Alternative Welfare-to-Work Strategies for the Hard-to-Employ

From the Overview:

This report presents interim results from an evaluation of two different welfare-to-work strategies for hard-to-employ recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Philadelphia. The study is part of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, which is testing innovative employment strategies for groups facing serious obstacles to finding and keeping a steady job. The project is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. It is being conducted by MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, along with the Urban Institute and other partners.

Source: MDRC

Download full pdf report | Download pdf executive summary | Link to MDRC

The Millennials

Generations, like people, have personalities. Their collective identities typically begin to reveal themselves when their oldest members move into their teens and twenties and begin to act upon their values, attitudes and worldviews.

America's newest generation, the Millennials,1 is in the middle of this coming-of-age phase of its life cycle. Its oldest members are approaching age 30; its youngest are approaching adolescence.

Source: Pew Research

Link to various demographic and social trends of the Millennial Generation

Staying Safe Survey 2009 - Young People and Parents' Attitudes around Internet Safety

The Saying Safe Survey is the Department’s new tracking survey of young people and parents’ attitudes and confidence around a number of safety issues. The results in this report were commissioned specifically to inform the Department's work on child internet safety.

The survey was conducted through face-to-face in-home interviews with 1,433 parents and carers of children aged 0-17 and 833 with children and young people aged 12-17. Fieldwork took place between 12 June and 17 July 2009.

Source: United Kingdom Dept. for children, schools and family

Download full pdf publication | Link to DCSF

Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2009

Presents data on crime and safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, and principals. A joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, this annual report examines crime occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. It also provides the most current detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools and school environments and responses to violence and crime at school. Data are drawn from several federally funded collections including the National Crime Victimization Survey, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, School Survey on Crime and Safety, and the Schools and Staffing Survey.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Download full pdf publication | Link to Bureau of Justice Statistics

Federal Student Aid FY2009 Annual Report

In FY 2009, Federal Student Aid delivered or supported the delivery of approximately $113 billion in grant, work-study and loan assistance to almost 13 million postsecondary students and their families. These students attend approximately 6,200 active institutions of postsecondary education accredited by dozens of agencies. Many of these students also receive loans from approximately 2,900 lenders with 35 agencies administering the guarantee on those loans.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Education

Download full pdf report | Link to Federal Student Aid gov site

Transcript : Berkeley Endowed Lecture on Law and Economics: "Transitions into--and out of--Liberal Democracy"

"I believe a society can be expected to evolve into a liberal democracy, including private property and the rule of law, only if producer groups can organize and exert enough influence to prevent government predation."


Williams, Honorable Stephen F.(2009). Berkeley Endowed Lecture on Law and Economics

UC Berkeley: Berkeley Program in Law and Economics. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0t78b9mn

Download entire pdf publication

Together We Must! End Violence against Women and Girls and HIV & AIDS

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) and HIV & AIDS are mutually reinforcing pandemics; the need and the opportunity for integrated approaches addressing their intersection are increasingly evident. To date, however, such strategies have not been implemented on a widespread scale. Advocates and communities working on HIV & AIDS and VAWG are just beginning to come together to explore common strategies.

This publication profiles ten organizations that are working on innovative strategies to address the intertwined pandemics. It highlights key elements to consider when implementing such strategies.

Source: United Nations Development fund for women

Download full pdf publication | Link to online summary

Between Two Worlds: How Young Latinos Come of Age in America

Hispanics are the largest and youngest minority group in the United States. One- in-five schoolchildren is Hispanic. One-in-four newborns is Hispanic. Never before in this country's history has a minority ethnic group made up so large a share of the youngest Americans. By force of numbers alone, the kinds of adults these young Latinos become will help shape the kind of society America becomes in the 21st century.

This report takes an in-depth look at Hispanics who are ages 16 to 25, a phase of life when young people make choices that-for better and worse-set their path to adulthood. For this particular ethnic group, it is also a time when they navigate the intricate, often porous borders between the two cultures they inhabit-American and Latin American.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download full pdf publication | Link to online summary

Unemployment and Economic Recovery

From Summary

Even though the economy seems to be growing again, it may be a while before the unemployment rate begins to decline, and it may even continue rising for some time after the resumption of sustained economic growth. The unemployment rate is generally a lagging indicator, meaning that its ups and downs happen some time after the ups and downs of other broad indicators of economic activity. Unemployment may not fall appreciably when economic growth first picks up because some firms may have underutilized labor.

Source: Congressional Research Service

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The Copyright Registration Requirement and Federal Court Jurisdiction: A Legal Analysis of Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick

From the online overview:

Although an author need not register his or her work with the U.S. Copyright Office to obtain copyright protection, registration is a statutory prerequisite to bringing suit for infringement of the copyright, as mandated by 17 U.S.C. §411(a). The question in Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, is whether this section of the Copyright Act restricts the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts over copyright infringement actions.

Oral argument was heard in Reed Elsevier on October 7, 2009. The outcome of this case will not only affect the particular settlement at issue, but may well have broader implications for authors, publishers, and the general public.

Source: Congressional Research Service

Download pdf publication | Link to online overview

Does the Globalization of Anti-corruption Law Help Developing Countries?

Abstract:

What role do foreign institutions play in combating political corruption in developing countries? This chapter begins by describing the recently developed transnational anti-corruption regime, which encompasses legal instruments ranging from the dedicated multilateral agreements sponsored by the OECD and the United Nations, to the anti-corruption policies of international financial institutions, to components of the international antimony laundering regime, international norms governing government procurement, and private law norms concerning enforcement of corruptly procured contracts. It also surveys the evidence concerning a variety of claims about the potential advantages and disadvantages of having foreign institutions play a role in preventing, sanctioning, or providing redress for corruption on the part of local public officials. One of the main conclusions is that more attention ought to be paid to whether foreign institutions displace and undermine, or alternatively complement and enhance, local anti-corruption institutions. The analysis not only sheds light on the transnational anti-corruption regime, but also has implications for other efforts to rely on foreign legal institutions to address the problems of developing countries.

Source: New York University Law and Economics Working Papers

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Educators See More Hungry Students in Their Classrooms

Educators across the nation report that, with increasing frequency, they are witnessing hunger among their students—which affects the ability to concentrate and learn—despite government and private nutrition programs intended to ensure children have enough to eat in and out of school, according to a new survey of classroom instructors released on Nov. 23.

AFT members—who include paraprofessionals, classified staff and food service workers, as well as teachers—will continue to track hunger in their schools by responding to an online question—giving examples of how the problem affects their students and identifying steps they believe would alleviate it. In addition to what the Share Our Strength survey found about teachers' responses to hungry students, AFT members have related other stories of cafeteria workers handing out extra food and classified staff keeping a snack drawer in the school office.

The survey of 740 elementary and middle school teachers was commissioned by Share Our Strength. It was conducted by Lake Research Partners through an online questionnaire Oct. 21-28. The results were released during an SOS-organized webinar that featured the stories of teachers who participated in the survey.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online summary

New Report Shows Paid Parental Leave Can Save Government Money in Turnover Costs

From Press Release:
The federal government could save an estimated $50 million in recruitment and retention costs by putting in place a paid parental leave benefit, according to new research by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). The report, and its conclusion, was presented today at a Capitol Hill briefing co-hosted by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

“NTEU has long believed that commonsense benefits which assist employees in balancing competing work and home responsibilities help agencies hold on to talented workers,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “This report shows that is true, with an added benefit of saving the government money.”

The IWPR report calculates that an additional 2,650 employees would remain with the government each year, if this benefit were in place. That would save $50 million in recruitment and retention costs, according to the report.

Source: IWPR via NTEU

Download full pdf report | Link to online press release

The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

Abstract:

Although the concept of luxury has been widely discussed in social theories and marketing research, relatively little research has directly examined the psychological consequences of exposure to luxury goods. This paper demonstrates that exposure to luxury goods increases individuals' propensity to prioritize self-interests over others' interests, influencing the decisions they make. Experiment 1 found that participants primed with luxury goods were more likely than those primed with non-luxury goods to endorse business decisions that benefit themselves but could potentially harm others. Using a word recognition task, Experiment 2 further demonstrates that exposure to luxury is likely to activate self-interest but not necessarily the tendency to harm others. Implications of these findings were discussed.

Source: Harvard Business School Working Papers

Download full pdf publication | Link to online Executive Summary

Transcript: Workplace Challenges: Managing Layoffs, and Motivating Those Left Behind

The current downturn has left many companies scrambling to manage workplace issues -- ranging from how to avoid a brain drain to how they can provide better value to customers and clients. Employees, for their part, face the challenges that arise from working in a leaner organization that demands increased productivity with fewer resources.

Knowledge@Wharton talked about these issues with Peter Cappelli, Wharton management professor and director of the school's Center for Human Resources, and Philip Miscimarra, a partner in the labor and employment practice in the Chicago office of law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, co-chair of the Morgan Lewis/Workforce Change practice, and managing director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources research advisory group.

Link to online transcript

U.S. Seen as Less Important, China as More Powerful

Isolationist Sentiment Surges to Four-Decade High

The general public and members of the Council on Foreign Relations are apprehensive and uncertain about America’s place in the world. Growing numbers in both groups see the United States playing a less important role globally, while acknowledging the increasing stature of China. And the general public, which is in a decidedly inward-looking frame of mind when it comes to global affairs, is less supportive of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan than are CFR members.

Source : Pew Research Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf publication | Download topline questionnaire in pdf format | Link to online summary

Hispanics in the News: An Event-Driven Narrative

A study of more than 34,000 news stories that appeared in major media outlets finds that most of what the public learns about Hispanics comes not through focused coverage of the life and times of this population group but through event-driven news stories in which Hispanics are one of many elements.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download Complete pdf report | Link to online summary

Lobbying the Executive Branch: Current Practices and Options for Change

Summary:

Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) of 1995, as amended, individuals are required to register with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate if they lobby either legislative or executive branch officials. In January 2009, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner placed further restrictions on the ability of lobbyists to contact executive branch officials responsible for dispersing Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA, P.L. 110-243) funds. Subsequently, President Barack Obama and Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), issued a series of memoranda between March and July 2009 that govern communication between federally registered lobbyists and executive branch employees administering American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5) funds. Most recently, in October 2009, the White House directed executive agencies to prohibit, when possible, the appointment of federally registered lobbyists to federal advisory bodies and committees. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act lobbying restrictions focus on both written and oral communications between lobbyists and executive branch officials. Pursuant to the President's memoranda, restrictions have been placed on certain kinds of oral and written interactions between federally registered lobbyists and executive branch officials responsible for Recovery Act fund disbursement. The President's memoranda require each agency to post summaries of oral and written contacts with lobbyists on dedicated agency websites. EESA regulations are virtually identical. This report outlines the development of registration requirements for lobbyists engaging executive branch officials since 1995. It also summarizes steps taken by the Obama Administration to limit and monitor lobbying of the executive branch; discusses the development and implementation of restrictions placed on lobbying for Recovery Act and EESA funds; examines the Obama Administration's decision to stop appointing lobbyists to federal advisory bodies and committees; considers third-party criticism of current executive branch lobbying policies; and provides options for possible modifications in current lobbying laws and practices.

Source: Congressional Research Service

Download full pdf publication | Link to online Summary

Parenting in Poverty and the Politics of Commitment: Promoting Marriage for Poor Families through Relationship Education

Abstract:
The federal government has recently taken an unprecedented role in actively promoting marriage through social policies to address family instability and poverty in America. In 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to encourage work and marriage as routes to economic self-sufficiency for poor American families. This policy focus eventually led to the creation of the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative, a program that primarily funds relationship skills classes to promote marriage. Using ethnographic data from a community-based marriage education program for poor parents funded through a healthy marriage grant, I analyze how government-sponsored relationships skills classes intended to promote marriage tailor their messages for poor families. In doing so, this study addresses a broader sociological question: how does policy co-opt and transform ideas about love, family, and interpersonal commitment in the service of a particular political agenda? Moreover, how do parents accept, contest, and transform these ideologies on the ground when such ideas come up against the lived experience of families trying to create and maintain love while raising children in poverty? Ultimately, without addressing the structural issues that undermine poor couples’ aspirations to marry, relationship education frames healthy marriage as an emotional and economic partnership, one in which communication, conflict resolution, and financial management skills can be a social and psychological bulwark against the stresses of parenting in poverty.

Source: U.C. Berkeley Institute for the Study of Social Change

Download full pdf publication | Link to online article

Drug Industry Document Archive

Description:

The Drug Industry Document Archive (DIDA) contains over 2500 documents about pharmaceutical industry clinical trials, publication of study results, pricing, marketing, relations with physicians and involvement in continuing medical education.

Most of these previously secret documents were made public as a result of lawsuits against the following pharmaceutical companies: Merck & Co., Parke-Davis, Warner-Lambert, Wyeth, and Pfizer.

About the Project

The Drug Industry Document Archive (DIDA) was created by the Center for Knowledge Management at the University of California San Francisco Library in collaboration with faculty members C. Seth Landefeld, MD (CASBS Fellow 2009) and Michael Steinman, MD to house material pertaining to United States of America ex rel. David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis, Division of Warner-Lambert (now owned by Pfizer, Inc). Filed by former Parke-Davis employee David Franklin, the lawsuit alleged that the company violated federal regulations by engaging in systematic efforts to promote the drug gabapentin (Neurontin) for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Drs. Steinman and Landefeld were unpaid expert witnesses on behalf of the plaintiff and wrote an expert report for the court regarding marketing practices for gabapentin and its potential impact on physician prescribing.

Documents were obtained from public-access files of the United States District Court for Massachusetts and other sources including the plaintiff's law firm. These include materials written by Parke-Davis and companies with whom it worked which were entered as evidence, and legal documents outlining the progress of the litigation.

Source: UCSF

Users can search or browse by document type
Link to Drug Industry Document Archive

Ending Social Promotion Without Leaving Children Behind : the case of New York City

Online Overview

Many states and school districts are implementing test-based requirements for promotion at key transitional points in students' schooling careers, thus ending the practice of “social promotion” — promoting students who have failed to meet academic standards and requirements for that grade. In 2003–2004, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), which oversees the largest public school system in the country, implemented a new test-based promotion policy for 3rd-grade students and later extended it to 5th, 7th, and 8th graders. The policy emphasized early identification of children at risk of being retained in grade and provision of instructional support services to these students. NYCDOE asked RAND to conduct an independent longitudinal evaluation of the 5th-grade promotion policy and to examine the outcomes for two cohorts of 3rd-grade students. The findings of that study, conducted between March 2006 and August 2009, provide a comprehensive picture of how the policy was implemented and factors affecting implementation; the impact of the policy on student academic and socioemotional outcomes; and the links between the policy's implementation and the outcomes of at-risk students. Two other publications in this series provide a review of the prevailing literature on retention and lessons learned about policy design from top-level administrators across the country.

Source: RAND Corporation

Download full pdf publication | Download pdf Summary | Link to Rand Record

APA Exposed : Everything you always wanted to know about the APA format but were afraid to ask

Developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the online tutorial reflects 6th edition changes to APA's Publication Manual. The online tutorial is presented in the following short sections:

Introduction (7:08)

* Tutorial Features
* Tutorial Outline
* Why Use the APA format

Module 1: APA Formatting Basics (6:58)

* Spacing
* Margins
* Typeface and Font
* Unbiased Language
* Five-Heading System

Module 2: Citing Sources (10:49)

* Author-Date Method
* Direct Quotes
* Quotes from Electronic Sources
* Block Quotes

Module 3: Reference Citations in the Text (7:27)

* The Paragraph
* Two Authors
* Three to Five Authors
* Six or More Authors
* Studies I Didn't Read
* Lectures

Module 4: References (18:34)
* Two Entries by the Same Author
* APA Reference Style: Periodical (Journal)
* DOIs
* APA Reference Style: Book
* APA Reference Style: Book Chapter
* Online Documents
* PowerPoint Presentations

Source: Harvard School of Education

Link to tutorial site

United Nations Rule of Law Website

From About page:

The United Nations Rule of Law Website is a promotional and educational tool for practitioners and the general public. It seeks to inform users about the UN’s work in the field of rule of law, and its efforts to coordinate and strengthen system-wide approaches in this field. It is the central UN rule of law web-based resource, serving as a gateway to the rest of the UN’s related sites, and making information more widely accessible about UN rule of law issues and activities, and the various tools, documents and materials on the subject. The website is also an avenue for users to access other web resources on or related to rule of law, developed by the UN or external organizations.

The website features focus articles that describe UN rule of law engagement in countries, and major developments in the rule of law field. The UN’s approach to the emerging and critical rule of law issues that span the work of the Organization are explained in the crosscutting themes section. The interactive map provides highlights of current UN rule of law activities by region.

A key component of the website is the knowledge resources section. Its main feature is the United Nations Rule of Law Document Repository. The repository comprises core official and unofficial UN rule of law tools and materials: including UN norms and standards, resolutions, reports, guidance materials, training materials, and programming materials, lessons learned and evaluation. Users are also able to access additional practical rule of law resources, such as other databases, jobs, trainings, and practitioner networks.

Source: United Nations Rule of Law Resource and Coordination Group

Link to U.N. Rule of Law Website

2009 State of the World Population Report : Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climates

From the introduction:

Climate—the average of weather over time—is always changing, but never in known human experience more dramatically than it is likely to change in the coming century. For millennia, since civilizations arose from ancient farming societies, the earth's climate as a whole was relatively stable, with temperatures and patterns of rainfall that have supported human life and its expansion around the globe.

A growing body of evidence shows that recent climate change is primarily the result of human activity. The influence of human activity on climate change is complex. It is about what we consume, the types of energy we produce and use, whether we live in a city or on a farm, whether we live in a rich or poor country, whether we are young or old, what we eat, and even the extent to which women and men enjoy equal rights and opportunities. It is also about our growing numbers—approaching 7 billion.

As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the earth's capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme—and conceivably catastrophic. Population dynamics tell one part of a larger, more intricate story about the way some countries and people have pursued development and defined progress and about how others have had little say in the decisions that affect their lives.

Source: United Nations

Download full pdf report | Link to UNFPA Online Overview

Diabetes Awareness and Knowledge Among Latinos: Does a Usual Source of Healthcare Matter?

To provide national prevalence estimates of usual source of healthcare (USHC), and examine the relationship between USHC and diabetes awareness and knowledge among Latinos using a modified Andersen model of healthcare access. Three thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine Latino (18-years or older) participants of the Pew Hispanic Center/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Hispanic/Latino Health survey from the 48 contiguous United States. Cross- sectional, stratified, random sample telephone interviews. Self-reported healthcare service use was examined in regression models that included a past-year USHC as the main predictor of diabetes awareness and knowledge. Anderson model predisposing and enabling factors were included in additional statistical models. Significant differences in USHC between Latino groups
were found with Mexican Americans having the lowest rates (59.7%). USHC was associated with significantly higher diabetes awareness and knowledge (OR=1.24; 95%CI=1.05-1.46) after accounting for important healthcare access factors. Men were significantly(OR=0.64; 95%CI=0.52-0.75) less informed about diabetes than women. We found important and previously unreported differences between Latinos with a current USHC provider, where the predominant group, Mexican Americans, are the least likely to have access to a USHC. USHC was associated with Latinos being better informed about diabetes; however, socioeconomic barriers limit the availability of this potentially valuable tool for reducing the risks and burden of diabetes, which is a major public health problem facing Latinos.

Source: Journal of General Internal Medicine [via eScholarship repository]

Download full pdf publication | Link to eScholarship repository record

Who Benefits From Student Aid? The Economic Incidence of Tax-Based Federal Student Aid.

Abstract:

Federal student aid is designed to lower the costs of postsecondary attendance, working to ensure that higher education is widely accessible. The effectiveness of these programs depends crucially on the existence of offsetting price changes. Contrary to the intention of policymakers, I find that schools fully counteract the cost reduction of tax-based aid by lowering institutional aid dollar-for-dollar. This finding implies that colleges and universities capture the financial benefits of tax-based aid at the expense of eligible students and families.

Author: Nick Turner
Source: U.C. San Diego, Department of Economics [via eScholarship repository]

Download full pdf publication | Link to eScholarship Repository

Noncitizen Eligibility and Verification Issues in the Health Care Reform Legislation

From the Summary:

Health care reform legislation raises a significant set of complex issues, and among the thornier for policy makers are the noncitizen eligibility and verification issues. That the treatment of foreign nationals complicates health care reform legislation is not surprising given that reform of immigration policy poses its own constellation of controversial policy options. This report focuses on this nexus of immigration law and health care reform in the major health care reform bills that have received committee action.

Source: Congressional Research Service

Download full pdf publication | Link to online summary

Social Isolation and New Technology

From the online description:

This report adds new insights to an ongoing debate about the extent of social isolation in America. A widely-reported 2006 study argued that since 1985 Americans have become more socially isolated, the size of their discussion networks has declined, and the diversity of those people with whom they discuss important matters has decreased. In particular, the study found that Americans have fewer close ties to those from their neighborhoods and from voluntary associations. Sociologists Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears suggest that new technologies, such as the internet and mobile phone, may play a role in advancing this trend. Specifically, they argue that the type of social ties supported by these technologies are relatively weak and geographically dispersed, not the strong, often locally-based ties that tend to be a part of peoples’ core discussion network. They depicted the rise of internet and mobile phones as one of the major trends that pulls people away from traditional social settings, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, and public spaces that have been associated with large and diverse core networks.

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

Download full pdf report | Link to online description

Religious Landscape Survey Data Release

From the Press Release:
Data files from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, are now available to the public.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey included interviews with a representative sample of more than 35,000 U.S. adults. The survey examined religious affiliation, beliefs and practices as well as basic social and political attitudes. The large sample presents scholars and analysts with opportunities to analyze small population groups that most smaller surveys do not afford.

Source: Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life

Link to Pew data site

Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2008, and Salaries of Full-Time Instructional Staff, 2008-09

Description:
This First Look presents data from the Winter 2008-09 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), including data on the number of staff employed in Title IV postsecondary institutions in fall 2008 by primary function/occupational activity, length of contract/teaching period, employment status, salary class interval, faculty and tenure status, academic rank, race/ethnicity, and gender.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Download full pdf publication | Link to online overview

Preliminary Analysis of the Affordable Health Care for America Act As Introduced in the House of Representatives on October 29

From the Congressional Budget office Director's blog:
Among other things, H.R. 3962 would establish a mandate for most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance; set up insurance “exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing that coverage; significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid; substantially reduce the growth of Medicare’s payment rates for most services (relative to the growth rates projected under current law); impose an income tax surcharge on high-income individuals; and make various other changes to the federal tax code, Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs.

Download full pdf report | Link to CBO

Equality in higher education: statistical report 2009

ECU's second annual report into equality across the higher education sector presents a selection of statistics relating to the gender, ethnicity, disability status and age of all staff and students in higher education. In a time of economic difficulties, it has never been more important for higher education institutions to be clear about ongoing, and in some cases growing, patterns of disadvantage across the sector.

The report reveals that much progress has been made with equality over the past five years, but there are still significant challenges ahead.

Building on last year's publication, this report provides further analysis of the challenges facing the sector, including combinations of equality characteristics, analysis of key trends over the past five years and pay gaps. The report aims to enable individual institutions to compare themselves against national trends to assess their own progress on equality.

Source: Equality Challenge Unit

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2009 : Trade-led Recovery and Beyond

Abstract:

The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report is an annual publication prepared by staff of the Trade and Investment Division as a full in-house publication. The Report replaces the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Review with its first issue in 2009. The theme of APTIR 2009 is: "trade-led recovery and beyond". This issue analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on trade and investment flows in and to the region and implications for trade policy. It provides a conceptual framework for trade policy which should contribute to achieving inclusive and sustainable development. It makes a case for the multilateral trading system as the prime international trade governance system and gives an overview of the latest developments in the Doha Round. This issue of the Report also calls for an expansion of intraregional trade and deeper regional integration for that purpose and discusses the role of regional trade agreements in that regard. The Report also emphasizes the role of trade facilitation and needs for trade finance and explores issues related to business survival and development in time of crisis and beyond, including the development of regional value chains and the need for business to adopt principles related to corporate social responsibility (CSR).

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The Global Financial Crisis: Analysis and Policy Implications

From the summary:

Although recent data indicate the large industrialized economies may have reached bottom and are beginning to recover, for the most part, unemployment is still rising. Numerous small banks and households still face huge problems in restoring their balance sheets, and unemployment has combined with sub-prime loans to keep home foreclosures at a high rate. Nearly all industrialized countries and many emerging and developing nations have announced economic stimulus and/or financial sector rescue packages, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5). Several countries have resorted to borrowing from the International Monetary Fund as a last resort. The crisis has exposed fundamental weaknesses in financial systems worldwide, demonstrated how interconnected and interdependent economies are today, and has posed vexing policy dilemmas.

Source: Congressional Research Service


Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract.

The Impact of Inequality for Same-Sex Partners in Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans.

From Executive Summary:
This report analyzes the impact of unequal treatment of same-sex partners in the context of retirement plans and estimates the cost for employers of adopting a policy of equal treatment. The focus of this report is retirement income rather than health care provision for retirees and their families. Our goal is to address several key issues for same-sex couples as they plan for retirement. We find that same-sex couples face inequalities when it comes to their ability to accumulate wealth, plan for their futures, and pass on wealth.


Source: UC Los Angeles: The Williams Institute. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org

Download full pdf publication | Link to escholarship.org

Social Movements and the Journalistic Field: A Multi-Institutional Approach to Tactical Dominance in the LGBT Movement

Social movements typically consist of several diverse organizations, with each using subtly different tactics to advance a similar, but not equivalent, vision of social change. The landscape of powerful social institutions in which a movement is situated affects which tactics become dominant among these organizations (and thus, within the movement) and which tactics are sidelined, discredited, or not even considered. The mainstream media is one example of a social institution that may have such a constitutive effect on social movements. When the mainstream news media – conceptualized here as a journalistic field – produce more substantial coverage of a given movement tactic, they may increase the tactic’s legitimacy, permitting organizations that perform the tactic to occupy a more dominant position within the movement. In this paper, I analyze media coverage of LGBT movement activity in a sample of mainstream newspapers from 1985-2008 to examine whether, in its coverage of the movement for LGBT rights, the mainstream media have focused on the LGBT movement’s legal tactics, organizations, and framing, and have downplayed other types of movement tactics and framing. This paper expands upon empirical studies from the communications and sociolegal literatures, which find that litigation oftenattracts publicity,
whereas protest activity rarely receives any substantive news coverage. The data presented here will likely have implications for the new, multi-institutional approach to social movement theory. They should help to clarify the ways in which tactics, when amplified by media coverage, influence the ascendancy of specific strategies and organizations within a social movement.

Source: Institute for Social Change, UC Berkeley

Download full pdf publication | Link to eScholarship repository

Divided Fates: The State, Race, and Adaptation of Korean Immigrants in Japan and the United States

From the Introduction:

The content of this paper is based on a book manuscript that I am currently completing, which compares Korean diasporic groups in Japan and the United States. In my book project, I highlight the contrasting adaptation of Koreans in Japan and the United States, and illuminate how the destinies of immigrants who originally belonged to the same national collectivity diverged, depending upon destinations and how they were received in a certain state and society within particular historical contexts.

Source: Institute of Advanced Study| Kazuko Suzuki

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Incentives and Creativity: Evidence from the Academic Life Sciences

Abstract:
Despite its presumed role as an engine of economic growth, we know surprisingly little about the drivers of scientific creativity. In this paper, we exploit key differences across funding streams within the academic life sciences to estimate the impact of incentives on the rate and direction of scientific exploration. Specifically, we study the careers of investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which tolerates early failure, rewards long-term success, and gives its appointees great freedom to experiment; and grantees from the National Institute of Health, which are subject to short review cycles, pre-defined deliverables, and renewal policies unforgiving of failure. Using a combination of propensity-score weighting and difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that HHMI investigators produce high-impact papers at a much higher rate than two control groups of similarly-accomplished NIH-funded scientists. Moreover, the direction of their research changes in ways that suggest the program induces them to explore novel lines of inquiry.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

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Moral Freaks: Lawyers' Ethics in Academic Perspective

Abstract:
Much recent academic discussion exaggerates the distance between plausible legal ethics and ordinary morality. This essay criticizes three prominent strands of discussion: one drawing on the moral philosophy of personal virtue, one drawing on legal philosophy, and a third drawing on utilitarianism of the law-and-economics variety. The discussion uses as a central reference point the “Mistake-of-Law” scenario in which a lawyer must decide whether to rescue an opposing party from the unjust consequences of his own lawyer’s error. I argue that academic efforts to shore up the professional inclination against rescue are not plausible. I conclude by recommending an older jurisprudential tradition in which legal ethics is more convergent with ordinary morality.

Source: Forthcoming Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics (2010) [via nellco legal scholarship repository]

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