Club Troppo

Certainly Korea has. The US, not so much!  As usual, Canada does very well – they do well on lots of measures of good public policy.

Source: OECD

Christopher Joye rebukes John Quiggin for this post where he violates the territory of these guys.  Quiggin criticises Central Bank Independence (in its strong from from the 1990s) and raises the possibility of  higher inflation target to get more desired outcomes. Although from context I’m fairly sure Quiggin is speaking in context of the ECB and BoE [edit - see JQ in comments] (where outcomes are far less optimal than here) Joye takes this as a call to interfere with RBA independence by changing the Australian target.

Incongruously he then says “we” (I presume elected government) should consider intervene by lowering the target instead. “Independence” seems to be a synonym for hawkishness rather than autonomy.

I come to this because I’m interested in the way inflation targets by reserve banks are discussed because it seems to me to have suffered from ossification of a make do policy into dogma.

A little history as I understand it. The technocratic monetarist dream of targeting the aggregate money supply and achieving 0% inflation proved impractical. Aggregate supply proved too endogenous and velocity too volatile. But monetarist understanding of inflation dynamics, the augmented Phillips curve and wage-price spirals etc. still seemed valid enough. Fortunately those spirals had ceased with the assistance of nasty recessions (and a lower oil price) but it was understood that a spiral could happen again were inflation to reach too high again. (Continued)

Judith Sloan vs the environment. If you’re trying to reach Judith Sloan and she won’t pick up the phone it’s probably because she’s still in the shower.

Blue Milk writes: "Last week I had to compose an embarrassing email to the library explaining that I had lost their copy of ‘The Art of Organising Anything’."

Centrifugal forces. "I am more than concerned that the National Broadcaster has become a political mouthpiece for the ultra conservatives" writes Concera Vota at the GetUp Campaign Ideas forum. At Catallaxy Sinclair Davidson calls Get Up an "extremist left-wing lobby group".

Obama’s position on Israel. "Obama is now ready to advocate the next step of his plan to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth", writes Quin Hillyer in the American Spectator blog. Doug Matconis thinks that might be an overreaction.

Does anyone like criticism? One of the key insights of the social media age is that journalists don’t like criticism, writes veteran blogger Tim Dunlop. Tim goes on to complain about journalists attacking, caricaturing and dismissing the work of bloggers.

Let them eat piroshki. At Translations, Joel is frustrated by the debate over middle-class welfare.

It’s not complicated. At Fat Heffalump sleepydumpling writes: "on the 28th of May, I will be joining the Brisbane SlutWalk, not to reclaim the word slut or proclaim myself a proud slut, but to stand up and stay that nobody deserves rape for any reason."

TONY JONES: The obvious takeaway, political takeaway in Australia, is that you don’t believe your leader, Tony Abbott, your party, your conservative party, has vision.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Oh, no, I think there is a lot of vision. It’s just a question of whether you agree with it, or whether you find it appealing. And that’s something that, you know, obviously people will decide at the next election.

In case you care, here’s the podcast of the column of the paper. Here’s the iTunes version.

Of all the right wing shock jocks, I find Andrew Bolt by far the best read. If you ignore the coat trailing and name calling – like calling ‘Liberty Victoria’ ‘far left’ (declaration of interest – I’m not sure if I’m a full paying member right now but I join it when asked) and look to the substance of his allegations, I agree sometimes strongly with this piece. I didn’t see the Q&A show having lost interest in it for its instinctive heading for the usual ideological left-right argy bargy, so perhaps there’s some context I’m missing, but what the hell is a judge doing saying things like this in a public forum:

On having an early election, which the Opposition wants . . .  ”I don’t think we should be talking about elections again . . .”

On this Parliament. . .  ”It’s far too partisan.”

On limiting welfare payments to people on $150,000, as outlined in the Gillard Government’s Budget [something with which I agree: NG]: “I find it difficult when we look at the disparity between rich and poor in this country to think that those in the top 20 per cent do need welfare subsidy.”

On the chaplains-in-schools program [with which I disagree: NG] . . . “We shouldn’t have chaplains of any denomination in state schools.”

 

In January this year a Toronto police officer suggested that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like ‘sluts’. Made during a safety information session at York University, the officer’s remark provoked a storm of protest. By May the protests had spread as far as Australia.

Many people — including some Troppo readers — think it’s obvious that women who wear revealing clothing are more likely to be raped. But most researchers who study sexual assault regard this as a myth.

As it turns out, there’s some research that suggests women are less likely to be assaulted if they wear provocative clothing. In a paper titled ‘Sexy dressing revisited: does target dress play a part in sexual harassment cases?’ (pdf) Theresa Beiner writes:

While people perceive dress to have an impact on who is assaulted, studies of rapists suggest that victim attire is not a significant factor. Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing. (140) In a study to test whether males could determine whether women were high or low in passiveness and submissiveness, Richards and her colleagues found that men, using only nonverbal appearance cues, could accurately assess which women were passive and submissive versus those who were dominant and assertive. (141) Clothing was one of the key cues: "Those females high in passivity and submissiveness (i.e., those at greatest risk for victimization) wore noticeably more body-concealing clothing (i.e., high necklines, long pants and sleeves, multiple layers)." (142) This suggests that men equate body-concealing clothing with passive and submissive qualities, which are qualities that rapists look for in victims. Thus, those who wore provocative clothes would not be viewed as passive or submissive, and would be less likely to be victims of assault.

(Continued)

I wanted to comment on Nicholas Gruen’s recent post titled the future of tertiary education, but I didn’t have time and there was too much I wanted to say.  Hence this post.

I agree with most of Nicholas’s points (some with qualifications) but there’s much more that needs saying. Let’s start with Nicholas’s observation about lectures:

Teaching methods are also changing at a surprisingly slow rate.  It seems so obvious that lectures should be both taped and lavished with some serious resources so that, for instance there might be a wealth of really good lectures that people can pull down at any university, with the university’s value add being in how they engage students with each other and with tutors.

We need to look critically at the whole idea of “lectures” and re-imagine their place in teaching and learning.  Education pioneer John Dewey provided a succinct condemnation of the traditional formal lecture-based approach early last century, describing it as ‘transmission by a kind of scholastic pipeline into the minds of pupils whose business is to absorb what is transmitted’.  Students generally absorb very little of the traditional 2 hour passive “chalk and talk” lecture, its persistence has more to do with the ego of the lecturer than its teaching effectiveness (not to mention commenter Conrad’s point about drastic resourcing constraints on producing more effective learning resources using Web 2.0 and other tools).  The traditional lecture method is condemned in more contemporary pedagogy as the “sage on the stage” approach.  It fits poorly with modern “constructivist” concepts of how humans learn.  On second thoughts, constructivism isn’t really modern at all.  Confucius explained it succinctly 1500 2500 years ago: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

It has also been well known since the time of Dewey  that human learning is socially constructed, although until relatively recently most Australian universities were characterised predominantly by a teacher-centred and lecture-based ‘transmission’ approach.  Indeed that’s still true to a large extent. Even in my specialist area of online learning, Levy observes that e-learning ‘is marked by a juxtaposition of new technology and old pedagogy’.

(Continued)

Originally posted at APO (Australian Policy Online)

Last week’s Budget Speech by the Treasurer announced a package of reforms designed to help people receiving a Disability Support Pension to get into work. The package includes a range of measures:

• New participation requirements for disability support pensioners under the age of 35 with some capacity to work;
• Fast tracking new rules that require new disability support pension (DSP) applicants to get employment assistance to try and get back to work before they can apply for DSP;
• More generous rules for existing disability pensioners to encourage them to work more hours; and
• Supporting employers to take on more disability pensioners through new financial incentives.

In the Budget Speech, the Treasurer stated that the initiatives were intended in part “to slow the growth of Disability Support Pension numbers…”. Concern with the growth in DSP numbers has been expressed for some time. For example, in a series of speeches at the CEDA Luncheon in February, the Inaugural 2011 Gough Whitlam Oration on 31 March, and an address on ‘The Dignity of Work’ at the Sydney Institute in April, the Prime Minister indicated that “We have moved beyond the days of big government and big welfare, to opportunity through education and inclusion through participation”, noting that in addition to the unemployed and discouraged job seekers, “there are many thousands of individuals on the Disability Support Pension who may have some capacity to work”.

Similarly, in an address to the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Leader of the Opposition suggested reforming DSP with a more targeted payment for people whose disabilities might not be permanent. He pointed out that Australian disability pension numbers are set to pass 800,000, with more working age people on the disability pension than on unemployment benefits.

Figure 1 shows the trends underlying these concerns. The number of persons receiving unemployment payments has changed dramatically in different periods depending on labour market trends, with a large increase in the early 1980s, a further larger increase in the early 1990s, followed by a more sustained decline until 2007, and a substantial increase following the GFC (but much lower than in the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s).

In contrast, the number of people receiving the Disability Support Pension appears to keep rising throughout the whole period. Indeed, a briefing note by the Parliamentary Library prepared on initiatives in last year’s budget pointed to “the inexorable growth in the DSP population over the past 20 years … No other income support program has seen this level of sustained increase.”

Figure 1: Trends in the number (000s) of recipients of Disability Support Pension and Unemployment payments, 1981 to 2011 

 Note: Figures are at June each year, except Unemployment payments in 2011, which are for March. DSP numbers for 2010 are preliminary. Source: FaHCSIA, Statistical Paper No. 8: Income support customers: a statistical overview 2009 

What explains these trends? Is DSP a welfare payment out of control? Is disability really rising in the Australian community or are people who are really unemployed being “parked” on DSP. Or are individuals manipulating the system  to get more from these benefits? This concern may appear justified because for long-term welfare recipients there are clear incentives to qualify for DSP, as the gap between DSP and Newstart payments is nearly $260 per fortnight, and widening.

To fully understand these trends in DSP numbers it is necessary to consider a range of factors, including population size and the age profile of disability in Australia, the effects of income support policy changes, and the state of the labour market.

Age structure and population size

Over the last 15 years the population of Australia has been growing relatively rapidly. The growth in numbers of DSP recipients is therefore partly a consequence of population growth. What is important from a policy perspective is the rate of DSP support – that is the number of recipients as a per cent of the eligible population. In fact, the rate of DSP receipt as a percentage of the population of working age has been basically stable since 2002, although with a small fall just before the GFC and a minor rise since then.

Disability and receipt of DSP are strongly age-related. In 2009, for example, less than 2% of people aged 16 to 29 received DSP, but this rises with age to 5% of people in their 40s, 9% of people in their 50s and over 14% of people aged 60 to 64 years. Disability rises further with increasing age over 65 years, but after 65 most people are entitled to an Age Pension and DSP is currently no longer relevant.

This age profile is important, because the age structure of the Australian population has also changed significantly in the last 15 years. This is an effect of the ageing of the baby boom generation, conventionally dated to those born between 1946 and the early to middle-1960s. Analysis by demographer Natalie Jackson shows that up until 1996, changes in the age structure of the Australian population had a slightly negative effect on these trends.

By definition, people born in 1946 started to turn 50 years of age in 1996, so in contrast with the earlier period, changes in the age structure of the population became likely to increase levels of receipt of DSP after the middle of the 1990s.

Overall between 1996 and 2009 the proportion of people of working age receiving DSP rose from 4.3% to 5.1%. If the age-structure of the population was held constant at 1996 shares, then rather than there being 5.1% of the population receiving DSP there would be 4.7%. This means that about half of the total increase in numbers was the result of population ageing and in itself unrelated to any changes in the labour market, the incidence of disability or individual behaviour.

Policy change
A series of policy changes from the mid-1990s onwards also had a major impact on the number of people receiving DSP. The most important of these was the increase in the age pension age for women from 60 to 65 which started in 1995, and at around the same time a number of other payments such as Mature Age Allowances, Partner Allowance, Wife Pension, Widow B Pension and Widow Allowance started to be closed.

These changes had a profound impact on the level of receipt of welfare payments as well as which payments people receive. For example, in the mid 1990s the “closed payments” – mainly for women – were received by around 4% of the working age population, but now they are received by only 1%.

As noted, increasing the age pension age has had the largest effect. In 1996 only 3,400 women aged 60 to 64 years received DSP, but 194,000 received Age Pension. In 2009, there were 68,000 60-64 year old female DSP recipients, but 81,000 age pensioners. Women aged 60 to 64 years are the fastest growing group of DSP recipients and DSP recipients are now close to 30% of all the women in this age group receiving social security benefits, whereas in 1996 they accounted for only 1.4% of all welfare recipients in this age group.

But while receipt of DSP in this group has “skyrocketed”, total welfare receipt has plummeted: in 1996 68% of women aged 60 to 64 years received a social welfare payment, while in 2009 was 39%.

So “welfare dependency” for this group has actually fallen significantly – it’s just that more of this (smaller) group are now on DSP. This fall in welfare receipt for older women is also matched by a fall for older men – in 1996 26% of men aged 60 to 64 years were receiving DSP whereas in 2009 it was 16%.

The pension age for women has not yet reached 65 years, so it could be expected that the number of women in this age group receiving DSP will continue to rise. Moreover, the announced increase in the age pension age to 67 years for both men and women, which is to be phased-in between 2017 and 2023 will undoubtedly also mean that the number of DSP recipients will increase as a result. However, given the recent experience with women aged 60 to 64 years it could be expected that the total proportion of 65 and 66 year olds reliant on social welfare payments will fall.

Rather than a picture of spiralling welfare receipt, what has actually happened in the last 15 years is a significant decline in the proportion of the working age population receiving social security benefits; and the decline would have been even greater if not for the structural ageing of population. This decline in welfare receipt has been achieved through reforms starting in the 1990s and reinforced by the very strong labour market growth between 2002 and 2007.

Figure 2 shows that the declines in welfare reliance among people of working age between 1996 and the period just before the GFC were significant for all age groups, but the largest declines were among those where the household reference person was aged 55 to 64 years.

Figure 2: Per cent of households with a head of working age whose principal source of income is government cash benefits, by age of household head, 1996-97 and 2007-08

Note: Principal source of income is 50% or more of total income. Source ABS, Household Income and Income Distribution Survey, 2007-08 

 Welfare reliance in this group more than halved from 38% to 17%, and overall the proportion of working age households who derive 50% or more of their income from benefits fell from 21% to 12%. If a more stringent definition of welfare dependence is used – households who receive more than 90% of their income from government cash benefits – then the decline in welfare dependence among people of working age is even greater – from close to 17% to 7.2%. Moreover, adjusting for changes in the age structure of the working age population would further reduce this to 6.7%.

Conclusions
There are very strong arguments in favour of further welfare reforms, but these are arguments based on improving equity, not constraining out-of-control growth in numbers. The equity arguments are those referred to by the Prime Minister in her speeches this year that the main path to improvements in social inclusion is through increases in employment and participation.

In Australia, about 40% of working-age people with a disability are employed, which is below the  OECD average of 44%. However, the OECD finds that the relative incomes of people with a disability are lower in Australia than in any other OECD country and poverty rates are the second-highest; with most of the explanation for this being lower incomes for those who are not in paid work. So to improve equity, we need to both increase employment and improve benefit rates. The Government has already improved benefit levels for people on DSP (and Age and Carer Pensions), and the package announced last night has been welcomed by welfare groups such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence as balancing increased obligations with improved support services.

However, population growth, continuing population ageing, the ongoing effect of past policy changes and the future increase in the age pension age to 67 years are likely to mean that the numbers on DSP will continue to grow for some years. But this will not mean that these reforms will necessarily fail. To judge the success or otherwise of the Budget, we need to look at age and gender-specific rates of DSP receipt, and we also need to look at the total rate of welfare receipt.

Broadband Internet: An Information Superhighway to Sex Crime?
Date: 2011-04
By: Bhuller, Manudeep (Statistics Norway)
Havnes, Tarjei (University of Oslo)
Leuven, Edwin (CREST (ENSAE))
Mogstad, Magne (Statistics Norway)
Does internet use trigger sex crime? We use unique Norwegian data on crime and internet adoption to shed light on this question. A public program with limited funding rolled out broadband access points in 2000-2008, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables and fixed effect estimates show that internet use is associated with a substantial increase in reported incidences of rape and other sex crimes. We present a theoretical framework that highlights three mechanisms for how internet use may affect reported sex crime, namely a reporting effect, a matching effect on potential offenders and victims, and a direct effect on crime propensity. Our results indicate that the direct effect is non-negligible and positive, plausibly as a result of increased consumption of pornography.