Gianni Betti

Consumer over‐indebtedness in the EU: measurement and characteristics

Purpose - This paper seeks to measure and characterise the extent of consumer over-indebtedness among the European Union (EU) member states. Design/methodology/approach - The study evaluates alternative measures of over-indebtedness on the basis of the permanent-income/life-cycle theories of consumption behaviour and adopts a subjective approach in identifying over-indebted households on the basis of European household survey data. It then investigates the main characteristics of over-indebted households. Findings - The empirical results reveal that over-indebtedness was a significant problem across EU member states in the mid-1990s. Moreover, an inverse relationship emerged between the extent of the over-indebtedness problem and the extent of consumer borrowing across EU countries. Research limitations/implications - Anecdotal evidence seemed to suggest that some main factors behind over-indebtedness could be “market failure” on the credit market, the existence of liquidity constraints and lack of access to formal credit markets. However, a comprehensive and rigorous investigation of the extent and determinants of over-indebtedness can only be achieved through analysis of more extended household data sets, particularly panel data. Practical implications - The EU credit markets exhibited certain symptoms of “market failure”, on the one hand, and there was also need for further financial liberalisation in the Southern European countries, on the other hand. Originality/value - The paper provides a first systematic evaluation of existing measures of consumer over-indebtedness as well as the first EU-wide empirical investigation of the problem. It should provide valuable information to the credit industry as well as financial regulatory bodies.

Fuzzy measures of the incidence of relative poverty and deprivation: a multi-dimensional perspective

In this paper we present a methodology for the study of multi-dimensional aspects of poverty and deprivation. The conventional poor/non-poor dichotomy is replaced by defining poverty as a matter of degree, determined by the place of the individual in the income distribution. The fuzzy poverty measure proposed is in fact also expressible in terms of the generalised Gini measure. The same methodology facilitates the inclusion of other dimensions of deprivation into the analysis: by appropriately weighting indicators of deprivation to reflect their dispersion and correlation, we can construct measures of non-monetary deprivation in its various dimensions. These indicators illuminate the extent to which purely monetary indicators are insufficient in themselves in capturing the prevalence of deprivation. An important contribution of the paper is to identify rules for the aggregation of fuzzy sets appropriate for the study of poverty and deprivation. In particular, we define a ‘composite’ fuzzy set operator which takes into account whether the sets being aggregated are of a ‘similar’ or a ‘dissimilar’ type. These rules allow us to meaningfully combine income and the diverse non-income deprivation indices at the micro-level and construct what we have termed ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive’ indicators of deprivation. We note that mathematically the same approach can be carried over to the study of persistence of poverty and deprivation over time.

A randomized trial of oral betamethasone to reduce ataxia symptoms in ataxia telangiectasia.

No controlled studies exist regarding the pharmaceutical reduction of ataxia symptoms in ataxia telangiectasia (A‐T). In a multicenter, double‐blind, randomized, placebo‐controlled crossover trial, oral betamethasone (BETA) and placebo were compared in terms of their reduction of ataxia symptoms as assessed with the International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS). In this study of 13 A‐T children, betamethasone reduced the ICARS total score by a median of 13 points in the intent‐to‐treat population and 16 points in the per‐protocol population (ie, median percent decreases of ataxia symptoms of 28% and 31%, respectively). In conclusion, Oral betamethasone could be a promising therapy to relieve ataxia symptoms in A‐T patients; however, long‐term effectiveness and safety must be established. (Current Controlled Trials, number ISRCTN08774933.)

Taylor linearization sampling errors and design effects for poverty measures and other complex statistics

A systematic procedure for the derivation of linearized variables for the estimation of sampling errors of complex nonlinear statistics involved in the analysis of poverty and income inequality is developed. The linearized variable extends the use of standard variance estimation formulae, developed for linear statistics such as sample aggregates, to nonlinear statistics. The context is that of cross-sectional samples of complex design and reasonably large size, as typically used in population-based surveys. Results of application of the procedure to a wide range of poverty and inequality measures are presented. A standardized software for the purpose has been developed and can be provided to interested users on request. Procedures are provided for the estimation of the design effect and its decomposition into the contribution of unequal sample weights and of other design complexities such as clustering and stratification. The consequence of treating a complex statistic as a simple ratio in estimating its sampling error is also quantified. The second theme of the paper is to compare the linearization approach with an alternative approach based on the concept of replication, namely the Jackknife repeated replication (JRR) method. The basis and application of the JRR method is described, the exposition paralleling that of the linearization method but in somewhat less detail. Based on data from an actual national survey, estimates of standard errors and design effects from the two methods are analysed and compared. The numerical results confirm that the two alternative approaches generally give very similar results, though notable differences can exist for certain statistics. Relative advantages and limitations of the approaches are identified.

The Fuzzy Set Approach to Multidimensional Poverty: the Case of Italy in the 1990s

Most of the methods designed for the analysis of poverty share two main limitations: (i) they are unidimensional, i.e. refer to only one proxy of poverty such as low income or consumption expenditure; (ii) they need to dichotomize the population into the poor and the non-poor by means of the so-called poverty line.

Panel regression models for measuring multidimensional poverty dynamics

This work concerns the study of poverty dynamics and the analysis of the influencing socio-demographic factors. A fuzzy and multidimensional approach has been chosen in order to define two different poverty measures. A panel regression model has been estimated and particular attention has been paid to the treatment of the unobservable heterogeneity among longitudinal units. The specified model combines autoregression with variance components. The empirical analysis has been conducted using the data set of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 1991 to 1997.

Multidimensional and Longitudinal Poverty: an Integrated Fuzzy Approach

When poverty is viewed as a matter of degree in contrast to the conventional poor/non-poor dichotomy, that is, as a fuzzy state, two additional aspects are introduced into the analysis. (i) The choice of membership functions i.e. quantitative specification of individuals’ or households’ degrees of poverty and deprivation. (ii) And the choice of rules for the manipulation of the resulting fuzzy sets, rules defining their complements, intersections, union and aggregation. Specifically, for longitudinal analysis of poverty using the fuzzy set approach, we need joint membership functions covering more than one time period, which have to be constructed on the basis of the series of cross-sectional membership functions over those time periods.

The impact of remittances and equivalence scales on poverty in Tajikistan

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of remittances from labour migrants on welfare, as well as the impact of the use of equivalence scales on poverty, in Tajikistan. The magnitude of remittances sent back is fairly well known from official statistics (e.g. the amount of remittances is regularly monitored by the balance of payment at the Central Bank). In 2009 a change in the flow of money from abroad occurred, and volumes dropped, but it was unknown to what extent; its impact on poverty is still officially unknown. This paper describes a project aimed at conducting a survey to investigate this impact. It would not be possible to do this kind of analysis with a traditional sample survey, since it would generate only a small selection of migrant households. Instead, the new Migration, Remittances and Poverty Survey was used, which was conducted by the Tajik State Statistical Office in August 2010 using an adaptive sampling design from a set of enumeration areas selected mainly from the 2009 Integrated Household Budget Survey (IHBS) and showing households with remittances. To evaluate the impact of equivalence scales on poverty measures, new scales have been estimated on the basis of consumption expenditure from the 2009 IHBS.

A comparative analysis of school-to-work transitions in the European Union1

The present paper describes some aspects of ‘school-to-work’ transition by analyzing the employment situation of individuals as a function of the time elapsed since the completion of education or training. Our perspective is interdisciplinary, comparative and dynamic, with special focus on the patterns in southern European countries. In the literature, most of the studies have had the basic approach of constructing indicators based on retrospective information on the time of first leaving continuous education, and current information on status and characteristics of the persons economic activity – expressing the status of activity as a function of the time elapsed since leaving continuous education. In this approach, essentially cross-sectional (though in part retrospective) information is interpreted as if it pertains to real cohorts. Much of this comparative analysis of school-to-work transitions in EU countries has been based on the EU Labour Force Survey, the 2000 round of which incorporated a special module to collect information on the subject. Our basic approach is to use the longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel to identify, at the time of each wave, the persons most recently completed education and training, and study this in relation to the persons current employment situation and other characteristics as a function of the time elapsed since that completion. Hence, in form at least, our approach is similar to that of earlier studies based on the LFS, though there are considerable differences in substantive content and statistical methodology resulting from the use of different types of data. We also demonstrate how data from a panel survey may be cumulated over time to obtain a more adequate sample size.

Unequal ageing in Europe: Women's independence and pensions

1. Women, Old Age and Independence: Why Investigate Yet Another Gender Gap? 2. Concepts and Literature 3. Gender Pension Gaps in Europe 4. The Gender Pension Gap in Europe: Explaining Diversity 5. Benchmarking the Analysis: Europe, Israel and the US 6. Pension Systems and Pension Disparities 7. His and Her Pensions: Intra-Household Imbalances in Old Age 8. Looking Ahead: Pension Reforms and Inequality in Old Age