Consumer Advisory Bulletin, Warning: "Work-at-Home" Schemes, October 2004

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Warning: "Work-at-Home" Schemes

Disability, capacity for work and the business cycle: An international perspective

An important policy issue in recent years concerns the number of people claimingdisability benefits for reasons of incapacity for work. We distinguish between workdisability , which may have its roots in economic and social circumstances, and healthdisability which arises from clear diagnosed medical conditions. Although there is a linkbetween work and health disability, economic conditions, and in particular the businesscycle and variations in the risk of unemployment over time and across localities, mayplay an important part in explaining both the stock of disability benefit claimants andinflows to and outflow from that stock. We employ a variety of cross?country andcountry?specific household panel data sets, as well as administrative data, to testwhether disability benefit claims rise when unemployment is higher, and also toinvestigate the impact of unemployment rates on flows on and off the benefit rolls. Wefind strong evidence that local variations in unemployment have an importantexplanatory role for disability benefit receipt, with higher total enrolments, loweroutflows from rolls and, often, higher inflows into disability rolls in regions and periodsof above?average unemployment. Although general subjective measures of selfreporteddisability and longstanding illness are also positively associated withunemployment rates, inclusion of self?reported health measures does not eliminate thestatistical relationship between unemployment rates and disability benefit receipt;indeed including general measures of health often strengthens that underlyingrelationship. Intriguingly, we also find some evidence from the United Kingdom and theUnited States that the prevalence of self?reported objective specific indicators ofdisability are often pro?cyclical that is, the incidence of specific forms of disability arepro?cyclical whereas claims for disability benefits given specific health conditions arecounter?cyclical. Overall, the analysis suggests that, for a range of countries and datasets, levels of claims for disability benefits are not simply related to changes in theincidence of health disability in the population and are strongly influenced by prevailingeconomic conditions. We discuss the policy implications of these various findings.

Management of major accidents with on-site 144 dispatcher

Introduction: An excellent coordination between firefighters, policemen and medical rescue is the key to success in the management of major accidents. In order to improve and assist the medical teams engaged on site, the Swiss "medical command and control system" for rescue operations is based on a binomial set up involving one head emergency doctor and one head rescue paramedic, both trained in disaster medicine. We have recently experimented an innovative on-site "medical command and control system", based on the binomial team, supported by a dedicated 144 dispatcher. Methods: A major road traffic accident took place on the highway between Lausanne and Vevey on April 9th 2008. We have retrospectively collected all data concerning the victims as well as the logistics and dedicated structures, reported by the 144, the Hospitals, the Authority of the State and the Police and Fire Departments. Results: The 72-car pileup caused one death and 26 slightly injured patients. The management on the accident site was organized around a tripartite system, gathering together the medical command and control team with the police and fire departments. On the medical side, 16 ambulances, 2 medical response teams (SMUR), the Rega crew and the medical command and control team were dispatched by the 144. On that occasion an advanced medical command car equipped with communication devices and staffed with a 144 dispatcher was also engaged, allowing efficient medical regulation directly from the site. Discussion: The specific skills of one doctor and one paramedic both trained for disaster's management proved to be perfectly complementary. The presence of a dispatcher on site with a medical command car also proved to be useful, improving orders transmission from the medical command team to all other on- and off-site partners. It relieved the need of repeated back-and-forth communication with the 144, allowing both paramedic and doctor to focus on strategy and tactics rather than communication and logistics.

Take-the-best and other simple strategies: Why and when they work 'well' in binary choice

The effectiveness of decision rules depends on characteristics of bothrules and environments. A theoretical analysis of environments specifiesthe relative predictive accuracies of the lexicographic rule 'take-the-best'(TTB) and other simple strategies for binary choice. We identify threefactors: how the environment weights variables; characteristics of choicesets; and error. For cases involving from three to five binary cues, TTBis effective across many environments. However, hybrids of equal weights(EW) and TTB models are more effective as environments become morecompensatory. In the presence of error, TTB and similar models do not predictmuch better than a naïve model that exploits dominance. We emphasizepsychological implications and the need for more complete theories of theenvironment that include the role of error.

Protestants and Catholics: Similar work ethic, different social ethic

This article develops two hypotheses about economically-relevant values of Christianbelievers, according to which Protestants should work more and more effectively, as in the work ethic argument of Max Weber, or display a stronger social ethic that would lead themto monitor each other s conduct, support political and legal institutions and hold morehomogeneous values. Tests using current survey data confirm substantial partial correlations andpossible different effects in mutual social control, institutional performance and homogeneityof values but no difference in work ethics. Protestantism therefore seems conducive to capitalisteconomic development, not by the direct psychological route of the Weberian work ethic butrather by promoting an alternative social ethic that facilitates impersonal trade.

How binding are legal limits? Transitions from temporary to permanent work in Spain

This paper studies the duration pattern of xed-term contracts and the determinantsof their conversion into permanent ones in Spain, where the share of xed-termemployment is the highest in Europe. We estimate a duration model for temporaryemployment, with competing risks of terminating into permanent employment versusalternative states, and exible duration dependence. We nd that conversion rates aregenerally below 10%. Our estimated conversion rates roughly increase with tenure,with a pronounced spike at the legal limit, when there is no legal way to retain theworker on a temporary contract. We argue that estimated di¤erences in conversionrates across categories of workers can stem from di¤erences in worker outside optionsand thus the power to credibly threat to quit temporary jobs.

Long-run selection and the work ethic

That individuals contribute in social dilemma interactions even when contributing is costly is a well-established observation in the experimental literature. Since a contributor is always strictly worse off than a non-contributor the question is raised if an intrinsic motivation to contribute can survive in an evolutionary setting. Using recent results on deterministic approximation of stochastic evolutionary dynamics we give conditions for equilibria with a positive number of contributors to be selected in the long run.

Children's work in Spanish textiles during the 19th and 20th Centuries

This essay deals with the reasons explaining children s work in 19th century textile factories and their removal during the first part of the 20th century. The inadequacy of the structure of incomes and expenditures of the household and the very low economic incentives to educate children can explain why children were in the factories and not in the school. Moreover, the marginal economic contribution to the economy of the household of a child was the same as that of his mother. This normally implied that women and children were perfect substitutes. When the family had a child at working age this allowed to replace the paid work input of the mother. With the beginnings of the 20th century a set of changes leading to the increase of women s productivity and hourly real wages, switched the situation and involved the new incorporation of women into paid work and the investment in children s human capital.

Women, Work and the Iowa Economy, September 2008

Women play a substantial and crucial role in the Iowa economy. Women make up almost half the labor force, participating in the labor force at one of the highest rates in the nation. At the same time, disparities persist as to women’s prospects for success in that same economy. For instance, although women in Iowa are more likely than men to receive post-secondary education, they are also more likely to be in poverty and to earn a lower wage than male peers. The “gender gap,” the difference between male and female wages, is a much-discussed but often misunderstood tool that helps measure women’s success in the workforce. Women’s median wages are lower than men’s median wages largely because of differences in male and female occupations and work history, although gender discrimination in the workforce also plays a role. This report investigates Iowa’s gender gap in ways that clearly show both its causes and effects and suggests policy responses that could ensure women’s full and equal participation in Iowa’s economic future. Understanding the differences between men’s and women’s experiences in the state economy is important for developing policies that can effectively address barriers to economic success for all Iowans.

Work values as predictors of entrepreneurial career intentions: A longitudinal analysis of gender effects

Purpose - Work values are an important characteristic to understand gender differences in career intentions, but how gender affects the relationship between values and career intentions is not well established. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether gender moderates the effects of work values on level and change of entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Design/methodology/approach - In total, 218 German university students were sampled regarding work values and with EI assessed three times over the course of 12 months. Data were analysed with latent growth modelling. Findings - Self-enhancement and openness to change values predicted higher levels and conservation values lower levels of EI. Gender moderated the effects of enhancement and conservation values on change in EI. Research limitations/implications - The authors relied on self-reported measures and the sample was restricted to university students. Future research needs to verify to what extent these results generalize to other samples and different career fields, such as science or nursing. Practical implications - The results imply that men and women are interested in an entrepreneurial career based on the same work values but that values have different effects for men and women regarding individual changes in EI. The results suggest that the prototypical work values of a career domain seem important regarding increasing the career intent for the gender that is underrepresented in that domain. Originality/value - The results enhance understanding of how gender affects the relation of work values and a specific career intention, such as entrepreneurship.

Single mothers and incentives to work: The French experience

This paper analyzes the effect of the 1998 reform of the French single parents allowanceon the labor supply of single mothers with very young children. The reform aimed atencouraging participation by allowing eligible single parents to accumulate benefits andlabor earnings for a limited period of time. Using data from the French EmploymentSurvey, the analysis shows that single mothers affected by the reform had experienced asignificant increase in their employment rate four years after the reform wasimplemented. During the same period, the employment rate of married mothers withyoung children did not experience a significant change, suggesting that at least part ofthe increase was a consequence of the reform. These results provide some evidence thatbenefit schedules that provide financial incentives to work can have significant effectsin getting single moms back to work, even in the presence of very young children.