Social assistance performance in Central and Eastern Europe: A pre-transfer post-transfer comparison

The anti-poverty impact of national social assistance programmes in eight Central and Eastern European countries is examined using data from the European Union-Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Results indicate that social assistance programmes achieve only limited poverty reduction, while spending a significant amount of their resources on the non-poor. The more extensive and generous programmes achieve higher effectiveness in reducing poverty. Efficiency on the other hand appears to be linked only to programme size and not to benefit levels. Unlike Western Europe, no trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency could be detected

Farewell, welfare state – hello, welfare regions? Chances and constraints of welfare management in the German federal system

The German welfare state is in crisis. Alarming long-term demographic trends, the still not fully digested consequences of German unification and the current economic downturn in much of the Eurozone have combined to create an urgent need for welfare reform. Yet the constitutional arrangements which govern the German political system, and well-entrenched political practice, mean that any such reform process is a daunting challenge. Thus, the welfare crisis is also a crisis of German-style co-operative federalism. Current empirical evidence makes for uncomfortable reading, and triggers debate on the nature of the German federation: have the two constitutional principles of federalism and establishing equal living conditions throughout the federation become mutually exclusive? However, as much of the welfare state is centred on the best utilisation of scarce financial resources, it is debatable to what extent alterations in the functional distribution of welfare responsibilities among the territorial levels of government can be regarded as a solution for the current problems. The article concludes that in the search for long-term sustainability of the welfare state the territorial dimension is likely to remain a secondary issue

A Pair of Dopamine Neurons Target the D1-Like Dopamine Receptor DopR in the Central Complex to Promote Ethanol-Stimulated Locomotion in Drosophila

Dopamine is a mediator of the stimulant properties of drugs of abuse, including ethanol, in mammals and in the fruit fly Drosophila. The neural substrates for the stimulant actions of ethanol in flies are not known. We show that a subset of dopamine neurons and their targets, through the action of the D1-like dopamine receptor DopR, promote locomotor activation in response to acute ethanol exposure. A bilateral pair of dopaminergic neurons in the fly brain mediates the enhanced locomotor activity induced by ethanol exposure, and promotes locomotion when directly activated. These neurons project to the central complex ellipsoid body, a structure implicated in regulating motor behaviors. Ellipsoid body neurons are required for ethanol-induced locomotor activity and they express DopR. Elimination of DopR blunts the locomotor activating effects of ethanol, and this behavior can be restored by selective expression of DopR in the ellipsoid body. These data tie the activity of defined dopamine neurons to D1-like DopR-expressing neurons to form a neural circuit that governs acute responding to ethanol

The Serotonin 5-HT7Dro Receptor Is Expressed in the Brain of Drosophila, and Is Essential for Normal Courtship and Mating

The 5-HT7 receptor remains one of the less well characterized serotonin receptors. Although it has been demonstrated to be involved in the regulation of mood, sleep, and circadian rhythms, as well as relaxation of vascular smooth muscles in mammals, the precise mechanisms underlying these functions remain largely unknown. The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an attractive model organism to study neuropharmacological, molecular, and behavioral processes that are largely conserved with mammals. Drosophila express a homolog of the mammalian 5-HT7 receptor, as well as homologs for the mammalian 5-HT1A, and 5-HT2, receptors. Each fly receptor couples to the same effector pathway as their mammalian counterpart and have been demonstrated to mediate similar behavioral responses. Here, we report on the expression and function of the 5-HT7Dro receptor in Drosophila. In the larval central nervous system, expression is detected postsynaptically in discreet cells and neuronal circuits. In the adult brain there is strong expression in all large-field R neurons that innervate the ellipsoid body, as well as in a small group of cells that cluster with the PDF-positive LNvs neurons that mediate circadian activity. Following both pharmacological and genetic approaches, we have found that 5-HT7Dro activity is essential for normal courtship and mating behaviors in the fly, where it appears to mediate levels of interest in both males and females. This is the first reported evidence of direct involvement of a particular serotonin receptor subtype in courtship and mating in the fly

Welfare capitalism: The ten year impact of governments on poverty, inequality and financial risk in West Germany, the Netherlands and the USA

This paper assesses the ten year (1987-96) impact of taxes and transfers on poverty, income inequality and financial insecurity in the working age populations of the Netherlands, the USA and West Germany. These are the only countries for which ten consecutive years of socio-economic panel survey data are available, so they afford a unique opportunity to assess the medium to long term performance of governments in achieving key equity goals. It is indeed fortunate that Germany, the Netherlands and the USA are the three countries for which long running panels exist, because they can be taken as ‘best cases’ of Gosta Esping-Andersen’s ‘Three worlds of welfare capitalism’ (1990). In Esping-Andersen’s terms the USA is the prototypical liberal capitalist system and Germany is the clearest case of a conservative, corporatist welfare - capitalist state. The Netherlands from the mid-1980s onwards is classified by Esping-Andersen as a social democratic welfare-capitalist state, although it is clearly a borderline judgment, since the Netherlands has progressive social benefits but does not have the other defining characteristic of social democracy (according to Esping-Andersen’s slightly Swedocentric view) of commitment to active labor market programs