German employers and the origins of unemployment insurance. Skills interest or strategic accommodation?

This paper analyzes the attitudes of industrial employers during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic towards the adoption of public unemployment insurance. While employers initially opposed unemployment insurance, they eventually endorsed it. What explains this shift in attitude? The paper tests two alternative theses: the conventional power resource thesis and the newer skills interest thesis. While the power resource thesis explains social protection as the result of distributive conflicts between employers and labor, the skills interest thesis sees it as an outcome of joint interests in skills investment by capital and labor. The study concludes that the power resource thesis has the greater explanatory power. Employers' support of unemployment insurance was an attempt to defeat other policy options on the agenda rather than an effort to promote skills investment. An unfavorable policy legacy and a sustained change in political majorities are the main factors that explain the change in positions. Fear of rising labor costs and the erosion of work incentives shaped employers' preferences rather than an interest in protecting skills investments. On a more general level, the results show the significant impact of political constraints on the positions actors take and the importance of short-term considerations in processes of preference formation. -- Dieses Papier untersucht die Haltung industrieller Arbeitgeber zur Einführung einer staatlichen Arbeitslosenversicherung in Deutschland zur Zeit des Kaiserreichs und der Weimarer Republik. Arbeitgeber lehnten ursprünglich eine staatliche Arbeitslosenversicherung ab, stimmten ihr jedoch am Ende zu. Was erklärt diesen Positionswandel? Das Papier testet zwei alternative Erklärungsansätze: die konventionelle Machtressourcenthese (power resource thesis) und die neuere Qualifi kationsinteressensthese (skills interest thesis). Die erste These erklärt den Umfang sozialer Sicherung durch Verteilungskonflikte zwischen Arbeitnehmern und Arbeitgebern, die zweite durch gemeinsame Interessen von Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmern an Ausbildungsinvestitionen. Die Studie kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die Machtressourcenthese den Haltungswandel besser erklärt als die Qualifikationsinteressensthese. Die empirische Analyse zeigt, dass Arbeitgeber die Einführung einer staatlichen Arbeitslosenversicherung unterstützten, um andere Optionen abzuwehren, nicht um höhere Qualifikationsniveaus zu fördern. Die Studie identifiziert die Überwindung eines als problematisch bewerteten Politikerbes sowie den Wandel politischer Mehrheitsverhältnisse als die wichtigsten Erklärungsfaktoren. Die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer Arbeitslosenversicherung sahen Arbeitgeber kritisch: Sie erwarteten primär höhere Lohnkosten und geringere Arbeitsanreize, nicht jedoch eine höhere Bereitschaft zu Ausbildungsinvestitionen. Die Studie verdeutlicht den Einfluss sich wandelnder politischer Zwänge auf die inhaltliche Positionierung politischer Akteure sowie ihre oft kurzfristige Orientierung bei der Präferenzbildung.

HOW GOVERNMENTS RESPOND TO BUSINESS DEMANDS FOR TAX CUTS: AN ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE AND INHERITANCE TAX REFORMS IN AUSTRIA AND SWEDEN. CES Open Forum Series 2018-2019

This paper analyses government responsiveness to business demands for tax cuts, using case studies of reforms of corporate taxes and inheritance taxes in Austria and Sweden. We find a high level of government responsiveness in both policy fields, but much higher responsiveness on inheritance tax. We argue that this difference between the two policy fields is the result of an effort by governments to balance three conflicting goals: (i) attracting investments, (ii) maintaining a high level of tax revenues, (iii) and maintaining electoral popularity. The intensity of these goal conflicts varied between the two policy fields. It was higher on corporate taxation, which led governments to combine cuts to corporate tax with compensatory measures, the abolition of inheritance tax in both countries was not combined with compensatory measures, because goal conflicts were low. We show that differences in the expected electoral and fiscal impacts of reforms explain the different levels of government responsiveness. Government efforts to reconcile the three policy goals under conditions of heightened business power entailed sacrificing redistributive goals that have characterized tax policies in earlier periods.

Red, white and 'green': the cost of carbon in the global wine trade

Climate change is altering a wide range of human activities, including wine making. While wine may appear to be one of the most natural alcoholic beverages, it is not without carbon inputs and emissions, which contribute to the very change in climate that is altering both wine and wine making. In this paper, we use a carbon life cycle analysis to develop a model for quantifying carbon inputs in a bottle of wine. Current regulatory arrangements do not capture the carbon costs of wine effectively since most costs are externalized. We conclude with estimates of the cost of carbon under various regulatory regimes, which suggest how wine producers and consumers can reduce the carbon footprint of wine.climate change, wine market, carbon footprint, wine trade, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A study of the durability of beryllium rocket engines

For abstract, see N74-35204

A study of the durability of beryllium rocket engines

An experimental test program was performed to demonstrate the durability of a beryllium INTEREGEN rocket engine when operating under conditions simulating the space shuttle reaction control system. A vibration simulator was exposed to the equivalent of 100 missions of X, Y, and Z axes random vibration to demonstrate the integrity of the recently developed injector-to-chamber braze joint. An off-limits engine was hot fired under extreme conditions of mixture ratio, chamber pressure, and orifice plugging. A durability engine was exposed to six environmental cycles interspersed with hot-fire tests without intermediate cleaning, service, or maintenance. Results from this program indicate the ability of the beryllium INTEREGEN engine concept to meet the operational requirements of the space shuttle reaction control system

The new modes of EU governance: combining rationalism and constructivism in explaining voluntarist policy coordination in the EU

'Die freiwillige Koordinierung nationaler Politikbereiche und der Vergleich von 'Best Practice' Modellen durch die 'Offene Methode der Koordinierung' (OMK) haben in den letzten Jahren eine intensive Debatte in der Politikwissenschaft ausgelöst. Kann die OMK innerstaatlichen Politikwandel fördern? Wenn ja, unter welchen Bedingungen? Dieser Artikel analysiert diese Frage aus theoretischer Perspektive, in dem eine rationalistische und eine konstruktivistische Perspektive verglichen und kombiniert werden. Aus rationalistischer Sicht werden konvergierende Akteurspräferenzen, der 'Schatten der Hierarchie', sowie 'unterschiedliche Ermächtigung' als zentrale Erklärungsfaktoren für paradigmatischen Politikwandel identifiziert. Aus konstruktivistischer Sicht wird die Bedeutung von kommunikativen und koordinativen Diskurs als Mechanismen der Überzeugung und der Wissensproduktion betont. Der Artikel schlägt eine komplementäre Kombination dieser beiden gegensätzlichen, jedoch nicht inkompatiblen, Ansätze vor und kommt, auf Basis der analysierten Faktoren, zu dem Schluss, dass die Wirkungseffizienz der OMK in der Praxis gering sein wird.' (Autorenreferat)'Voluntary policy coordination and the exchange of 'good practice' through the 'Open Method of Coordination' have recently led to a widespread debate in political science. Does the OMC have the potential to lead to domestic policy adjustments? And if yes, what are the necessary conditions? This article addresses these questions from a theoretical perspective by comparing and combining a rationalist and a constructivist perspective. Preference convergence, shadow of hierarchy and differential empowerment are identified as the key explanatory factors for paradigmatic policy learning that are offered by a rationalist approach. The constructivist perspective stresses the importance of intense communicative and coordinative discourse for persuasion and diminished knowledge uncertainty. In this article I argue, first, that a complementary usage of these two antithetical, but not incompatible, approaches allows for an improved assessment of the OMC's problem-solving capacity and, second, that, based on the identified conditions for effective policy coordination, the problem-solving capacity of the OMC is likely to be limited.' (author's abstract

Session 3-3-E: The Appreciable Benefit of Recognizing a Gaming Hospitality Business Educated Work Force

The Opportunity for “Easy Money” Working in Gaming? “Miss R., You’re pretty…Why don’t you become a cocktail waitress at a casino? You would make more money than teaching.” – A ten year-old girl in Henderson, NV; a student quote as relayed during conversation in 1999 by Miss Laura R., a 4th grade teacher. With a freshly minted master’s degree in education and six years classroom experience, Miss Laura R. was pulling in $33,000 gross annually. A contemporary cocktail waitress at a mid-range to premium property was pulling in 2x to 3x her salar

Análisis de la variación interhablante en maay

This paper advocates an approach to interspeaker linguistic variation that aligns with the ‘I-language’ view (Chomsky, 1986). On this view, the object of study in linguistics is mental grammar; language is understood as being internal to the individual, in contrast to the ‘E-language’ approach, where language is external to individual speakers. This paper considers a case study from Maay (a Cushitic language spoken in southern Somalia) in which interspeaker variation in a refugee community defies analysis in E-language terms. An I-language approach allows for a straightforward analysis of the observed variation, specifically in the domains of plural noun formation and vowel length alternations.El presente estudio propugna un enfoque de la variación lingüística inter-hablante acorde con la perspectiva de la ‘lengua-I’ (Chomsky, 1986). Según esta última, el objeto de estudio de la lingüística es la gramática mental; se considera que el individuo tiene interiorizado el lenguaje, al contrario de lo que defiende el enfoque de la ‘lengua-E’, en el que el lenguaje es externo a los hablantes individuales. En este artículo se estudia el caso del maay (lengua cusita hablada en el sur de Somalia) y se observa que la variación inter-hablante que se da en una comunidad de refugiados supone un desafío para los análisis en términos de lengua-E. Un planteamiento basado en el enfoque de la lengua-I permite un análisis más simple de la variación observada, concretamente en los ámbitos de la formación del plural en los nombres y de las alternancias en la duración vocálica