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Comments And Discussion On "When Economic Reform Goes Wrong: Cashews In Mozambique" By M. Macmillan, K.H. Welch, And D. Rodrick, Stephen A. O'Connell

Economics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

By What Measure? Family Time Devoted To Children In The U.S., Nancy Folbre, Jayoung Yoon, Kade Finnoff, Allison Sidle Fuligni

Economics Department Working Paper Series

We argue that previous research on time devoted to child care has devoted insufficient attention to the definition and conceptualization of care time. Three separate problems are evident. First, the conventional focus on explicit activities with children distracts attention from the larger responsibilities of “passive” care, which ranges from time when children are sleeping to time when they are in the same room but not engaged in an activity with parents. Second, empirical analysis of activity time focuses almost exclusively on parents, overlooking the role of relatives such as grandmothers and siblings. Third, measurement of active care time typically ignores …

Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, And U.S. Capitalism: Lessons For The Left, Richard D. Wolff

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Althusser’s pioneering concept of “ideological state apparatuses” is extended to the unique role of consumerism as a particular ideology enabling and supporting U.S. capitalism. It is argued that rising levels of worker consumption have functioned effectively to compensate workers for (and thereby allow) rising rates of exploitation and their negative social effects. For such compensation to succeed requires that workers embrace an ideology stressing the importance of consumption, namely consumerism. It is argued that the weakness of the US left (in labor unions, parties, and movements) stems in part from having endorsed this consumerism rather than undermining it within the …

Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-Based Approach, Keith M. Chen, Jesse M. Shapiro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Some two million Americans are currently incarcerated, with roughly six hundred thousand to be released this year. Despite this, little is known about the effects of confinement conditions on the post-release lives of inmates. Focusing on post-release criminal activity, we identify the causal effect of prison conditions on recidivism rates by exploiting a discontinuity in the assignment of federal prisoners to security levels. We find that harsher prison conditions are associated with significantly more post-release crime.

Whose Right Is It Anyway? Rethinking A Group Rights Approach To International Human Rights, Peter Zwiebach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millennium by A. Belden Fields. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. 244pp.

and

International Human Rights in the 21st Century: Protecting the Rights of Groups edited by James Mayall and Gene M. Lyons. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 240pp.

Using Information And Communication Technology For Human Development: Comparing Strategies, Jenny Engelbrektsson

Theses : Honours

In the last 20 years, applications of lnformation and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have impacted on the economics of the industrialised world. In today's "information society", information and knowledge are essential to social and economic development. However, not everyone has access to ICI sand the information they may provide. There is concern that existing inequities of income, knowledge, skills and measures of social development may increase as a result of a growing "digital divide" both between and within countries. There is an ongoing discussion within the international community about whether ICTs may play a significant role in human development. This study …

The Ethnic Question In Law And Development, Lan Cao

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2004, Eric C. Thompson, Glenn C. Blomquist, Devanathan Sudharshan, Roy A. Sigafus

Kentucky Annual Economic Report

No abstract provided.

Organizing In The Garment Industry In Mexico: Implications For New Social Movement Theory, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

This paper examines attempts to improve workers' rights in the Maquila Industry in Mexico by using two case studies. It analyzes the struggles that recently occurred at the Kukdong and Duro plants. The underlying question of the research is how to balance the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate conditions for workers, and most importantly, ensuring their right to freedom of association. Under recent forms of global economic restructuring, the state is often unwilling or unable to uphold workers' rights. To combat the present form of corporate-driven global capitalism, workers in the South, in solidarity with …

Exploring The Demographic Factors Affecting Passage Of Living Wage Ordinances, Oren M. Levin-Waldman

PERI Working Papers

In this paper, I examine some of those features on the basis of data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) by comparing cities that passed ordinances to those that did not. What I intend to show is the following: cities with certain demographics, particularly higher concentrations of immigrants from south of the American border, lower levels of educational attainment, more people in low wage industries, and higher rates of income inequality, appear to be more likely to pass living wage ordinances than those cities that do not have these demographics. This, of course, would raise the further question of what …

Elements Of An Employment Framework For Poverty Reduction In Ghana, James Heintz

PERI Working Papers

The study found that, unlike many other Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the GPRS presents employment as a core objective of the policy framework. In formulating and implementing the GPRS, the Government of Ghana has already established a solid foundation of employment-targeted programmes. However, despite this foundation, the employment content of the GPRS must be strengthened across a number of dimensions if sustainable poverty reduction is to be achieved. Specifically, an integrated employment framework for poverty reduction should be developed as part of the revision process for the GPRS.

Attitudes Towards Alternative Management Policies For Public Recreation Lands, Mihail Samnaliev, Thomas Stevens, Thomas More

PERI Working Papers

Public recreation land management agencies have been searching for ways to increase revenue. User fees as implemented by the Fee Demonstration Program have received the most attention. Corporate sponsorships and private donations have also been implemented and other options, such as partial privatization, closure of some areas, and different forms of public-private partnerships have been debated. The present paper reports results from a 2002 mail survey of randomly selected Idaho and New Hampshire households, designed to elicit public attitudes about a wide variety of management policies for public (federal/state) recreation lands. The most socially acceptable forms for raising revenue were …

Emulation, Inequality, And Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right?, Samuel Bowles, Yongjin Park

Economics Department Working Paper Series

We investigate Veblen effects on work hours, namely the way that a desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich induces longer work hours among the rest. Consistent with our model of these asymmetric social comparisons, greater inequality predicts longer work hours in ten OECD countries over the period 1963-1998. The country fixed effects estimates of the impact of inequality on hours are large, robust, and cannot be explained by conventional incentive effects. In the presence of Veblen effects, a social welfare optimum cannot be implemented by a flat tax on consumption but may be accomplished by progressive consumption …

Footnote Draft Of Render Copyright Unto Caesar - 2004, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This essay, however, does not press any particular agenda; rather, it tries to make our thinking about the topic more flexible. It is my hope that some conduct-specific rule as was adopted in the defamation context will eventually be adopted for intellectual property. Copyright law cannot continue forever closing its eyes and hoping its house will stop being haunted.

The Agency-Structure Model And The Embedded Individual In Heterodox Economics, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Job Training Policy In The United States, Christopher J. O'Leary Editor, Robert A. Straits Editor, Stephen A. Wandner Editor

Upjohn Press

This book provides a broad overview of federally funded job training programs as they exist today. The notable list of contributors review what training consists of and how training programs are implemented under WIA. In particular, they examine training service providers and methods of delivering training services, including the use of individual training accounts and eligible training provider lists. Performance management under WIA is examined, as well as the effectiveness of training programs. In addition, public training programs are compared to private training provided in the United States and to public training programs offered in other industrial nations.

Wage Differentials For Immigrant Women In The U.S., Mahi Garg

Honors Projects

The United States is one of only a handful of nations in which immigrant women outnumber immigrant men. These women come from increasingly diverse regions, thereby bringing considerably different skills to the U.S. workforce. However, the question of how gender and ethnicity interact with each other to affect the economic performance of female immigrants remains especially understudied. Thus, this paper aims at providing some insight into this formerly neglected dimension of female immigrant performance. It examines the sources of wage differentials between immigrant females, and other groups in the U.S. labor force, paying particular attention to earnings inequalities created by …

Population Aging And The Rising Cost Of Public Pensions, John Bongaarts

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Rapid population aging is raising concerns about the sustainability of public pension systems in high-income countries. The first part of this study identifies the four factors that determine trends in public pension expenditures: population aging, pension benefit levels, the mean age at retirement, and the labor force participation rate. The second part presents projections to 2050 of the impact of demographic trends on public pension expenditures in the absence of changes in pension benefits, labor force participation, and age at retirement. These projections demonstrate that current trends are unsustainable, because without reforms population aging will produce an unprecedented and harmful …

Of Predatory Lending And The Democratization Of Credit: Preserving The Social Safety Net Of Informality In Small-Loan Transactions, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Welfare Reform And Economic Freedom: Low-Income Mothers' Decisions About Work At Home And In The Market, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Dimensions Of Credit And Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Econometric Analyses Of U.S. Abortion Policy: A Critical Review, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Collective Intentionality, Complex Economic Behavior, And Valuation (Book Chapter), John Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Exploitation Of Women In Mexico's Maquiladoras, Jennifer Gibbs

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Maquiladora factories, created in 1965 as part of Mexico's Border Industrialization Program, have become the backbone of economic progress along the United StateslMexico boundary. These factories, largely owned by foreign investors, have drawn thousands ofwomen from Mexico's interiors to work in the area. As a result, globalization and increased foreign investment have created cultural, environmental, and occupational hardships and hazards for female Mexican laborers despite the monetary gains that have resulted from Mexican and United States government programs.

Render Copyright Unto Caesar: On Taking Incentives Seriously, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay suggests we bifurcate our thinking. Conventional copyright rules by money, so let it rule the money-bound. Let a different set of rules evolve for more complex uses, particularly when the users have a personal relationship with the utilized text. Much recent scholarship contains dramatic suggestions to secure a freedom to be creative, rewrite, and be imaginative. My work has long sought to defend such freedoms, but I believe we understand imagination and its conditions too little to employ it as a starting point. I suggest instead that we acquire a better conceptual map of the generative process and …

Using Incentives To Encourage Aids Programs And Policies In The Workplace: A Study Of Feasibility And Impact In Thailand, Simon Baker, Srisuman Sartsara, Patchara Rumakom, Philip Guest, Katie D. Schenk, Anthony Pramualratana, Suparat Suksakulwat, Surachai Panakitsuwan, Sikarat Moonmeung

HIV and AIDS

A recently completed Horizons study in Thailand examined the question of how to encourage the private sector to become actively involved in developing and improving workplace HIV/AIDS programs. The study found that the AIDS-response Standard Organization (ASO) initiative mobilized a moderate proportion of different types of companies to develop and improve HIV/AIDS workplace policies and programs. The data also reveal that companies that were eligible for the insurance discount made the greatest improvements. Thus a financial incentive combined with efforts to tap into managers’ willingness to respond to the epidemic can be important motivators for certain companies to improve their …

The Effect Of Marital Status On The Standard Of Living Of Young Men And Women, Michael Seeborg

Michael Seeborg

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data base is used to explore the effects of changes in marital status on the standard of living of a sample of young adults. OLS regression analysis indicates that changes in marital status have very different effects on young women and young men. Women receive large increases in their income-to-needs ratios when they marry, and they incur large declines in their income-to-needs ratios after experiencing a divorce or separation. Men, on the other hand, do not experience significant changes in their income-to-needs ratios when their marital status changes.

Alcohol And Marijuana Use Among College Students: Economic Complements Or Substitutes?, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, J Williams, Frank J. Chaloupka, Henry Wechsler

Rosalie Liccardo Pacula

No abstract provided.

The Determinants Of Italian Slowdown: What Do The Data Say?, Francesco Venturini

Francesco Venturini

By considering growth accounts this paper discusses where the recent story of Italian labour productivity has diverged from the EU pattern. Similarly to the major continental countries, Italy has taken only limited advantage of the growth potential of ICT because of a generally unfavourable environment for innovation. Nevertheless, the decline in total factor productivity is found to play a more important role in the deceleration of GDP per hour worked of the late 1990s. Moreover, by scrutinizing industry performance, this paper shows the increasing weakness of traditional sectors, that is, where the Italian economy enjoys the major comparative advantages in …

Trade Traps: Why Eu-Acp Economic Partnership Agreements Pose A Threat To Africa’S Development., Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng Ochieng, Tom Sharman

Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng Ochieng

No abstract provided.