Search

Financial literacy, as a fundamental skill in the 21st century, has become a life skill that is urgently needed to be improved. Globally, the drive to enhance financial literacy involves integrating it into the education curriculum, necessitating educators' comprehensive grasp of financial literacy education before imparting it to students. This research aims to outline a conceptual model of financial literacy professional development to improve teachers' professional competence, employing a narrative review that synthesizes 28 relevant literatures retrieved from Scopus databases. The results of the study show that an effective training model for teacher professional development (TPD) in financial literacy education should focus on essential financial literacy content consisting of planning and budgeting, banking services, income and careers, insurance, investment, savings, also spending and credit. Furthermore, the main characteristics of TPD regarding financial literacy education should encompass content focus, coherence, ownership, active learning, duration, and collective participation.

This case study looks both backwards and forwards at real and potential incidents and risks created by the use of various levels of self-driving vehicles. The case provides background on autonomous vehicle technology, the legal and risk management frameworks involved, and a variety of scenarios for students to consider. The scenarios provide the foundation for discussion of autonomous vehicle introductions and operations, as well as considerations for how other new technologies may be launched.

This article examined trends in Islamic education and finance publications using bibliometric analysis. The authors used co-citation and co-word analysis to examine 449 Islamic education and finance studies from Scopus database. In the co-citation analysis, 10 themes in Islamic education and finance were identified. After that, co-word analysis is used to understand and identify each research theme's potential future research directions. The results showed that per year the average publication of articles was 2.65. There has been extensive research on this topic in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), and the most popped-up keywords are 'education', 'finance education', 'banking education' and very limited 'Islamic finance education'. Further research can be developed using Islamic jurisprudence education, Islamic insurance education, Islamic capital market education, "zakat" education and "waqf" as keywords. In addition, the study offers a visualization map of theme patterns for future studies to create educational fields for Islamic banking and finance education, particularly in Muslim-majority nations like Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Middle East. This research contributes as a foundation for further research in enriching and developing knowledge about Islamic education and finance, especially in majority countries.

As the twenty-first century advances technologically, the era is also becoming notorious for the rise of organized cybercrime and attacks on business information and operations. Company data and intellectual property are considered the "New Oil" that generates value for organizations and their constituents. With the escalating number of cybersecurity incidents, businesses--especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)--are increasingly at risk of compromise and economic debilitation. Therefore, current and future business students would benefit from awareness of unfamiliar measures, such as cyber insurance, which can potentially reduce the devastating effects of a cyber incident. In this paper, the authors describe cyber insurance, present a framework that could be incorporated into the classroom to teach risk management techniques, and provide exercise resources.

It is an easily observed reality that the typical college/university student is extremely comfortable with the use of technology and particularly with the use of the Internet. The authors contend that this fact almost requires that instructors of finance classes incorporate the use of web-based financial resources into their in-class presentations as well as their out-of-class assignments. Given the proliferation of online resources and the extensive website listings in most finance textbooks, we believe the difficulty is not locating resources; instead, it is one of choosing a set of resources that can be employed in efficient and effective ways to enhance both the interest and the learning of students. This paper attempts to address this situation by discussing a textbook chapter-based online project created to familiarize students with a beneficial selection of online personal finance related services, while supporting topics generally encountered in the first personal financial planning class. A template designed to simplify grading of the student project submissions also is included.

As employability has become a more visible graduate attribute, it is becoming recognised that a better understanding of information practices in work may enable a smoother transition from university to employment. This paper discusses the current state of workplace information literacy and presents the findings of research into staff experiences of information use in a City insurance firm. A framework previously developed out of phenomenographic research into nursing is employed to draw parallels and highlight differences between insurance workplace and university student terminology. Context-specific hierarchical statements using the language of the participants are developed from coded interview texts. These statements, which are drawn together in illustrative personae, provide a rich and detailed view of the participants' experience of effective information use. It is suggested that a better understanding of language use in communities of practice would facilitate transition both between and within the communities.

The rapid emergence of the novel coronavirus and its impact on human behavior provoked dramatic increases in human usage of a variety of systems. These increases had the potential to stress the scalability of the systems, testing whether the system owners had designed and built those systems to cope with sudden changes in demand. This case invites students to study a variety of different types of systems, and to analyze the means by which they can or did achieve scalability, and efficiently serve their customers.

Disasters affect individuals psychologically and some individuals take a long time to get rid of this effect. Psychological resilience is defined as the individuals having a psychologically strong structure, being affected by negative situations as little as possible and getting rid of stressful situations quickly. The aim of this study is to determine the psychological resilience level of individuals living in Çanakkale. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was used to determine the participants' resilience level. Participants in the study are 412 individuals, aged between 18 and 60, who are determined by the simple random sampling method living in the Central District of Çanakkale. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software. Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.92. The mean of the psychological resilience level was 3.75. Results showed that the most psychologically resilient people are males, high school graduates, individuals between the ages of 29-39, divorced, those who do not have children, those with a monthly income of more than 3001 TL, those with natural disaster insurance and those who are previously faced a disaster.

Automobile Insurance fraud costs the insurance industry billions of dollars annually. This case study addresses claim fraud based on data extracted from Alpha Insurance's automobile claim database. Students are provided the business problem and data sets. Initially, the students are required to develop their hypotheses and analyze the data. This includes identification of any missing or inaccurate data values and outliers as well as evaluation of the 22 variables. Next students will develop and optimize their predictive models using five techniques: regression, decision tree, neural network, gradient boosting, and ensemble. Then students will determine which model is the best fit providing consideration of the misclassification rate, average square error, or receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Lastly, students will generate predictive scores for the claims and evaluate the result using SAS Enterprise Miner™. Ultimately, the goal is to build an optimal predictive model to determine which of the automobile claims are potentially fraudulent.

Recent research demonstrates that personal mortality salience from annuity contemplation generates an avoidance response, reducing interest in purchasing annuities. However, theoretical models of mortality salience also predict an increased desire for investment in the future circumstances of surviving others ("symbolic immortality"), such as that provided by bequest provisions in an annuity contract. An experimental test confirms that those exposed to higher levels of personal mortality reminders exhibit a greater preference for an annuity paying lower income but with a bequest provision. Thus, the effects of mortality salience can drive annuity decisions, not only at the extensive margin (avoidance of any purchase), but also at the intensive margin (purchasing lower income by including a bequest provision).

School plants are indispensable for effective realization of school goals and objectives. This is because the successful implementation of school curriculum is dependent on the school plants, which refer to the physical facilities available in the school system, that are provided in the school. The insurance of school plants serves as a means of safeguarding them in the event of risks. This paper therefore looked at the place of insurance company in school plants in Nigeria. The paper examined some concepts on the key terms, the components of school plants, the advantages of insuring school plants, the challenges faced by insurance company in the events of insuring school plants in Nigeria and proffered solutions. The paper concluded that in the event of damages and other hazards to school plants, insurance companies will be held responsible for the renewing, repair and reconstruction of school plants in the school. Finally, the paper suggested the following among others that government at the different levels i.e. Federal, State and Local should enforce the insurance of school plants for both government and private schools.

The purpose of this study is to describe the actions taken by college students to face their future retirement. For this, the test designed by the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users (CONDUSEF) in Mexico was used, which has items related to financial knowledge, specifically topics about savings, emergency funds and life insurance, among others. The instrument was applied to 60 UPAV college students of different levels, during the school cycle of February-August 2018, in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz; it should be noted that the range of age was older than 21 but younger than 23 years old. The descriptive analysis showed results that lead us to believe that students have emergency funds (53%) but these are used to face unexpected situations (59%); also, students do not have life insurance, which could be concerning in their personal and family life if/when they have to face a present or future illness. Regarding car insurance, most of the respondents stated that they do not own one, besides considering it an unnecessary expense. One of the study limitations was the surveyed population; hence the need to widen this research to encompass more students from such geographical area in order to obtain a wider outlook of said behavior.

The goal of this research is to describe an active learning opportunity that was conducted as a community service offering through our Center for Cybersecurity Education and Applied Research (CCEAR). As a secondary goal, the participants sought to gain real world experience by applying techniques and concepts studied in security classes. A local insurance company tasked the CCEAR with assembling a team of students to conduct penetration testing (including social engineering exploits) against company personnel. The endeavor allowed the insurance company to obtain information that would assess the effectiveness of employee training with regard to preventing the divulgence of sensitive information. The team of students assembled organized, planned and executed all penetration testing. This academic opportunity allowed the students to build experience transacting the social engineering while laying the groundwork for future projects that will allow additional students to build and expand the process outlined in this study.

Consumers face hard choices when they need cash quickly. Hard choices can lead to emotional or economically unsound decisions. Traditional classroom discussions of raising funds to pay for expenses usually focus on generating income, borrowing, or the sale of real and financial assets, if hardship is discussed at all. However, many families have additional "non-traditional" sources of cash. This article examines the use of life insurance surrenders and policy loans as a source of funds for both routine funding needs as well as a source of emergency financing. The article concludes with a review of the economic considerations of life insurance for Insurance and Financial Planning educators and students.

This paper analyzes dialogues between insurance sales agents and their clients in transformational rural China from the perspective of interactive frames, footings and discourse identities. Through the analysis of three types of talk, namely, friendship talk, institutional talk and task-oriented talk, the ambiguous and conflicting identities that both agents and clients adopt in the conversations are captured and described. It then describes and analyzes the dynamics of the mobilization and strategic management of relative identities that both parties assume and employ in order to resolve conflicts, justify oneself and resume control. The analysis further probes into the transforming nature of the modern Chinese rural society, where old and traditional value systems have, to a large extent, been shattered, while new value systems are yet to be established.

Introduction: This paper reports the findings of a study of risk management in public libraries. The focus of the research was to determine whether the libraries had a risk management and disaster plan for major disasters. Method: A qualitative study was done to investigate risk management and disaster recovery in public libraries in South Australia. Seven personal interviews were conducted with library managers and librarians at four public libraries. Analysis: The qualitative results emerging from the interviews were analysed through hand coding using grounded theory. Results: Participants confused risk management and disaster recovery with the practice of work (occupational) health and safety. None of the participating libraries have a risk management or disaster plan. Conclusions: The library managers do not rate the risk of disaster as high, believing that their library is located in a low-risk disaster area. They also do not regard any part of their collections to be of great value. Loss of a collection is perceived as an opportunity to refresh that collection. The participants do not consider risk management and disaster recovery as an important part of their business. [Paper presented at the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC): The Information Behaviour Conference, Part 1 (11th, Zadar, Croatia, September 20-23, 2016).]

This paper considers the methodological aspects of forming a development strategy for the regional socioeconomic system (by the example of radio-electronic enterprises in the Republic of Tatarstan). The paper suggests a conceptual scheme of the macro- and micro-factors' influence on the regional socioeconomic system. This scheme is based on the study of the market power of enterprise's contact persons (suppliers, competitors, and consumers) and subjects that have an indirect impact (government, markets, financial institutions, insurance companies, etc.). It has a hierarchic structure and allows coordinating the terms of cooperation for different elements of the socioeconomic system. The paper builds a formation algorithm for the manufacturing program of radio-electronic enterprises. A peculiar feature of this algorithm is its focus on involving resources of the enterprise's external environment on terms that are acceptable to an economic entity. The paper also suggests stages of the development strategy for the regional socioeconomic system that are based on the principles of lean production, which assume the determination and market substantiation of the regional resource intensity limit of separate productions. This allows plotting an evolutionary vector for the transformation of the socioeconomic system into an adaptive structure with such properties as self-organization and self-regulation.

We present Aviation Cost Risk management (CRM) methodology designed for Airlines Company, who needs to run projects beyond their normal. These airlines are critical to the survival of these organizations, such as the development and performance. The Aviation crisis can have considerable impact upon the value of the firm. Risk managers must focus special attention to their prevention and risk neutralization. Recently, demonstrated that large losses can have a very negative impact on shareholder wealth in an efficient stock market. This crisis shows that on the day that a loss occurred, returns of a negative. The goal of cost risk management (CRM) is to maximize shareholder wealth and protected airlines company, since it has been recently demonstrated that shareholder wealth can be negatively impacted by losses, risk management must be viewed in its relationship to the overall wealth of the company. The loss exposures become a critical financial management function, mostly in firms with considerable exposures to such losses.

Problem Statement: In disaster prone countries, preparedness is an important factor in disaster mitigation. There are various disaster management approaches. However, one common point of these approaches is that they are "preventive." First and foremost of the principal components of the preventive approach is preparedness and education. It is possible to increase the capacity to cope with the disasters, which show variety in terms of their development periods and times and mostly involve uncertainty, by raising the awareness of all components, all individuals and communities in line with this common cause. Purpose of Study: The goal of this study is to determine the levels of disaster awareness and attitude and the individual priorities of the personnel and the students at Umuttepe Campus of Kocaeli University. Methods: In this survey, a relational scanning model was applied and the data were collected by a measurement tool via the Internet. The data were analyzed with percentage, frequency, arithmetic means, t-test, F-test (oneway ANOVA) and Scheffe test by using SPSS 14.00 statistical program. indings and Results: The difference between the awareness levels of academic and administrative personnel is associated with the positive influence of education level and responsibilities. Level of education is an important factor in reducing disaster damages. Comparison of age groups shows similar results for both personnel and student groups. This result is anticipated, because older groups are supposed to be more sensitive and responsible to the problems in their Turkish communities in regard to their experiences. Students in the Department of Engineering have the highest awareness level of all. Most of these students are from the Departments of Geology and Geophysics and have the privilege of taking courses related to disasters. Conclusion and Recommendations: After the devastating 1999 Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey, some key institutions initiated and developed several disaster preparedness training programs, which included basic disaster awareness, awareness of structural and nonstructural earthquake hazards mitigation. Those were undoubtedly very beneficial programs, none of which was included in a formal education system, however. For this reason, most of the disaster prone countries initiated disaster education programs, considering the major disasters on their land in their curriculum. Our results support the world's science-based developments and emphasize that education and training in disaster awareness in formal education is very important.

Insurance is an interesting interdisciplinary topic that can offer generative meaning and relevance for students. By adapting real life examples and authentic simulations, mathematical concepts can be applied to insurance-related social studies issues and content. This article explores ways to teach insurance and related mathematical concepts to middle school students using an interdisciplinary approach and it demonstrates various concomitant benefits in teaching mathematics with the concept of insurance by connecting it to important democratic citizenship dispositions such as civic participation, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, and knowledge of political activity. The ultimate goal of this interdisciplinary approach is to develop students' ability to make informed and reasoned decisions as current and future consumer-citizens.

The current research examines the relationship between personal financial knowledge (both objective and subjective), financial satisfaction, and selected demographic variables in terms of best practice financial behavior. Data are taken from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's (FINRA) National Financial Capability Study, a nationally representative sample of 1,488 participants and are analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Findings suggest that both objective and subjective financial knowledge influence financial behavior, with subjective knowledge having a larger relative impact. Other variables that have a significant impact on financial behavior include financial satisfaction, income, education, age, race, and ethnicity. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

Remedying childhood obesity cannot take place without first identifying relevant issues commonly influencing gatekeepers of food for children as well as the role modeling for encouraging or discouraging daily activities. Children cannot drive to the store, form grocery lists or complete menu management tasks without adult assistance. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy leads to weight retention postpartum and often increases with each pregnancy. Maternal and postpartum obesity is associated with increased risk of developing gestational diabetes, metabolic syndrome, prenatal morbidity and increased risk of obesity in the offspring through adolescence which without intervention, leads to adulthood obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) data, weight gain in excess of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) guidelines is common. CDC data has shown, between 1990-2005, gaining greater than 40# in all Body Mass Index (BMI) categories has increased between 15-20%. Considering insurance coverage for weight loss management is not promoted by all health care practitioners for all postpartum women and only a percentage of postpartum women choose to breastfeed which can enhance weight loss, strategies for recommending dietitian services to clinics, hospitals and communities for helping moms or gatekeepers lose weight will be shared.

The author advocates the use of films to supplement textbook treatments of bank runs and panics in money and banking or general banking classes. Modern students, particularly those in developed countries, tend to be unfamiliar with potential fragilities of financial systems such as a lack of deposit insurance or other safety net mechanisms. Films provide a dramatic example of the panic and uncertainty experienced by depositors and banks during bank runs. Students learn the value of deposit insurance and the types of informational asymmetries safety net mechanisms overcome. The author provides examples of assignments given in the past and possible extensions.

The quality of life is a relatively new concept, which is continually changing and for which there is not yet a wholly satisfactory definition. The quality of life involves human, social-economic and health characteristics. The manifold nature of the quality of life led to the development of various patterns for measuring it. The quality of life is determined by subjective and objective indices and this allows us to have a clearer overall picture of it. The aim of this research paper is to measure the standard of living based on six main levels determined by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions-Eurofound: 1. Employment; 2. Total income; 3. Family & Home; 4. Social life & Community involvement; 5. Medical care & health security insurance and 6. Knowledge & education. A very interesting part of the paper is the research into the impact of economic crisis on the quality of life. The study is based on a questionnaire which is filled by 200 persons living in Gjirokastra and Saranda. The analysis of the results from the questionnaire is carried out employing the logistic regress method. (Contains 3 tables and 8 figures.)

Introduction: In this paper, we discuss the link between information sharing and organizational knowledge production in two very different organizations; a company that handles insurance claims and a small, entrepreneurial hi-tech company. We suggest that this link has not been adequately addressed by studies of information behaviour, though a number of recent papers have proposed that human information behaviour research should appropriate methods from workplace studies and computer-supported cooperative work to provide a richer account of organizational information and knowledge work. Method: Two case studies of sharing practices in Finnish firms were carried out. Results: The overall analysis has allowed us to explain how and why organizational information sharing happens in terms that go beyond the cognitive and descriptive accounts of our earlier studies. Conclusions: Information behaviour is a repertoire of actions and operations and judgements about timing and ethics that are brought into play across work cycles and routines. From this perspective, the duality of organizational knowledge becomes clear: it is both individual and collective judgements about how to behave, and the incremental outcome of these judgements, embedded in decisions that support the objects of activity systems.

A social constructionist perspective was taken in the current investigation of 5,329 male and female high school students. Gender differences were investigated in financial knowledge, self-efficacy, and behavior after studying a financial planning curriculum. Females gained more knowledge on credit, auto insurance, and investments, although males had more knowledge entering the course. Females believed that managing money affected their future more than males, but males felt more confident making money decisions. After studying the curriculum content, males reported achieving financial goals more than females, whereas females reported using budgets, comparing prices, and discussing money with family more than males. In sum, male teens reinforced their existing knowledge, whereas female teens learned significantly more about finances in areas in which they were unfamiliar with prior to the curriculum.

Partnerships between community colleges and employers to create apprenticeships have been around for decades. These traditionally have covered fields like the building trades--electrical, construction and others--as well as heavy manufacturing like the automobile industry. Inspired partly by a new federal apprenticeship consortium--and $175 million in grants doled out to 46 colleges and consortiums--the variety of such apprenticeships has expanded considerably to include fields such as culinary, healthcare, insurance, information technology and even marine engineering. The Registered Apprenticeship College Consortium (RACC), announced by Vice President Joe Biden in 2014 at the American Association of Community Colleges' annual convention, already includes more than 220 community colleges, according to John Ladd, project administrator at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which is running the consortium and its accompanying competitive grant program along with the U.S. Department of Education. Ladd has said that the DOL is happy to see such rapid growth in such a short amount of time, and this project has helped to lift up and equate apprenticeship as a post-secondary pathway. More efforts to align apprenticeship with postsecondary education are being seen. The American Apprenticeship Grants available through the program were announced in September and began flowing Oct. 1. "Through this project the strong role that community colleges can play in this effort can be seen through the number of grants that were awarded to community colleges, or where community colleges were a significant partner," Ladd says. Ladd also says that he hopes those grants become the fuel and the incubators for the next generation of activity in this space. In addition to the grant program, the RACC, comprising employers, labor-management groups and colleges, shares best practices among the thousands of apprenticeship articulation agreements between colleges and employers, and sets a standard among members for accepting the college - credit value of apprenticeship completion certificates. To date, Ladd says the consortium has seen a mix of colleges that already had been involved with local employer-based apprenticeships and "saw this as a natural next step," and others who "hadn't been doing something like this but decided to move in this direction," to create a new pathway for adult learners.

The process of globalization and the changeability of environment nowadays demand that society ensure sustainability for itself and its lifewide environment. Therefore nowadays the paradigm of personality's and specialist's competitiveness is changing. The old paradigm is substituted by a set of new viewpoints and concepts. The issue of ensuring the environment fostering the development of specialists competitiveness in the modern enterprise becomes even more important. Research in this sphere had three stages: 1) development of theoretically-methodological base for specialists' competitiveness research; 2) diagnostics and evaluation of the specialists' competitiveness in modern insurance enterprise (experimental approbation of the competitiveness research methodology); 3) development, evaluation, improvement of "The Model for Evaluation, Support and Promotion of the Staff's Competitiveness Development in Modern Enterprise as Learning Organization" and its offer for implementation into research base-insurance enterprise. The objectives of research: 1) to investigate the specialists' "competitiveness" in the modern insurance enterprise; 2) to develop and evaluate "The Model for Evaluation, Support and Promotion of the Specialists's Competitiveness Development in Modern Enterprise as Learning Organization" in the contexts of information and knowledge society and sustainable development.

Despite the plethora of previous studies on the various uses of e-learning, there is a dearth of research on employees' action to use corporate e-learning (ACE). The present study attempts to address this lack in literature by investigating whether individual factors such as self-esteem and need for cognition, and job factors such as job hygiene factors (JHF) and job motivation factors (JMF) applied from Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory affect learners' ACE. This study tests the difference between high action and low action learners. Findings indicate that high action learners have higher individual factors and JMF than lower action learners. The difference in JHF between high action learners and low action learners is not significant. From a practical perspective, the authors' findings provide corporate e-learning providers with a heightened perspective into the possible actions of its employees regarding their use of corporate e-learning programs and platforms, which could offer organizations with important insights into human capital investment.

This study examined the help-seeking attitudes of graduate students enrolled in an off-campus professional centre. The sample consisted of 217 participants enrolled in 10 graduate programs (130 women [60%], 37 men [17%], 50 unspecified [23%]). Analyses (descriptive statistics and t-tests) indicated that women possessed more favourable attitudes toward seeking counselling than men. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of graduate students would not travel to the main campus to utilize counselling services. Many participants identified potential obstacles, including lack of time, affordability, and lack of insurance coverage, as important obstacles to help-seeking. Several factors were also found to be significant predictors of help-seeking attitudes. University counselling centre professionals are encouraged to be available and sensitive to the counselling needs of off-campus graduate students.

Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I track the subjective well-being of individuals as they enter and exit unemployment. Job loss is a salient trigger event that sets off large changes in well-being. The factors expected to improve the lot of the unemployed have limited efficacy: (1) changes in family income are not significantly correlated with well-being; (2) unemployment insurance eligibility seems to partly mitigate the effect of job loss, but is a poor substitute for work; and (3) even reemployment recovers only about two thirds of the initial harm of job loss, indicating a potential long-term scar effect of unemployment. This highlights the deep and intractable hardship caused by unemployment in America.

This study examines whether a series of unemployment insurance benefit reforms that took place over a 20-year period in the Netherlands had a gendered effect on the duration of unemployment and labor market outcomes. Using longitudinal data from the Dutch Labor Supply Panel (OSA) over the period 1980-2000, and adopting a quasi-experimental design, we test whether seemingly "gender neutral" institutional reforms result in a structural disadvantage for women in particular. Our results demonstrate a striking gender similarity in terms of shorter unemployment durations and ultimately less favorable labor market outcomes (lower occupational class, lower wage, part-time and temporary contracts) among both men and women affected by these reforms. Findings also indicate that disadvantaged groups (older and low-skilled female workers) are the most likely to experience a negative effect from state interventions. These findings provide support for the long-term gains of unemployment benefits and their role in operating as "bridges" to better employment.

We propose a simple theoretical model which shows how the combined effect of wage uncertainty and risk aversion can modify the individual willingness to pay for a HE system financed by an ICL or a ML. We calibrate our model using real data from the 1970 British Cohort Survey together with the features of the English HE financing system. We allow for individual heterogeneity by considering different family backgrounds and occupations. We find that graduates from poor families, males and graduates working in the private sector are more willing to pay to switch to an ICL. Using the UK Labour Force Survey we evaluate the distributive effects of our model. We compute the repayment burdens and taxpayer subsidies for average, low and high earnings graduates. The results confirm the important insurance benefits of an ICL compared to a ML, with lower burdens and higher subsidies for poorer graduates. (Contains 10 figures and 6 tables.)

Context: The clinical job setting: (Outpatient/Ambulatory/Rehabilitation Clinic) should no longer be referred to as a nontraditional setting as it employs the greatest percentage of certified members. Understanding the experiences, knowledge, and skills necessary to be successful in the clinical setting as entry-level certified athletic trainers (ATs) is critical information for future Athletic Training Education Program (ATEP) curriculums, continuing education, and post-graduate fellowships. Objective: To gain an understanding of the general experiences encountered and perceived educational preparation necessary for entry-level ATs in the clinical setting. Design: Online questionnaire. Setting: Clinical. Participants: 15 entry-level clinical ATs. Main Outcome Measures: Experiences and educational preparation in the clinical setting as perceived by clinical ATs using an inductive content analysis strategy. Results: Most subjects entered the clinical setting upon graduation and were attracted by fewer hours and higher salaries. The most positive experience once hired was learning from colleagues and the greatest job satisfaction occurred when helping people. The participants also suggested that future graduates should feel confident when entering this setting. While the participants felt ill-prepared regarding insurance issues and communication skills, they felt well-prepared in injury evaluation and treatment. Overall, they found insurance restrictions limiting the scope of care they could give the most challenging. Conclusion: Athletic training graduates are attracted to the higher salary and shorter work hours associated with the clinical setting, but still associate helping people as primary to their job satisfaction. Although most entry-level ATs perceived themselves as well prepared for the clinical setting, weakness in the areas of insurance issues and communication skills were identified. (Contains 1 table.)

The number of automobile recalls in the U.S. has increased sharply in the last two decades, and the numbers of units involved are often counted in the millions. In 2010 alone, over 20 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, and the massive recalls of full model lines by Toyota have brought this issue to the front pages around the country and the world. However, there is no quantitative evidence of the effect of recalls on safety. Without that evidence, the government and insurance companies have been reluctant to request and use more detailed recall information to increase correction rates, and regulators have not studied the possible link between the growing number of recalls and the risk of life for consumers. In this paper we empirically quantify the effect of vehicle recalls on safety using repeated cross-sections on accidents of individual drivers and aggregate vehicle recall data to construct synthetic panel data on individual drivers of a particular vehicle model. We estimate the effect of recalls on the number of accidents and find that a 10 percent increase in the recall rate of a particular model reduces the accidents of that model by between 0.78 percent and 1.6 percent when using the full sample of accidents in our data. We also find that recalls classified as "hazardous" are more effective in reducing accidents, and the recall effect is especially strong when we restrict attention to accidents that lead to personal injuries and only include vehicles more likely to be at fault for the accident, but much less so for accidents that only lead to property damage. We also find that vehicle models with recalls with higher correction rates have on average fewer accidents in the years following a recall, which indicates the importance of the role of drivers' behavior regarding recalls on safety. Our findings suggest that policymakers should consider, for example, policies to allow insurance companies to take into account recall correction behavior when pricing auto insurance, which could be made possible through regulatory changes by the U.S. government, and should revisit the complex trade-offs between pre- and post-market regulation in this important industry. (Contains 4 figures, 16 tables, and 35 footnotes.)

SSDI beneficiaries lose their entire cash benefit if they perform work that is substantial gainful activity (SGA) after using Social Security work incentive programs. The complete loss of benefits might be a work disincentive for beneficiaries. We report results from a pilot project that replaces the complete loss of benefits with a gradual reduction in benefits of $1 for every $2 earned above an earnings disregard level. Beneficiaries who volunteered to participate in the project were randomly assigned to a group receiving the new program or to a control group. The policy led to a 25 percent increase in the percentage of beneficiaries with earnings above the annualized SGA amount, or $11,760 in 2009 dollars. It did not result in a reduction in benefit payments. (Contains 3 figures, 6 tables and 27 footnotes.)

This article argues that unemployment benefits are providing a crucial but often overlooked function by reducing the insecurity associated with modern labor markets. Because job insecurity is associated with concerns about future financial security, economic support during unemployment may lessen the negative effects of job insecurity on employed individuals' well-being. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article shows that the generosity of unemployment benefits makes a difference to the subjective well-being of employed individuals, especially those with limited economic resources and an insecure position in the labor market. These results indicate that unemployment benefits may be viewed as a collective resource with important external benefits, i.e., benefits to society over and above those to the unemployed who directly utilize such benefits. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure, and 9 notes.)

Application inconvenience is one popular explanation for why many individuals do not receive the social benefits for which they are eligible. Applications take time and some individuals may decide that the financial benefits do not outweigh these time costs. This paper investigates this explanation using cross-state variation in administrative changes that made applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits substantially more convenient over the past decade. We find that the introduction of phone- and Internet-based claiming did not have an appreciable impact on overall UI take-up, nor did it lead to a shift toward recipients that are higher income or likely to be receiving the maximum benefit amount. These findings are inconsistent with a time- and transaction-cost explanation for low take-up, since remote UI claiming is less time intensive. This suggests that reducing application barriers alone may not be an effective tool for increasing program participation. (Contains 8 tables, 14 figures and 27 footnotes.)

This article deals with how the increasing use of notions such as "risk awareness" and "blame" in relation to school affects the daily work of Swedish teachers. With the help of empirical excerpts from documents and focus group interviews, the authors provide examples of how the introduction of the risk society and audit cultures encourages the creation of new strategies for coping. Two of these concern the mediation of "safe school" images and preventions in order to avoid future blame. The authors depict them as strategies of assurance and insurance. The increasing handling of these strategies seems to draw attention away from relations to students and actual time spent on teaching. When considering an action, teachers seem to balance the risk of attracting blame against the didactic potential. Finally, the possibility of practices which reflect more positive risk logic is discussed.

I examine whether individuals respond to monetary incentives to detect latent medical conditions. The effect is identified by a policy that deemed diabetes associated with herbicide exposure a compensable disability under the Veterans Benefits Administration's Disability Compensation program. Since a diagnosis is a requisite for benefit eligibility, and nearly one-third of diabetics remain undiagnosed, the advent of disability insurance may have encouraged the detection of diabetes among the previously undiagnosed population. Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey suggests that the policy increased the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes by 3.1 percentage points among veterans. (Contains 4 tables, 4 figures and 14 footnotes.)

Crop insurance is a relatively recent invention that attempts to level the playing field in our contest with the environment. It well represents the complexity and interaction within the human-land relationship. Ranching is another symbol of this relationship. The word stewardship captures a rancher's connection to the land. It denotes a respect for the land and its utilization in a manner that will reap benefits for the community or group now and in the future. True stewards must have a deep, distinct, and intimate relationship with that thing over which they have stewardship. Ranchers' livelihood depends on this linkage. If they neglect their land by allowing overgrazing, their livestock's sustenance is damaged; if they do not have functional, forage-producing land on which to graze their livestock, then the relationship is broken and ranching ceases. And if ranching ceases to exist, so does the ranching culture.

Based on Norwegian register data, we set up a multivariate mixed proportional hazard model (MMPH) to analyze nurses' pattern of work, sickness absence, nonemployment, and social insurance dependency from 1992 to 2000, and how that pattern was affected by workplace characteristics. The model is estimated by means of the nonparametric maximum-likelihood estimator (NPMLE). We find that downsizing processes involve a significant increase in the level of sickness absence among still-employed nurses. They also cause a significant increase in the probability of entering into more long-lasting health-related social insurance dependency. (Contains 19 footnotes, 6 tables and 6 figures.)

Concern over Social Security's forecasted long-run deficit is occurring at a time when the program has a short-term surplus. One proposed strategy to address this forecasted deficit is to allow the investment of a portion of payroll taxes into private savings accounts (PSAs). The author analyzes recent proposals for PSAs and concludes that PSAs are more likely to be a problem than a solution. Paradoxically, PSAs require the government to borrow to encourage current workers to save. The author recommends resources to help social workers remain informed about proposed program reforms and prepared to advocate for the concept of social insurance.

Auto insurance rates can vary dramatically, with much higher premiums in poor and minority areas than elsewhere, even after accounting for individual characteristics, driving history, and coverage. This paper uses a unique data set to examine the relative influence of place-based socioeconomic characteristics (or redlining) and place-based risk factors on the place-based component of automobile insurance premiums. We use a novel approach of combining tract-level census data and car insurance rate quotes from multiple companies for sub-areas within the city of Los Angeles. The quotes are for a hypothetical individual with identical demographic and auto characteristics, driving records, and insurance coverage. This method allows the individual demographic and driving record to be fixed. Multivariate models are then used to estimate the independent contributions of these risk and redlining factors to the place-based component of the car insurance premium. We find that both risk and redlining factors are associated with variations in insurance costs in the place-based component, with black and poor neighborhoods being adversely affected, although risk factors are stronger predictors. However, even after risk factors are taken into account in the model specification, SES factors remain statistically significant. Moreover, simulations show that redlining factors explain more of the gap in auto insurance premiums between black (and Latino) and white neighborhoods and between poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. The findings do not appear sensitive to the individual characteristics of the hypothetical driver. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 13 footnotes.)

Policy makers and advocates have a variety of tools from which to choose when designing childcare policy. Policy design choices, such as whether to provide childcare assistance through a new government program or via a voucher for use in the private market, are in fact social, political, moral, and value-laden choices that shape the nature of young children's experiences in care settings. Although rarely discussed, these choices also privilege particular social constructions of childcare by defining our understanding of the policy problem and the characteristics of the target populations. In addition, policy designs institutionalize and legitimize particular forms of governmental involvement in children's lives--as well as give power and voice to some interests over others--resulting in a new political context for future policy debates. To better illustrate these socio-political effects, this article documents and compares these consequences of five common childcare policy designs. (Contains 4 notes and 1 table.)

Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the effects of time in the destination country on male immigrants' wages, employment, and earnings. We find that total earnings assimilation is greatest in the United States and least in Australia. Employment assimilation explains all of the earnings progress experienced by Australian immigrants, whereas wage assimilation plays the dominant role in the United States, and Canada falls in between. We argue that relatively inflexible wages and generous unemployment insurance in countries like Australia may cause assimilation to occur along the quantity rather than the price dimension. (Contains 4 tables and 11 footnotes.)

During periods of high unemployment, many workers exhaust their unemployment insurance (UI) benefits before regaining employment. To help alleviate this problem, Congress created the extended benefits (EB) program, expanding the number of weeks of benefits available to UI recipients in high unemployment states. The EB program operates by "triggering on" additional weeks of benefits in states where unemployment and UI benefit receipt are above federally established thresholds. We analyze the performance of the EB program by creating a series of policy simulations using weekly UI claims and unemployment data from the program's inception in 1970 through the most recent economic expansion in 2005. Overall, we find that EB triggers, as currently constructed, fail as a policy tool for extending UI benefits. Minor adjustments to the triggers are unlikely to be effective. We develop an alternative set of "fix point" triggers that allow the EB program to trigger on and off in a more timely fashion. These triggers outperform all previously legislated triggers as well as other commonly proposed triggering mechanisms on criteria of timeliness, breadth, and duration.

We evaluate the allocation of risk between firms and their workers using matched employer-employee panel data. Unlike previous contributions, this paper focuses on idiosyncratic shocks to the firm, which are the correct empirical counterpart of the theoretical notion of diversifiable risk. We allow for both temporary and permanent shocks to output and find that firms absorb temporary fluctuations fully but insure workers against permanent shocks only partially. Risk-sharing considerations can account for about 15 percent of overall earnings variability, the remainder originating from idiosyncratic shocks to individual workers. Our welfare calculations indicate that firms are an important vehicle of insurance provision.

This article presents a two-period asymmetric learning model of insurance markets. When information about past accidents is not shared by insurers, asymmetries of information develop through time. Equilibrium contracts exist, are payoff unique, and display a realistic bonus-malus pattern. Eliminating asymmetries through information sharing is welfare decreasing, in contrast with past contributions on insurance and adverse selection. When second-period contract offers cannot be contingent on initial contract choice, a strict increase in welfare is obtained through menus of contracts, although initial contract choice is in itself worthless information.

The purpose of unemployment insurance (UI) is to provide labor force members with partial wage replacements when they are unemployed even as this income maintenance measure prolongs the unemployment period. This UI benefit also forces the beneficiaries to make more active job searches. Reemployment bonuses were aimed to speed return to work, benefiting the employees, employers and the government, but the results were disappointing. The evidence was reexamined to evaluate whether the reemployment bonuses targeted at those most likely to exhaust UI benefits would be cost-effective and lends itself to implementation as a permanent program.