A proposal for unemployment insurance

The problems of entrenched high unemployment in Australia, and the need to improve the support given to people who are affected by unemployment, require new thinking and new ideas in order to bring about policy change.Therefore, Jobs Australia commissioned this research paper to ask Professor Andrew Scott to elaborate on his analysis of the possible relevance to Australia of the Danish approach to employment security which he expounded in his 2014 book, Northern Lights.In particular, we asked Professor Scott to outline practical steps which Australia might consider taking which are feasible and realistic: cutting ‘with the grain’ of Australia’s own distinctive institutional and policy approaches in order to shape new, better-designed policies which might reduce the poverty and uncertainty now faced by so many people in this country.It is very important that Australia now learn from overseas, and not only look at English-speaking countries in which, after all, in many cases, the problems are worse than ours in terms of higher inequalities and larger numbers of long-term unemployed.It is appropriate, in a true spirit of embracing globalisation, to look at the best performing nations in terms of tackling unemployment, and what may possibly be learned from them to apply in the challenges we face here in Australia.Jobs Australia is the national peak body representing not-for-profit organisations that help disadvantaged people find work.We are the largest network of employment and related service providers in Australia and we are funded and owned by our members.I am pleased to endorse the thrust of the arguments put forward in this paper and for Jobs Australia to publish it in this format in order to open up debate and to seek more engagement from key policy-makers with the ideas presented here.

Migration, unemployment and trade

Migration, Unemployment and Trade focuses on the issues of migration, welfare and unemployment in a trade and development framework. Several chapters of the book analyze the implications of internal labor mobility in a model designed to highlight its implications for regional welfare, urban unemployment, rural-urban dichotomy and structural adjustment. An important innovation in this work is the disaggregation of the economy and the use of separate utility functions to highlight non-homogeneity of preferences. The book also deals with international mobility of factors in different frameworks. In particular it concentrates on the highly emotive issue of legal and illegal migration. Thus this work incorporates interesting and important features of labor economics and factor mobility into trade and distortion theory.

The evolution of the Australian life insurance industry

The life insurance industry in Australia has traditionally been an important source of long term finance for both the public and private sector. However, very little historical analysis has been undertaken into an industry that constitutes a fundamental part of the economy's financial sector. The present climate of deregulation has initiated an irrevocable process of change within the industry. To comprehend the full implications of this change it is necessary to have an understanding of how the industry has evolved. This paper seeks to provide a background account of the growth of the life insurance industry in Australia highlighting the influences that have determined the structure of the industry.

Coping with economic deprivation during unemployment

The negative impact of unemployment on psychological health is well known. Less is known of the ways that people cope with the problems associated with unemployment, one of which is economic deprivation. This study examined the interrelationships between employment status (200 unemployed participants and 128 employed participants), economic deprivation, coping-efforts and psychological health. It also examined the moderating effect of coping on the relationship between economic deprivation (restriction of spending for material necessities and restriction of spending for meaningful leisure activity) and psychological health. The results suggest that economic deprivation is experienced differentially in terms of material necessities and meaningful leisure activities with unemployed respondents differing from employed on levels of deprivation for meaningful leisure activities but not for material necessities. Employment status, economic deprivation for meaningful leisure activity, solution-oriented coping and affective-based coping significantly predicted depressive affect and self-esteem. Depressive affect was also predicted by economic deprivation for material necessities. A number of significant two-way interactions show that the relationship between economic deprivation and psychological health was conditional upon the use of solution-oriented coping. Results also showed that the relationship between employment status and depressive affect was moderated by the use of affective-based coping. The incorporation of these findings into intervention programmes for unemployed persons is discussed.

Predicting self-esteem during unemployment: the effect of gender, financial deprivation, alternate roles, and social support

Two hundred and one unemployed men and women participated in a cross-sectional study that assessed self-esteem, financial deprivation, number of alternate roles, and use of social support. Financial deprivation, alternate roles, and social support each had a main effect on self-esteem. In addition, these variables interacted with gender to affect self-esteem. Specifically, financial deprivation had a greater negative association with self-esteem in men as compared with women. In contrast, alternate roles and social support had a stronger positive relationship to self-esteem in women than in men. The incorporation of these findings into intervention programs for unemployed persons is discussed.

The origins of formal collusion in Australian fire insurance 1870-1920

The market for insurance has become increasingly competitive in recent years. However, it has not always been so. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was characterized by a highly concentrated and tightly controlled oligopolistic market structure. As such, the history of the fire insurance industry provides an interesting case study in the development of collusive behaviour amongst firms. Up to 1897, pricing agreements among firms were generally short-lived, and were followed by periods of intense competition. After this point, an agreement was forged, which proved very resilient to market pressures and formed the basis of premium rate setting until the 1970s. This paper investigates the difference between this agreement and previous efforts to set premium rates, and points to some of the common features of the later compact, which explain its longevity.

Managers' views on ABC in an insurance company: A grounded theory case study

This is an in-depth case study using a grounded theory approach to explore managers’ views of ABC as part of the control system in an insurance company. Relevant issues are allowed to emerge from the data rather than imposing a theoretical framework upon them. Hypotheses are derived rather than confirmed. Issues emerging from this case study include: the relevance of ABC to managers, increased cost awareness coupled with the problem of taking qualitative factors into account, and the existence of different perceptions of managers within the same department. One hypothesis is how an understanding of ABC can affect job satisfaction by influencing the impact of ABC on managers’ actions. In this case study process and non-process managers had different levels of understanding and use of ABC information. A second hypothesis is that how managers view ABC information depends on whether they adopt a personal or an organisational perspective.

Benefits of employee training program : implications for the insurance industry

The decision to commit to the cost of training employees in insurance<br />organisations of all sizes is similar in nature to the decision by their customers to buy insurance. Both believe it is necessary but each has some reservations about its benefits.

Adaptation and change in the Australian life insurance industry : an historical perspective

In the wake of the deregulation of the financial sector in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s the life insurance industry has undergone a period of rapid change and reorganisation. Part of this adjustment has been the move towards the integration of financial service provision and the rise of bancassurance. This paper investigates the strategies adopted by Australian life insurers as they moved into the increasingly competitive environment triggered by the lifting of government restrictions on banking practices. It compares the approach of life insurers with that adopted in an earlier period of expansion and change. During the 1950s and 1960s an influx of foreign owned insurance companies into the Australian market precipitated the diversification of domestic life insurers into other insurance markets. The catalyst for change in both cases was the change in information costs brought about by the change in the competitive environment. The experience of the Australian life insurance market would suggest that there is a link between changing information costs and changing organisational structures. However this link is circumscribed by the institutional environment.

Control of the Australian life insurance industry: an example of regulatory externalities within the Australian financial sector 1870-1945

The regulatory environment in which the Australian life insurance industry operates has its antecedents in two major periods of legislative intervention. The first established the principle of ‘freedom with disclosure’ in the 1870s, which has since formed the basis of the regulatory approach. In the 1940s, the second refined the concept in the context of a general recognition of an interventionist approach to financial markets. It is suggested that regulation of the life insurance market in Australia came about not in response to problems associated with market failure but in reaction to external influences not directly related to conditions in the Australian life insurance industry. This was impacted not only on the timing of intervention but on the approach taken as well.

Insurance services in multi-agent systems

In a multi-agent environment, there is often the need for an agent to cooperate with others so as to ensure that a given task is achieved timely and cost-effectively. Present agent systems currently maximizes this through mechanisms such as trust and risk assessments. In this paper, we extend this mechanism by introducing the concept of insurance, in which the insurance agents act as a bridge between agents who require resources from others. Unlike traditional systems, agents purchase insurance so as to guarantee to have the requested resources during the task execution time and thus minimize the risk in task failure. The novelty of this proposal is that it ensures agents continuously to exchange resources and to seek maximum expected utility in a dynamic environment at the same time. Our experimental results confirm the feasibility of our approach.

An analysis of the environment as a means of assessing training needs in the Insurance industry in Australia

In the five years leading up to 2002 there were many significant changes in
the insurance industry in Australia that brought about a range of training
needs. These training needs arose from matters as diverse as mergers, increased competition, corporate failures, and legislative changes. This study includes findings from a survey of the insurance industry in Australia in the period 2000·2002 asa means of exploring the importance of the environment (marketplace) in predicting aspects of training needs. The findings demonstrate that an environmental analysis approach to training needs analysis can predict the type of training that organisations will subsequently need to provide, and thus has the potential to produce a more accurate assessment of training needs in the future. The findings also have application to more broadly based businesses operating in the financial services sector of the economy

Integrating insurance services, trust and risk mechanisms into multi-agent systems

In multi-agent systems, there is often the need for an agent to cooperate with others so as to ensure that a given task is achieved timely and cost effectively. Currently multi-agent systems maximize this through mechanisms such as coalition formation, trust and risk assessments, etc. In this paper, we incorporate the concept of insurance with trust and risk mechanisms in multi-agent systems. The novelty of this proposal is that it ensures continuous sharing of resources while encouraging expected utility to be maximized in a dynamic environment. Our experimental results confirm the feasibility of our approach.

Buying and selling with insurance in open multi-agent marketplace

In this paper, we incorporate the insurance concept in buying and selling model for agents to trade in the open multi-agent marketplace. During buying, agents purchase insurance as a method to search for potential sellers and select their partners based on the information provided by insurance agents. During selling, agents purchase insurance as a method to protect themselves against potential risk. The insurance concept greatly simplifies the trading procedure in the open marketplace. The novelty of this proposal is that it ensures a dynamic trading environment while agents continue to seek maximum utility and being fully protected by insurance. Our experimental results confirm the feasibility of our approach.