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This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-based reform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently a much higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity in marginal payroll tax rates by date of entry in the labor force for upper earnings workers. Using full population administrative Social Security data and a Regression Discontinuity Design, we estimate the long-term incidence and effects of marginal payroll tax rates on earnings. Standard theory predicts that, in the long run, new regime workers should bear the entire burden of the payroll tax increase (relative to old regime workers). In contrast, we find that employers compensate new regime workers for the extra employer payroll taxes but not for the extra employee payroll taxes. We do not find any evidence of labor supply responses around the discontinuity, suggesting low efficiency costs of payroll taxes. The non-standard incidence results are the same across firms of different sizes. Tax incidence, however, is standard for older workers in the new regime as they bear both the employee and employer tax. Those results, combined with a direct small survey of employers, can be explained by social norms regarding seniority-based pay which create a growing wedge between pay and productivity as workers age.

Selectivity emerged as the core of a new social policy paradigm in Greece when a new 'modernising' government took office in 1996. Though it was adopted energetically, its real impact eventually proved negligible, except for an initial flutter of activity. The article argues that its failure as a recipe for welfare reform was inevitable. The nature of social protection arrangements in Greece severely constrained the scope for selectivity, while the particular version pursued was poorly designed and badly administered. Moreover, the elevation of selectivity to the status of a 'Big Idea' was an indirect cause of serious lateral damage: while fruitlessly puzzling over the place of selectivity in the 'new social policy', the government was losing the crucial battle on the reform of an unviable and inequitable pension system. The article concludes that selectivity has little relevance to the priorities for reform in a welfare state still struggling to cope with its Bismarckian, south European contradictions.

The National Health Service reforms were created to improve the allocation of budgets for hospital practitioners in the UK. The reforms, which were based on two budget-holding models, introduced the concepts of capitation funding and 'cream skimming.' Results show that 'cream skimming' as a method of fund-holding holds potential financial benefits for the health care system. The capitation formula can also be further improved by considering the effects of chronic health factors in the funding system.

The paper is an attempt to analyse the pattern of cross-boundary flows to maternity clinics. The question is whether the expectations of expectant mothers who often travel long distances in order to give birth can be (i) explained by the lack of adequate levels of care in the out-flow areas, and (ii) justified in terms of birth outcomes. Infant mortality is used as a measure of the effectiveness of medical care. The results show that maternal mobility is indeed the result of inadequate provision of services. However, regional variations in infant mortality do not relate to availability of medical care. Mortality rates among infants born in the areas with net outflow of births are lower than the national average, while better-equipped areas experience higher infant mortality rates. Moreover, expectant mothers that move to Athens and Salonica (the main receiving areas) from the net outflow areas seem to face worst survival chances for their babies than those who stay. The nature of data does not permit control for risk factors and obstetric histories. However, it is argued that the sheer scale of maternal mobility and infant mortality differentials revealed in the paper imply that the possibility that moving itself significantly increases the risk of infant mortality should be looked at more carefully. The paper recommends the introduction of health policy initiatives in provincial Greece, aimed at increasing availability, improving standards and restoring public confidence to locally available medical services. The standards of care in maternity clinics should also be subject to audit mechanisms. It is finally necessary that maternal mobility is confined to cases for which good medical reasons exist. Key words - infant mortality, maternal patient flows, Greece