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Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …

Bringing The Organization Back In: The Role Of Bureaucratic Churning In Early Tanf Caseload Declines In Illinois, Chad Broughton

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Welfare reform legislation in the late 1990s lead to rapid declines in state welfare caseloads. In contrast to prevailing accounts that emphasize rapid job creation and those that pin caseload declines on successful work incentives and behavioral sanctions, this article argues that organizational rationing mechanisms explain a large portion of the sharp initial declines in Illinois. The article first highlights how street-level bureaucratic practices oriented toward caseload reduction arose in TANF implementing bodies from a reordered and narrow set of organizational incentives that had little to do with the symbolic goals of welfare reform. Based on an analysis of state-level …

System Dynamics Of Diabetes In The Presence Of Social Determinants, Victoria Akins

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Diabetes is a chronic and persistent disease that is on the rise in the U.S. in spite of medical advances and current public health efforts to address it. There is a relationship between socioeconomic factors such as poverty and education and the risk of developing diabetes and the progression of the disease. A systems approach is employed to develop a dynamic hypothesis with a stock and flow model will uncover and analyze these relationships to gain a better understanding of the socioeconomic dynamics of diabetes. Social factors have a significant impact on health outcomes and their consideration is essential to …

Exploring Health Through The Lens Of Homelessness, Faith T. Adewusi

Senior Honors Projects

Homelessness is a serious economic, social and public health problem. Approximately 2.3 to 3.5 million people are estimated to be homeless nationwide and with the current recession, these numbers are expected to rise. Due to the lack of permanent living accommodations and limited access to healthcare, homeless people are more likely than domiciled people to suffer from a wide range of chronic health problem, ranging from diabetes to tuberculosis to mental illness. Healthcare problems can be seen as both the cause and the effect of homelessness.

The purpose of this study was to learn about the living conditions of the …

The Criminalization Of Homelessness, Sarah Mckenzie Prather

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The current study is an analysis of the problem of homelessness in American society today. It focuses on the demographic characteristics of the homeless in addition to some of the contributing factors that explain homelessness. Of particular concern is how the criminal justice system responds to homelessness, including the criminalization and stigmatization of homeless individuals and the implications of such a response. The data used in this study come from a recent survey conducted in a jail setting in a northwest city. The present study compares those who have been homeless at one time or another and those who have …

Poverty, Vulnerability, And Provision Of Healthcare In Afghanistan, Jean-Francois Trani, Parul Bakhshi, Ayan A. Noor, Dominque Lopez, Ashraf Mashkoor

Brown School Faculty Publications

This paper presents findings on conditions of healthcare delivery in Afghanistan. There is an ongoing debate about barriers to healthcare in low-income as well as fragile states. In 2002, the Government of Afghanistan established a Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), contracting primary healthcare delivery to non-state providers. The priority was to give access to the most vulnerable groups: women, children, disabled persons, and the poorest households. In 2005, we conducted a nationwide survey, and using a logistic regression model, investigated provider choice. We also measured associations between perceived availability and usefulness of healthcare providers. Our results indicate that the …

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

Mothers' Work And Children's Lives: Low-Income Families After Welfare Reform, Rucker C. Johnson, Ariel Kalil, Rachel E. Dunifon

Upjohn Press

This book examines the effects of work requirements imposed by welfare reform on low-income women and their families. The authors pay particular attention to the nature of work—whether it is stable or unstable, the number of hours worked in a week and the regularity and flexibility of work schedules. They also show how these factors make it more difficult for low-income women to balance their work and family requirements.

Head Start: It Works For Indiana Children And Families!, Jennifer Dobbs-Oates, James Elicker, Volker Thomas

Center for Families Publications

This technical report summarizes new and existing data to address the question, “Does Head Start work for Indiana children, families, and communities?” Data sources consulted in this study include the state Head Start Program Information Report, local Indiana Head Start and Early Head Start Programs, existing national studies of Head Start and Early Head Start, and local and national data available on children’s development in early care and education programs for low-income families. This report concludes that Indiana’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs are indeed providing substantial benefits to children, families, and communities. The report summarizes the outcomes …

Migrant Workers In Saudi Arabia, Sarah Jessup

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also one of the largest exporters of oil, and as such, one of the most influential in the region. Despite this, more than 50 per cent of the work force (nearly 6 million people) in the Saudi Arabia are migrant workers (FIDH, 2003, 3). They contribute billions of dollars each year to their home countries through remittances. With such a large population hailing from outside the Kingdom, it would seem that transnational migrants would have a larger voice in the rights and freedoms they are …

The Loss Of Egypt’S Children, Cindy Ragab

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Under the fierce rays of the desert sun, in the heat of the summer, young children are forced to remove pests from cotton crops for eleven hours per day, search for recyclable goods among animals and the pungent stench of city dumps, and are sold to elderly male tourists through temporary marriages by their parents. This is the hideous reality for millions of child laborers in Egypt. Child labor is a manifestation of the pains of extreme poverty on the world’s most vulnerable population. Childhood is lost. Children are forced to take on responsibilities that in normal circumstances push adults …

The Contextual Impact Of Income Inequality On Social Capital And Adverse Social Outcomes, Jeannie Schiff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An interdisciplinary approach to policy and governance recognizes that many social welfare problems are interrelated, and policy-makers have long recognized a need to address the root causes of these problems. There is much evidence that income inequality is one of these root causes but research suggesting the effect of income inequality is mediated by social capital has complicated the relationship, as have theories of causality that take different approaches. This study takes an ecological approach to these issues to test the relationship between income inequality, social capital and selected adverse outcomes proposed by the relative income hypothesis. The relative income …

Income Inequality And Poverty In Iran, Katie Susman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Income inequality is a hindrance to the global fulfillment of human rights, as acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Middle East North Africa (MENA) region is experiencing a steady increase of economic disparity. The impact of the global economic environment and the 2008 recession has brought to the forefront the region’s economic reliance on the rest of the world. As a result, a triple “food-fuel-financial” crisis has emerged. This will undoubtedly affect the most impoverished part of the population and could potentially exacerbate the gap between the poor and the rich.

Working Paper On Poverty And The Recession, Lois M. Quinn

ETI Publications

This working paper analyzes recently released estimates of poverty and economic conditions data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2009 American Community Survey. These data are used along with local and state administrative data files to help residents and public officials address concerns related to poverty, employment and education for residents of Milwaukee and the state. Poverty is a most serious statewide problem with 1 out of 8 Wisconsin residents living in poverty, according to the 2009 ACS. In Milwaukee 1 in 4 residents was living in poverty in the 12 months prior to the ACS survey. In Racine, Eau Claire …

“Post-Amnesty Niger Delta And The Promise Of Development: Issues, Prospects And Problems, Omololu Toluwanimi Omololu

Omololu Michael FAGBADEBO

The offer of amnesty to militants in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria was premised on the assumption that it would engender an enabling environment for meaningful development of the area. This paper seeks to project into the problems that may likely jeopardize this assumption. It identifies the windows of opportunity for a lasting peace in the region but expresses doubts about positive change in the character of the Nigerian State. As privatized state, political actors exploit the state to pursue personal and parochial interests rather than implementation of policies aimed at improving the development of the Niger Delta area.

A Fourth Amendment For The Poor Alone: Subconstitutional Status And The Myth Of The Inviolate Home, Jordan C. Budd

Law Faculty Scholarship

For much of our nation’s history, the poor have faced pervasive discrimination in the exercise of fundamental rights. Nowhere has the impairment been more severe than in the area of privacy. This Article considers the enduring legacy of this tradition with respect to the Fourth Amendment right to domestic privacy. Far from a matter of receding historical interest, the diminution of the poor’s right to privacy has accelerated in recent years and now represents a powerful theme within the jurisprudence of poverty. Triggering this development has been a series of challenges to aggressive administrative practices adopted by localities in the …