Ayelet Reitan (p), Ofir Rubin, Aviad Rubin, Ayal Kimhi

Organizational and demographic changes in the Israeli kibbutzim have been the subject of extensive research, especially after their economic collapse in the 1980s. In some cases, the changes that kibbutzim adopted entailed an extreme shift from their basic ideology of communal way of life. Consequently, in 2005 the State of Israel established a new classification -- Renewing Kibbutzim. This study examines the relationship between the organizational changes such as privatization and the various forms of demographic growth that were introduced under the new classification and their impact on the perceived sustainability in these communities. We sampled 19 kibbutzim to represent the variety of organizational models and types of demographic growth in the southern and northern peripheries of Israel. Within each kibbutz, we collected data via interviews with community managers and questionnaires among community members. We analyzed the data using before and after comparisons to assess the impact of the changes implemented in these kibbutzim. We found an inverse relationship between the degree of privatization and the multiplicity of membership statuses in the community on one hand and an increase in the indices of perceived sustainability on the other. Our results suggest that the changes adopted by the kibbutzim did not provide the sustainability these communities had hoped for. Our findings may provide lessons for wider sociological questions concerning processes of privatization and stratification.

Deniz Sevinc (p)

Evidence from European countries shows a significant and widespread increase in income inequality over the past ten years. This paper's distinctive feature is a shift towards a novel definition of a measure of inequality that widens the evaluation by combining socially inclusive aspects with wellbeing. Another aspect is the proposed methodology; European interlinkages are redefined to cover not only the trade channel, but also financial exchanges, geographical proximities and bilateral migration flows, in an attempt to capture fully the depth and complexity of cross-country dynamics. The redefined linkages supplement possible interdependencies in Europe by adding nuances and meanings that are as yet little explored. Findings relate to the EU 2020 headline targets by providing further evidence of how heterogeneous the magnitude of poverty responses to such inequality developments is across European economies, they suggest that poverty reduction may be significantly improved through distributional policies. Evidence has been provided that intra-EU inequalities have a pro-cyclical character, where the transmission of a change in Eurozone economic performances into the extent of income inequality is statistically significant. In terms of the dynamics between monetary policy and income distribution, results suggest that monetary shocks are transmitted relatively rapidly, and often get amplified as they travel from the Leading European countries to the Eurozone.