Economic Policy Commons^™

Perspectives On The Global Financial Crisis From Emerging Managers And Public Policy Makers [Full Version], James L. Grant

James L. Grant

This manuscript attempts to capture the perspectives of emerging managers and public policy makers as evinced in the perspectives of graduate students and others who were enrolled in my newly developed course on the global financial crisis—first offered in the 2010 Harvard Summer Economics Program—at a time when students were engaged in the midst and aftermath of the most severe U.S. and worldwide recession since the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The many perspectives gathered on the causes, consequences, remedies, and perhaps more importantly, a glimpse at student thoughts, concerns, and worries at the time—have been collected from the …

West Africa Under Attack, Centre Institute For Public Policy Research (Cippr)

Centre Institute for Public Policy Research (CIPPR)

The drug war and an increased demand for illicit drugs, mostly Cocaine and Heroin in Europe have introduced a new trend in drug trafficking worldwide. With political instability, inadequate security personnel, institutionalised corruption, widespread poverty, weak criminal justice system, weak financial controls to combat money laundering and the threat of terrorism, the ever resilient drug trade seems to have discovered Africa as its new route to the more profitable European market (Reid, 2013). At this rate, West Africa is being turned into a classical example of the Mexican case.

Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing In Massachusetts And Beyond, Natalicia Tracy, Tim Sieber, Susan Moir Scd

Tim Sieber

Domestic workers across the country are making it clear that, even in a difficult political environment, it is possible to make gains for low-wage workers. For the first time in many, many decades, domestic workers are finding ways to win. They are creat
ing policy change that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers in tangible and substantial ways. The 2014 Massachusetts Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights is the most expansive codification of rights for this long-overlooked part of the labor force ever to be enacted. In one sense, there is nothing new about domestic workers organizing …

Parenting From Prison: Family Relationships Of Incarcerated Women In Massachusetts, Erika Kates, Sylvia Mignon, Paige Ransford

Sylvia I. Mignon

Historically in the United States, there has been little concern about the needs of incarcerated women and their family members, especially children. This began to change with the tremendous increase in the number of incarcerated women. The rate of women’s incarceration increased dramatically during the 1980s and today the number of female inmates continues to rise faster than the number of male inmates. In 1986, 19,812 women were incarcerated in the United States and this number rose in 1991 to 38,796. Today, over 112,000 women are incarcerated in state or federal facilities (Sabol et al., 2007; Snell 1994). While in …

Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, Sock Yong Phang, David K. C. Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok Fai Phoon, Karol Wee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and high global liquidity environment has resulted in accelerated house prices increases in Singapore. Earlier this year, the government launched “Our Singapore Conversation” of which discussion on housing policies constitutes one major component. This “conversation” comes in the wake of several consecutive rounds of measures to stabilize housing prices using various instruments. This paper …

Human Rights, Women, And Third World Development, Winston E. Langley

Winston E. Langley

As part of the effort to inaugurate a new international socio-political order after World War II, international emphasis was given to certain moral and legal entitlements we have come to call human rights. That emphasis initially found its most forceful expression in the Charter of the United Nations, which not only asserts its members' faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, as well as in the equal rights of men and women of all nations, but also recites its members' commitment to employ international machinery for the promotion of the social and economic …

Why Do Similar Provinces Approach Development Differently? An Approach To Understanding Central-Local Relations In China, John Andrew Donaldson

John Donaldson

As China decentralized in the 1980s, many provinces received the latitude to implement their own strategies and approaches to economic development. Not surprisingly, such strategies varied regionally as provinces with different levels of wealth and resources implemented different approaches to achieving economic development. Yet, some of these examples are quite puzzling, with provinces that share many similarities implementing markedly different strategies. Moreover, some provinces not only implemented different approaches to economic development, but adopted entirely different goals – interpreting the very definition of economic development differently. To explain these differences, China scholars have focused on different factors, including constraints and …

Managing Private Vehicles In Asian Cities, S Y Phang

PHANG Sock Yong

No abstract provided.

Navigating Community Institutions: Black Transgender Women's Experiences In Schools, The Criminal Justice System, And Churches, Louis Graham, Halley Crissman, Jack Tocco, William Lopez, Rachel Snow, Mark Padilla

Louis F Graham

Your Friends And Neighbors: Localized Economic Development And Criminal Activity, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens

Matthew Freedman

We exploit a sudden shock to demand for a subset of low-wage workers generated by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program in San Antonio, Texas to identify the effects of localized economic development on crime. We use a difference-in-difference methodology that takes advantage of variation in BRAC’s impact over time and across neighborhoods. We find that appropriative criminal behavior increases in neighborhoods where a fraction of residents experienced increases in earnings. This effect is driven by residents who were unlikely to be BRAC beneficiaries, implying that criminal opportunities are important in explaining patterns of crime.

Forthcoming in the …

Flexibility@Work 2014: Bringing The Undeclared Economy Out Of The Shadows - The Role Of Temporary Work Agencies, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

The finding is that by creating the right business environment for temporary employment and temporary work agencies, relatively successful economies reduce the supply and demand of undeclared work by providing both workers and employers with better alternatives. The debate, therefore, should be less about whether to allow flexible labour and temporary work, and more about how flexible labour and temporary work can be regulated to create a win-win situation for both businesses and workers.

Reflections On Market Reform In Post-War, Post-Embargo Vietnam, Lan Cao

Lan Cao

No abstract provided.

A Fact Book On Proposition 2 1/2, Padraig O'Malley

Padraig O'Malley

In this age of inflation many tax reduction plans have been proposed throughout the nation. This November Massachusetts voters will vote on Proposition 2 1/2 - a tax reduction proposal sponsored by a coalition of citizens. This booklet describes the costs and benefits of Proposition 2 1/2 in an objective way, so that you can make an informed decision when you cast your vote. The University of Massachusetts' Center for Studies in Policy and the Public Interest and the Massachusetts Cooperative Extension Service believe that when you have access to unbiased information you will make better decisions and participate more …

The Massachusetts Fiscal System: Structure And Performance, Padraig O'Malley, Raymond G. Torto

Padraig O'Malley

On November 4, 1980 the citizens of Massachusetts, by a vote of 59% to 41%, resoundingly endorsed a tax reduction plan known as Proposition 2 1/2. All communities in the Commonwealth were faced with an immediate reduction in their local revenues due to the immediate cut in the excise tax that Proposition 2 1/2 called for, and up to 130 communities will have to implement a 15% reduction in their tax levies for FY 1982. Already there are protestations from many local officials that they cannot make the required tax cuts without severely reducing the level of local services. The …

Impact Of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mgnrega) On Rural Labour Markets, D Narasimha Reddy, A Amarender Reddy, Nagaraj N, Bantilan Mcs

A Amarender Reddy

This study has evaluated the differentiating impact of MGNREGA on the extent of fulfilment of the basic entitlements such as days of employment, wages and earnings and the extent of coverage of social groups like dalits, adivasis and women and poverty alleviation. This study has disaggregated state level data to discern the factors that make a difference to the performance. Also some micro level scenarios are presented based on the reports of focus group discussions (FGDs) in the villages of Andhra Pradesh. There is growing evidence of an increase in agricultural wages across the country over the period between 2006-07 …

Economic Diversity In Appalachia: Statistics, Strategies, And Guides For Action, Edward Feser, Troy Mix, Mark White, Ken Poole, Deborah Markley, Erik Pages

Edward J Feser

This report, commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission, offers a quantitative portrait of economic diversity trends in Appalachian counties and sub-regions, benchmarked to U.S. trends. The portraits draws on four complementary indexes of diversity: industrial, functional, occupational, and knowledge, with the first two based on the mix of industries in a place and the latter two based on the mix of occupations. The report also summarizes diversity trends, economic development practices, and diversification strategies in ten Appalachian counties. The ten cases offer insights into economic development practitioners’ understanding of what economic diversity means for their communities; describe how a diverse …

Sustainable Governance Indicators. Country Report The Netherlands, 2014, Robert Hoppe, Henk Woldendorp, Nils Bandelow

Robert Hoppe

No abstract provided.

Implementing A Real Sdr Currency Board, Warren Coats

Warren Coats

The enormous utility of money is a function of how widely it can be used for pricing and paying for the things we buy and sell and how stable or at least predictable is its value over time. The United States dollar became and remains the world’s common currency for global trade because of the relative size of the American economy, the relative stability of the purchasing power of the dollar, and the extensive development and liquidity of dollar financial instruments. Its use is now well entrenched. As pointed out by Richard Cooper: “It would take both a major shock …

Planning Local Economic Development In The Emerging World Order, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

A new consensus is emerging around effective modes of government action in the economic sphere—in essence, a new approach to industrial policy—that has significant implications for the reform of the subnational economic development function currently underway in the UK and US. Leading edge local and regional economic development practise must be smarter, more flexible, more collaborative among stakeholders, more experimental and evaluative, and much less prone to generic diagnoses of economic challenges and the application of universal strategies. In turn, good planning scholarship is needed to help design the organisations and practises the new model requires and to train the …

What Role Can An International Financial Centre’S Law Play In The Development Of A Sunrise Industry? The Case Of Hong Kong And Solar Powered Investments, Bryane Michael

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

How can international financial centres like Hong Kong increase assets under management – and thus their size and ranking? Most policymakers and their advisors wrongly answer this question by focusing on financial institutions, and the law that governs them. Instead, policymakers need to start by looking at actual markets. What new tastes and technologies need funding? How can such funding fit into already existing geographies of production, distribution and finance? In this paper, we show how a focus on funding sunrise industries can help increase assets under management for the financial institutions operating in an international financial centre like Hong …

Economic Diversity In Appalachia: Statistics, Strategies, And Guides For Action, Edward Feser, Troy Mix, Mark White, Kenneth Poole, Deborah Markley, Erik Pages

Troy D Mix

Commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission, this report accomplishes three aims. First, it offers a quantitative portrait of economic diversity trends in Appalachian counties and sub-regions, benchmarked to U.S. trends. The portraits draws on four complementary indexes of diversity: industrial, functional, occupational, and knowledge, with the first two based on the mix of industries in a place and the latter two based on the mix of occupations. Second, the report summarizes diversity trends, economic development practices, and diversification strategies in ten Appalachian counties. The ten cases offer insights into economic development practitioners’ understanding of what economic diversity means for their …

Statistical Portrait Of Economic Diversity In Appalachia, Troy D. Mix, Edward J. Feser

Troy D Mix

Commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission, this report presents a quantitative portrait of economic diversity trends across US and Appalachian counties. The portrait draws on four complementary indexes of diversity: industrial, functional, occupational, and knowledge, with the first two based on the mix of industries in a place and the latter two based on the mix of occupations. Analysis and discussion focuses on the utility of economic diversity for informing regional development practice in Appalachia.

I Movimenti Di Protesta Contro Le Politiche Di Austerità In Europa, Mario Pianta, Paolo Gerbaudo

Mario Pianta

No abstract provided.

Slowing Trade: Global Activism Against Trade Liberalization., Mario Pianta

Mario Pianta

The impact of global activism against trade liberalisation is examined in this article through an analysis of the initiatives of cross border civil society networks and with a particular attention to the failed 2003 WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun. Key aspects considered here include the internal dynamics of mobilisation – which was characterised by a strong framing and widespread protest - and the political opportunities in WTO negotiations, which were marked by divisions within the North and resistance by a large group of Southern governments. In the failure of the WTO Millennium Round in Cancun and the loss of momentum …

In Search Of European Alternatives. Anti-Austerity Protests In Europe, Mario Pianta, Paolo Gerbaudo

Mario Pianta

An Industrial Policy For Europe, Mario Pianta

Mario Pianta

Una Politica Industriale Per L’Europa, Mario Pianta, Matteo Lucchese

Mario Pianta

Tackling The Undeclared Economy In Bulgaria: A Baseline Assessment, Rositsa Dzhekova, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

No abstract provided.