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Ua37/29 Gary Ransdell - Fed. Reserve Board - Bernanke Speech To Economic Club Of Washington, St. Louis Federal Reserve Board

WKU Archives Records

Email sent to members of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Board of speech given by Ben Bernanke at the Economic Club of Washington.

A Few Drops Of Oil Will Not Be Enough, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn provide a rich description of the various kinds of violence, deprivation, depredation and exploitation that women experience on a vast scale in the developing world. They write of sex trafficking, acid attacks, “bride burning,” enslavement, spousal beatings, unequal healthcare (something the USA still struggles with), insufficient food, gendered abortions and infant and maternal mortality. They are right to identify the education of women and girls as part of the solution to the widespread “gendercide.” However, their approach focuses too much on the capacity, indeed the virtue or heroism, of individual women. It does not take …

"The Female Entrepreneur"?, Cath Collins

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I read the “Women’s Crusade” article that forms the centrepiece of this month’s roundtable with initial interest, gradually turning to a vague sense of disquiet spiced with occasional disbelief. After a few more readings, I tried highlighting the passages that bothered me and stringing them together. Countries “riven by fundamentalism”— that’s presumably the Islamic variety, rather than the Christian variant which holds such sway in the US. The suggestion that “everyone from the World Bank to the US [...] Chiefs of Staff to [...] CARE” now thinks that women are the answer to global extremism hides too many questionable assumptions …

Human Rights Law On Trial In The Drc, William Paul Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ongoing tragedy in Eastern Congo contains so many tragic lessons that it should shake to their very foundations all comfortable ideologies about human rights and politics. The atrocities in the DRC should implicate all but have so far resulted in almost limitless impunity. Here, I briefly put human rights law on trial for its role in perpetuating this tragedy.

Natural Resources And Wealth Of The Democratic Republic Of Congo (Drc): Of Benefit To Whom?, Nicola Colbran

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When asked to discuss the humanitarian tragedy in the DRC, the question really is where to start? The article by Adam Hochschild discusses some of the most horrific events and experiences imaginable: widespread killings of unarmed civilians, rape, torture and looting, the recruitment of child soldiers, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The immediate human response is who is to blame, how did it happen and how can the world apparently do nothing?

If They Just Weren't So Rich!, Anja Mihr

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The deadliest war on earth-as it is called-in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will only end when the country's richness fades or is kept under surveillance. Human rights and peace might have a chance if Congo's lucrative diamond, gold or coltan mines were under shared control by non-profit agencies or international organizations with the intention to spread the mines' benefits and wealth among the Congolese people. Wishful thinking? Most likely it is, but what other alternative is there? The country's extraordinary wealth in natural resources is the main reason for the immense corruption, the extermination of entire villages, the …

Environmental Crises: Past, Present Ad Future, M. Scott Taylor

M. Scott Taylor

Environmental crises are distinguished by rapid and largely unexpected changes in environmental quality that are difficult if not impossible to reverse. Examples would be major extinctions and signi…cant degradations of an ecosystem. I argue there are three preconditions for crisis: failures in governance, an ecological system exhibiting a tipping point, and an economy/environment interaction with positive feedbacks. I develop a simple model to illustrate how a crisis may arise, and draw on our knowledge of past and present crises to highlight the mechanisms involved. I then speculate as to whether climate change is indeed a crisis in the making.

The Intersection Of Judicial Attitudes And Litigant Selection Theories: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Decision Making, Jeff L. Yates, Elizabeth Coggins

Jeff L Yates

Two prominent theories of legal decision making provide seemingly contradictory explanations for judicial outcomes. In political science, the Attitudinal Model suggests that judicial outcomes are driven by judges' sincere policy preferences -- judges bring their ideological inclinations to the decision making process and their case outcome choices largely reflect these policy preferences. In contrast, in the law and economics literature, Priest and Klein's well-known Selection Hypothesis posits that court outcomes are largely driven by the litigants' strategic choices in the selection of cases for formal dispute or adjudication -- forward thinking litigants settle cases where potential judicial outcomes are readily …

Human Rights Abuses Along The Dominican-Haitian Border, Calla Cloud

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A 122 mile-long border separates the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Of the two countries, Haiti’s human rights abuses are much more somber than the emerging developments of the Dominican Republic. Haiti’s stagnant economic situation has contributed to perennial political instability and lack of infrastructure, having a particularly confounding affect on the rights and labor conditions of Haitian citizens. There are a myriad of reasons why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Two of the most prominent include its violent political history and the gradual deterioration of its economy. In the context …

Bonds, Stocks Or Dollars? Do Voters Care About Capital Markets In Brazil And Mexico, Anthony Petros Spanakos, Lucio Remuzat Renno Junior

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

How does vote intention in presidential elections vary according to the economic conditions of a country, especially indicators of the financial market? Does the state of the economy, both its fundamentals as well as capital market, affect variation in candidates’ percentage of vote intention in national polls? This paper tests how economic indicators influence vote intention in presidential elections in two emerging markets: Brazil and Mexico. The presidential elections of 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006 in Brazil and 2000 and 2006 in Mexico are analyzed using all poll returns for each electoral period and corresponding economic data. The paper finds …

Tahira Khan On Wives, Widows, Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal In Colonial India By Mytheli Sreenivas. Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press, 2008. 169pp., Tahira Khan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Wives, Widows, Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal in Colonial India by Mytheli Sreenivas. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008. 169pp.

Chinese Women And Economic Human Rights, Lisa Fry

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Women’s human rights in China have an intriguing history and a challenging present. In ancient China, Confucianism espoused the virtues of silent women who stayed at home. During the Maoist period, on the other hand, gender equality was prioritized by the state, and women were equally appointed to leadership positions and agricultural collectives with men. After Mao’s death, the country transitioned to a social market economic system that resulted in a loss of state support for gender equity. Today, the rights of women in China are not clearly defined, protected, or promoted. China’s patriarchal traditions have reasserted themselves, obstructing women’s …