Causes of Unemployment around the World

[...]... savoured the direct logic of Danish, the succinctness of Malay, the sheer wackiness of Japanese, and realized that sometimes a dictionary can tell you more about a culture than a guidebook I looked at languages from all corners of the world, from the Fuegian of southernmost Chile to the Inuit of northernmost Alaska, and from the Maori of the remote Cook Islands to Siberian Yakut Some of them describe, of. .. manner 4 The Meaning of Tingo Hey you! O nce the first encounter is out of the way the correct form of address is important Most of us know the difference between the intimate French tu and the more impersonal (and polite) vous A similar distinction exists in Arabic between anta (‘you’ singular) and antum (‘you’ plural) – addressing an important person with anta (anti is the feminine version) rather than... the numbers 4, 9, 14, 19, or 42 for any of their rooms Forty-two (shi-ni) means to die, 420 (shi-ni-rei) means a dead spirit and 24 (ni-shi) is double death Nor do some hospitals use the number 43 (shi-zan), especially in the maternity ward, as it means stillbirth 9 Meeting and Greeting and the unutterable 10 The Meaning of Tingo Fare well M any expressions for goodbye offer the hope that the other. .. Another Albanian taboo-contraction is the word for fairy, shtozovalle, which means may ‘God increase their round-dances’ Similarly, in the Sami language of Northern Scandinavia and the Yakuts language of Russia, the original name for bear is replaced by a word meaning ‘our lord’ or ‘good father’ In Russian itself, for similar reasons, a bear is called a medved’ or ‘honey-eater’ In Masai the name of. .. first, then b) is the reply and then c) may be used If b) is said first, then c) is obligatory hashhashin (Arabic) one who smokes or chews hashish; came to mean assassin manu operare (Latin) to work by hand; then narrowed to the act of cultivating; then to the dressing that was added to the soil, manure prestige (French) conjuror’s trick; the sense of illusion gave way to that of glamour Causes of Unemployment around the World Causes of Unemployment around the World By: OpenStaxCollege The causes of unemployment in high-income countries of the world can be categorized in two ways: either cyclical unemployment caused by the economy being in a recession, or the natural rate of unemployment caused by factors in labor markets, such as government regulations regarding hiring and starting businesses Unemployment from a Recession For unemployment caused by a recession, the Keynesian economic model points out that both monetary and fiscal policy tools are available The monetary policy prescription for dealing with recession is straightforward: run an expansionary monetary policy to increase the quantity of money and loans, drive down interest rates, and increase aggregate demand In a recession, there is usually relatively little danger of inflation taking off, and so even a central bank, with fighting inflation as its top priority, can usually justify some reduction in interest rates With regard to fiscal policy, the automatic stabilizers discussed in Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy should be allowed to work, even if this means larger budget deficits in times of recession There is less agreement over whether, in addition to automatic stabilizers, governments in a recession should try to adopt discretionary fiscal policy of additional tax cuts or spending increases In the case of the Great Recession, the case for this kind of extra-aggressive expansionary fiscal policy is stronger, but for a smaller recession, given the time lags of implementing fiscal policy, discretionary fiscal policy should be used with caution However, the aftermath of the Recession emphasizes that expansionary fiscal and monetary policies not turn off a recession like flipping a switch turns off a lamp Even after a recession is officially over, and positive growth has returned, it can take some months—or even a couple of years—before private-sector firms believe the economic climate is healthy enough that they can expand their workforce 1/4 Causes of Unemployment around the World The Natural Rate of Unemployment Unemployment rates in the nations of Europe have typically been higher than in the United States In 2006, before the start of the Great Recession, the U.S unemployment rate was 4.6%, compared with 9% in France, 10.4% in Germany, and 7.1% in Sweden The pattern of generally higher unemployment rates in Europe, which dates back to the 1970s, is typically attributed to the fact that European economies have a higher natural rate of unemployment because they have a greater number of rules and restrictions that discourage firms from hiring and unemployed workers from taking jobs Addressing the natural rate of unemployment is straightforward in theory but difficult in practice Government can play a useful role in providing unemployment and welfare payments, passing rules about where and when businesses can operate, assuring that the workplace is safe, and so on But these well-intentioned laws can, in some cases, become so intrusive that businesses decide to place limits on their hiring For example, a law that imposes large costs on a business that tries to fire or lay off workers will mean that businesses try to avoid hiring in the first place, as is the case in France According to Business Week, “France has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50 according to the French labor code, once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.” This labor law essentially limits employment (or raises the natural rate of unemployment) Undeveloped Labor Markets Low-income and middle-income countries face employment issues that go beyond unemployment as it is understood in the high-income economies A substantial number of workers in these economies provide many of their own needs by farming, fishing, or hunting They barter and trade with others and may take a succession of short-term or one-day jobs, sometimes being paid with food or shelter, sometimes with money They are not “unemployed” in the sense that the term is used in the United States and Europe, but neither are they employed in a regular wage-paying job The starting point of economic activity, as discussed in Welcome to Economics!, is the division of labor, in which workers specialize in certain tasks and trade the fruits of their labor with others Workers who are not connected to a labor market are often unable to specialize very much Because these workers are not “officially” employed, they are often not eligible for social benefits like unemployment insurance or old-age payments—if such payments are even available in their country Helping these workers to become more connected to the labor market and the economy is an important policy goal Indeed, recent research by ...A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world October 2009 DRAFT at Harvard University Next Generation Connectivity: Next Generation Connectivity 2 Contributors This report represents the outcome of a substantial and engaged team effort, most extensively by Berkman Center researchers, with many contributions from others elsewhere at Harvard and in other institutions and centers around the world. I am deeply indebted to the many and diverse contributions that each and every one of them made. The project would not have been possible without the tremendous effort and engagement by the leadership team. Robert Faris (skeptical reading; study design; country case studies) Urs Gasser (overall leadership; country case studies; international research; reading/editing) Laura Miyakawa (project manager; pricing studies; quantitative analyses) Stephen Schultze (project leadership; bibliographic research design and implementation; country case studies ) Each of our country overviews and annexes was researched, authored and edited by a fantastic group of colleagues, research assistants and friends that resulted both in the overviews and in informing the main document. Jerome Baudry James Kwok Eliane Bucher Alan Lenarcic (statistics, unbundling econometrics) Anjali Dalal Olivier Sautel Gildas de Muizon Marta Stryszowska Jan Gerlach Lara Srivastava Jock Given Andrea Von Kaenel Hank Greenberg Asa Wilks (statistics: urbanicity & poverty; actual Pascal Herzog speed tests analysis) This report would also not been possible without the researching, annotating, copy editing, spreadsheeting, cheerleading and organizing provided by Berkman Center staff and interns and the Harvard Law School Library staff. Catherine Bracy Ramesh Nagarajan Bruce Etling Caroline Nolan Sawyer Carter Jacobs Antwaun Wallace Colin Maclay Catherine White Jillian York Seth Young Next Generation Connectivity 3 I am also very pleased to acknowledge the help from colleagues and people with knowledge and access to data who helped think through the design of the studies, answer specific questions, or otherwise improved the work and our understanding immeasurably. Nathaniel Beck Dominique Boullier Michael Burstein (critical reading of the main document) John de Ridder (access to data included in econometrics of unbundling) Jaap Doleman (Amsterdam CityNet information) Antii Eskola (Finnish telecommunications) Epitiro (answers to questions about actual testing data produced by the company) William Fisher Daniel Haeusermann Mizuko Ito (Japanese broadband uses) Gary King William Lehr Francois Lévêque Jun Makihara Ookla Net Metrics; Mike Apgar (access to speedtest.net data) Simon Osterwalder (Switzerland) HyeRyoung Ok (Korean usage patterns) Taylor Reynolds (extensive answers about OECD data) James Thurman Derek Turner (data for replicating urbanicity study) Dirk Van der Woude (fiber in Europe; Amsterdam) Nico Van Eijk (Dutch and European telecommunications policy) Herman Wagter (municipal fiber; Amsterdam; topology) Sacha Wunsch-Vincent Finally, I am proud and grateful of the support we received from the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Both foundations were remarkably open and flexible in their willingness to receive and process our requests for funding in lightening speed, so as to allow us to respond to this highly time-sensitive ImprovIng the health of Women & ChIldren around the World by 2015 6 8 10 12 14 4 2 MDG Health Alliance Pillars 3 Who We Are | Leadership 4 Improve Child Health 6 Improve Maternal Health 8 Near-Zero Malaria Deaths 10 Near-Zero Transmission of HIV from Mother-to-Child 12 Save One Million Lives from Tuberculosis 14 One Million Community Health Workers 2 | www.mdghealthalliance.org mdg health allIanCe pIllars IMPROVE CHILD HEALTH: Reduce the number of children under 5 dying from 8 million per year to 4 million per year by the end of 2015 In collaboration with UNICEF and other partners, in countries with the largest concentrations of child mortality, increase access to medicines that prevent and treat the leading causes of under 5 deaths, including oral rehydration with zinc, pediatric antibiotics, bed nets and malaria medicines, and interventions that prevent the leading causes of neonatal deaths; with a particular emphasis on increasing private sector contributions to achieving MDG 4. IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH: Reduce the number of women dying in childbirth from 350,000 per year to less than 180,000 per year and achieve universal access to reproductive health by the end of 2015 In collaboration with the H5 agencies (UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank) the United Nations Foundation and the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children, tap into the vast potential of private health providers and health businesses to deliver high quality, aordable and accessible care and products to women at highest risk of maternal mortality and support governments’ eorts to achieve MDG 5. NEAR-ZERO MALARIA DEATHS: Reduce the number of deaths caused by malaria from 655,000 to near-zero by the end of 2015 In collaboration with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, the Global Fund, the World Bank, WHO, the United States and the United Kingdom, UNICEF, and other key partners, in countries with the largest concentrations of malaria deaths, ensure continued universal coverage of bednets as well as aggressive deployment of diagnostics and treatment integrated with community case management in both the public and private sectors. NEAR-ZERO TRANSMISSION OF HIV FROM MOTHER-TO-CHILD: Virtually eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child by the end of 2015 In collaboration with UNAIDS, PEPFAR, the countries suering the greatest burden and other partners, virtually eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother-to- child by 2015 worldwide. The Business Leadership Council for a Generation Born HIV Free, consisting of globally recognized private sector leaders, has been formed to bring to bear the collective resources and acumen of the private sector to achieve the 2015 deadline. The BLC will identify concrete, actionable roles for businesses to maximize their impact on vertical transmission rates in high-burden countries. SAVE ONE MILLION LIVES FROM TUBERCULOSIS: Reduce the trajectory of the number of HIV+ patients who will die of TB, currently estimated at 1.3 million people, by the end of 2015 In collaboration with Stop TB and other partners, increase the TB cure rate by providing screening programs to test for infections every three years, provide treatment to TB-positive individuals, provide preventive TB treatment Children, Youth and Media Around the World: An Overview of Trends & Issues Report Compiled & Prepared by Susan Gigli, InterMedia Survey Institute, for UNICEF 4th World Summit on Media for Children and Adolescents Rio de Janeiro, Brazil April 2004 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in 1989 and ratified by all but two countries, clearly spells out the rights to which all children everywhere are entitled. It contains four basic principles to guide political decision-making affect- ing the child: 1) the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in such decisions; 2) opinions of children themselves should be heard; 3) child devel- opment, not only survival, should be ensured; 4) each child should be able to enjoy his/her rights, without discrimination. Several of the CRC's key articles deal with the media and children. Article 17 spells out the important role of media to disseminate information that promotes the child's well-being in the broadest sense, giving states specific tasks: States Parties recognize the important function performed by the mass media and shall ensure that the child has access to information and material from a diversity of national and international sources, especially those aimed at the promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health. To this end, States Parties shall: (a) Encourage the mass media to disseminate information and material of social and cultural benefit to the child and in accordance with the spirit of Article 29; (b) Encourage international cooperation in the production, exchange and dissemi- nation of such information and material from a diversity of cultural, national and international sources; (c) Encourage the production and dissemination of children's books; (d) Encourage the mass media to have particular regard to the linguistic needs of the child who belongs to a minority group or who is indigenous; (e) Encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being, bearing in mind the provisions of articles 13 and 18. Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the right of the children to express their own views in matters affecting them. Article 13 enshrines the right to freedom of expression: "(…) This right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice." Article 17, together with Articles 12 and 13, should contribute not only to the devel- opment of well-informed citizens, but to young people's voices being heard more and more through the mass media. It sends a clear message that children should be both participants in and beneficiaries of the information revolution. A look at the world media landscape for children and youth immediately presents two opposing themes: opportunities and risks. For example, globalization of media brings opportunities to broaden children’s outlooks and provide more equal access to information, but it also threat- ens cultural [...]... Contents 5 The Evolution of Concentrated Ownership in India: Broad Patterns and a History of the Indian Software Industry Tarun Khanna and Krishna G Palepu Comment: Ashoka Mody 6 The History of Corporate Ownership in Italy Alexander Aganin and Paolo Volpin Comment: Daniel Wolfenzon 7 A Frog in a Well Knows Nothing of the Ocean: A History of Corporate Ownership in Japan Randall K Morck and Masao Nakamura Comment:... enough to carry into corporate boardrooms Corporate CEOs use or abuse Randall K Morck is the Stephen A Jarislowsky Distinguished Professor of Finance at the University of Alberta School of Business and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research Lloyd Steier is professor of Strategic Management and Organization, chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, and academic director of. .. López-de-Silanes, Marco Pagano, Enrico Perotti, Katharina Pistor, Mark Rameseyer, Andrei Shleifer, Richard Sylla, and Bernard Yeung, as well as participants at the University of Alberta/NBER conference at Lake Louise, Alberta, the CEPR/ECGN/ INSEAD /University of Alberta/NBER conference in Fontainebleau, France, the Corporate Governance Forum of Turkey in Istanbul, and the Academy of International Business conference... is based on La Porta et al for all other countries We are grateful to Raphael La Porta for making the names of the top firms in each country available to us Fig 1 Who controls the world s great corporations? Sources: La Porta et al (1999) with Japanese data augmented by Morck and Nakamura (1999) to account for combined keiretsu stakes and German data augmented with information from Baums (1995) to account... It Matter? Capitalism is thus called because it is an economic system organized around the production and allocation of capital The savings of individuals are the basis of all capital Yet the ways in which economies accumulate The Global History of Corporate Governance: An Introduction 5 and allocate capital are quite different in different countries, and seem closely related to how each country handles... financial institution The bank then lends the money to companies to buy factories, machinery, and technologies Or sometimes the bank actually invests in other companies by buying their shares or bonds This constitutes another way in which economies can accumulate and allocate capital Banks play much greater capital allocation roles in German and Japanese capitalism than in the Anglo-American variant,... capital accumulation and allocation—are important in many free-market economies as well, especially historically For .. .Causes of Unemployment around the World The Natural Rate of Unemployment Unemployment rates in the nations of Europe have typically been higher than in the United States In 2006, before the. .. economists suggests that one of the key 2/4 Causes of Unemployment around the World factors in raising people in low-income countries out of the worst kind of poverty is whether they can make a connection... trade the fruits of their labor with others Workers who are not connected to a labor market are often unable to specialize very much Because these workers are not “officially” employed, they are often