and partisan. It is suggested that the interpenetration of regulatory politics enhances the robustness of the welfare state in the face of international market integration, while at the same time biasing policy towards the promotion of efficiency and suppressing the importance of solidaristic political values

Bringing macroeconomics back into the political economy of reform: The Lisbon Agenda and the 'fiscal philosophy' of EMU

The Lisbon Strategy supports reform of member states’ tax-benefit systems while the ‘fiscal philosophy’ of the EU postulates that governments should allow only automatic stabilisers, built into tax-benefit systems, to smooth aggregate income. We ask whether these two pillars of EU economic governance are compatible. By exploring how structural reforms affect fiscal stabilisation, we complement a political economy literature that asks whether fiscal consolidation fosters or hinders structural reforms. We conclude, based on simulations in EUROMOD, that Lisbon-type reforms may worsen the stabilising capacity of tax-benefit systems

Social regulation through anti-discrimination law: the EU and the US compared

This paper seeks to derive insights into the effect of economic integration on social policy by looking at the application of anti-discrimination rules to social policy categories. The normative motivation for rules prohibiting discrimination in market transactions can be distinguished from the normative basis for nondiscrimination in the relationship between a government and its citizens in social policy. However, the two spheres are closely related. Judicial decision-making, which is of central importance in a federal or multi-level governance structure, mediates this relationship and creates processes of transmission and spillover from market norms to social policy. The paper traces how these spillovers are handled by reviewing cases that have come before the US Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice. It shows that there are some differences in the legal framework in the two polities but also many similarities. However, the spillover process creates more and harder problems in Europe because welfare provisions at the state level are more developed

Kinder Tools: the effectiveness of a 12-week response to intervention approach to improve fine motor and visual motor perceptual skills in kindergarten students

Kinder Tools was developed as a Response to Intervention approach (RTI) to help students in kindergarten improve and develop their fine motor and visual motor perceptual skills within the first three months of entering kindergarten. Some students enter kindergarten ready to learn, while other students struggle with skill development and learning the curriculum. There are a variety factors that could impact a student’s ability to learn such as lack of exposure, disabilities, and culture/socioeconomic status. This program will provide specific strategies and activities that will help to improve the necessary skill development that is required to access the kindergarten curriculum. The occupational therapist will provide consultation services to assist teachers to implement modifications and strategies to help students who are struggling with tasks. Two out of four kindergarten classrooms will participate in the initial program, while the other two classes will serve as the control group. All students fine motor and visual motor perceptual skills will be assessed pre and post program completion. The hope is that students participating with use of the Tools will demonstrate significant improvement in fine motor and visual motor perceptual skills, resulting in decreased need (or no need) for direct occupational therapy (OT) services and increased ability to access the curriculum within the general education setting

Perceptions of tertiary education service quality : an investigation into providing quality service encounters for international students : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Quality Systems at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

International students have become increasingly important to the financial sustainability of tertiary education institutions in New Zealand. Recruiting and retaining international students in a competitive international marketplace has resulted in individual institutions catering to students as if they are customers. This requires institutions to understand their international students so they can best satisfy their needs. Published research on student satisfaction and success has identified academic and social integration with a student’s institution of study are crucial antecedents to student satisfaction and success. This integration has been identified as being especially difficult for international students as they must acculturate to a new cultural and academic environment. New Zealand research has identified that the quality of the learning experience is the major contributor to overall international student satisfaction. However, there is a paucity of research on the New Zealand international student experience, and the extent to which the New Zealand experience reflects the international experience is unclear. The research described here is an attempt to clarify to what extent the international student experience in New Zealand differs from the experience of local domestic students and reflects the experience of international students in other countries. Specifically, the research investigated the relationship between international students’ perception of learning experience quality and academic integration within one New Zealand Polytechnic. A questionnaire was developed based on two scales to measure the two latent variables of perception of learning experience quality and perception of academic integration. The questionnaire was undertaken by both international and domestic students at two campuses of the institution under study. The results gained from the questionnaire established that perception of academic integration for international students increased over time, however perception of learning experience quality did not. There was no significant difference in the results between international and domestic students. There was some corroboration of international research, but there were also some significant differences. These results provide further impetus for tertiary institutions in New Zealand to better understand their international students if they are to succeed in the international student marketplace

The lack of monetary sovereignty is not the reason Eurozone countries struggled during the crisis

One of the most widespread arguments about the Eurozone crisis is that countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy have been hamstrung by their lack of monetary sovereignty and the ability to devalue their own currency. Deborah Mabbett and Waltraud Schelkle assess this perspective by comparing the experiences of Greece with Hungary, which does not use the euro, and Latvia, which previously pegged its currency to the euro before joining the single currency in 2014. They find that while there are real problems with the crisis management in the Euro area, monetary sovereignty is not the solution

Physico-chemical properties of waste derived biochar from community scale faecal sludge treatment plants

Background: The dumping of untreated faecal sludge from non-sewered onsite sanitation facilities causes environmental pollution and exacerbates poor public health outcomes across developing nations. Long-term mechanisms to treat faecal sludge generated from these facilities are needed to resolve the global sanitation crisis and realize the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030. Pyrolysis of faecal sludge removes pathogens and generates biochar, which can be used as a soil enhancer.Methods: The properties of faecal sludge biochars from three full-scale treatment plants in India were determined via Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, crystal x-ray diffraction (XRD), proximate analyses, and BET surface area porosimetry.Results: Results showed that all three biochars had low specific surface area, high alkaline pH values, high ash content, and negative surface charge. Fourier transform infrared spectra showed the same surface functional groups present in each biochar. X-ray diffraction analysis showed the mineral composition of each biochar differed slightly. Scanning electron microscopy analysis indicated a porous structure of each biochar with ash particles evident.Conclusions: Slight differences in the ash content, surface area, pH and mineral content was observed between the three biochars

Independent or lonely? Central banking in crisis

The financial crisis has called our understanding of central bank independence (CBI) into question. Central banks were praised for bold interventions but simultaneously criticized for overreaching their mandates. Central bankers themselves have complained that they are ‘the only game in town’. We develop the second generation theory of CBI to understand how independence can turn into loneliness when a financial crisis calls for cooperation between fiscal authorities and the central bank. Central banks are protected from interference when there are multiple political veto-players, but the latter can also block cooperation. Furthermore, central banks in multi-veto-player systems operate under legal constraints on their financial stabilization actions. They can circumvent these constraints, but this invites criticism and retribution. More surprisingly, central banks have strategically invoked their constraints in order to gain cooperation from political authorities