"Think Global, Act Local": Workplace Representation in a World of Global Labor and Product Market Competition

ABSTRACT:
The decline of unionization rates in private companies, while at an especially low point below 10% in the U.S., is a worldwide phenomenon, hastened by the emergence of global labor and product market competition. The dilemma for public policy is that while strong unions can promote worker voice and economic participation, they do so in a manner that harms firm performance where all companies competing in the same product market are subject to the same union standards. Global markets make it increasingly difficult for unions to pursue traditional redistributive goals, bringing to the fore an alternative model of workplace representation that emphasizes pursuit of objectives that do not undermine firm profits. Although global labor standards are often suggested as a means of improving the ability of U.S. workers to compete on a “level playing field” with workers in other countries, this approach is not likely to succeed if developing countries are to pursue their competitive advantage as lower-cost producers. Rather, the path for U.S. public policy should be two-pronged: (1) strengthening the protections for workers seeking collective representation, while (2) removing disincentives in current institutional arrangements that retard the evolution of unions as integrative bargaining agents. Source: NY University School of Law New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers. Paper 90.

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Authorʹs Rights Tout de Suite

Authorʹs Rights Tout de Suite is designed to give journal article authors a quick
introduction to key aspects of authorʹs rights and to foster further exploration of
this topic though liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links
to pertinent Web sites. Source:digital-scholarship.org


Download dpf article: Authorʹs Rights Tout de Suite

Fundraising, Campaigns and Endowments in a Challenging Economy

Tactics for Troubled Times
"In difficult economic times, fund raising consultants frequently suggest colleges go back to basics. That means connecting with donors who have given before, including the widowed spouses of once-great contributors." Source: Inside Higher Ed
Link to online Article

Donations rise, markets fall

"By all accounts, September was not a good month for the American economy.

Stock prices plummeted, and 159,000 jobs were lost, the worst such decline in five years. But at Yale, it was a record month for fundraising. Figures obtained by the News show that the University raked in over $28.25 million in donations last month, more than double the $14 million raised in September last year." Source: Yale Daily News

Link to online article

From the Council for Advancement and Support of Education
CASE has pulled together a number of resources with
the guidance of senior advancement professionals to help educational institutions maximize the effectiveness of their fundraising initiatives during challenging economic times.
Link to CASE

Obama Leads McCain 52% to 46% in Campaign's Final Days

"Barack Obama holds a significant lead over John McCain in the final days of Campaign 2008. The Pew Research Center's final pre-election poll of 2,587 likely voters, conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 1, finds 49% supporting or leaning to Obama, compared with 42% for McCain; minor party candidates draw 2%, and 7% are undecided."

"Pew's final survey indicates that the remaining undecided vote breaks slightly in McCain's favor. When both turnout and the probable decisions of undecided voters are taken into account in Pew's final estimate, Obama holds a 52% to 46% advantage, with 1% each going to Ralph Nader and Bob Barr."


Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News

Many more Americans are turning to the internet for campaign news this year as the web becomes a key source of election news. Television remains the dominant source, but the percent who say they get most of their campaign news from the internet has tripled since October 2004 (from 10% then to 33% now).

While use of the web has seen considerable growth, the percentage of Americans relying on TV and newspapers for campaign news has remained relatively flat since 2004. The internet now rivals newspapers as a main source for campaign news. And with so much interest in the election next week, the public’s use of the internet as a campaign news source is up even since the primaries earlier this year. In March, 26% cited the internet as a main source for election news, while the percentages citing television and newspapers remain largely unchanged. Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf Report | Link to summary of findings

Female Genital Mutilation as Persecution: When Can It Constitute a Basis for Asylum and Withholding of Removal?

"Female genital mutilation (FGM) encompasses a wide range of procedures which involve the removal or alteration of a woman's and girl's genitalia. The federal courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) have classified FGM as a form of persecution, a showing of which can act as a basis for a successful asylum or withholding of removal claim. However, there was a split between the federal courts and the BIA over the treatment of applicants who have already been subjected to FGM. The federal courts that have addressed this issue have held that a past infliction of FGM creates a presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution, which is a prerequisite for refugee status, and also a clear probability of future harm, a requirement for obtaining withholding of removal. The BIA, on the other hand, has rejected this position in In re A-T-, arguing that FGM can be inflicted only once, which means that an applicant cannot have a well-founded fear or present a clear probability of FGM happening again in the future. Thus, under the BIA interpretation, the past infliction of FGM, a form of past persecution, rather than creating a presumption of a well-founded fear of future persecution, rebuts the presumption." Source: Congressional Research Service

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The America COMPETES Act and the FY2009 Budget

"The America COMPETES Act (P.L. 110-69) responds to concerns that the United States may not be able to compete economically with other nations in the future due to insufficient investment today in science and engineering research and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. A similar concern led President Bush to announce the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) in January 2006. FY2008 appropriations met neither the Administration's ACI target nor America COMPETES Act authorized levels. An issue for Congress is whether FY2009 appropriations will.

The Presidents's Office of Science and Technology Policy reports that the FY2009 budget request includes funding for America COMPETES Act initiatives at 88% of the FY2009 authorization level. In June 2008, the House and Senate approved the Concurrent Budget Resolution Conference Report (S.Con.Res. 70), which provides a sense of the Congress on the America COMPETES Act, stating "the Congress should provide sufficient funding so that our Nation may continue to be the world leader in education, innovation and economic growth." For FY2009, the federal agencies that manage America COMPETES Act programs are funded through an interim continuing resolution until March 6, 2009. Funding for the remainder of FY2009 and all of FY2010 remains to be determined. The act authorizes increases in the nation's investment in science and engineering research at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratories, and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science." Source: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress

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Congress and U.S. Policy on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees: Recent Legislation and Implementation

"The passage of the reauthorization of the North Korean Human Rights Act in October 2008 (P.L.110-346) reasserted congressional interest in influencing the Bush Administration's policy toward North Korea. In addition to reauthorizing funding at original levels, the bill expresses congressional criticism of the implementation of the original 2004 law and adjusts some of the provisions relating to the Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea and the U.S. resettlement of North Korean refugees. Some outside analysts have pointed to the challenges of highlighting North Korea's human rights violations in the midst of the ongoing nuclear negotiations, as well as the difficulty in effectively reaching North Korean refugees as outlined in the law. Further, the law may complicate coordination on North Korea with China and South Korea. For more information, please see CRS Report RL34189, North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues: International Response and U.S. Policy Options, coordinated by Rhoda Margesson." Source: Congressional Research Service, Library Of Congress

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

Among Hispanics in Florida, 2008 Voter Registration Rolls Swing Democratic

"Unlike in the rest of the country, the Latino vote in the Sunshine State has tended to be heavily Republican; but changing politics and demographics have produced a substantial shift in electoral rolls." Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download full pdf fact sheet | Link to Pew Hispanic Center

Record Label Promotional Decisions and Artistic Personas: The Importance of Gender and Sexualization

"Many scholars and commentators have acknowledged sexism in the music industry, but very little systematic research explores patterns of gender preference or discrimination in popular music worlds. Interviews and interpretive or ethnographic work suggests a gendered glass ceiling exists, supported by gendered stereotypes and practices, but little direct research exists on the behaviors of record label personnel. This paper fills these holes by examining the degree to which record label promoters favor men or women as a group, and whether or not it matters if these artists are sexualized. The analysis suggests that, counter to expectations, promoters favor women as a group, and that both male and female artists receive a promotional boost for emphasizing a sexualized persona that counts double for women, but that these patterns differ significantly within genres and by race." Source: UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Thinking Gender Papers. Paper TG08_LynneDonze. [via eScholarship Repository]

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The 14th Biannual Youth Survey on Politics and Public Service by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics

"Eight years after our first national survey during the Spring of 2000 which came on the heels of the lowest national turnout for a presidential election in more than 50 years, we sought to understand the drivers behind political engagement and civic participation of a new generation. We found that while more than half of college students were engaged in some form of community service, far fewer were engaged in politics -or even voting.

Through the attitudinal and opinion data that we have collected over the course of fourteen in-depth editions of the Harvard University Institute of Politics’ Survey on Politics and Public Service we have seen dramatic changes in theway young Americans think about, relate to and engage in politics. More importantly we have seen record turnout by this generation during the 2008 primary season. " Source: Harvard Institute Of Politics

Link to Executive Summary | Download topline data (pdf)

What’s Next? Report on the Forum on the Future of Higher Education in Canada

"Universities and colleges play a central role in delivering the skills and knowledge that underpin personal development, success in the labour market, an innovative and productive economy, and a citizenry engaged in their communities. There has been a great deal of research in recent years on post-secondary education, particularly on how best to promote equitable access, but also on issues of quality and accountability in post-secondary institutions. The Forum on the Future of Higher Education in Canada examined key trends in post-secondary education and discussed policy options in five areas: access, connections between PSE and the labour market, integration of the system, new ways to deliver programs, and the need for a pan-Canadian framework."
Source: Canadian Policy Research Networks

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Incarceration and the Family : A Review of Research and Promising Approaches for Serving Fathers and Families

Summary Points:

# The number of individuals involved in the criminal justice system is at a historic high. There are almost 2.3 million individuals in U.S. jails and prisons and more than 798,000 people on parole. It is estimated that 7,476,500 children have a parent who is in prison, in jail or under correctional supervision.
# Minority children are disproportionately affected by father imprisonment: In state prisons, 42% of fathers are African American, and African American children are seven and a half times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children (6.7% vs. 0.9%).
# Only 23% of state prisoners are married, but many are involved in intimate or co-parenting relationships.
# Father incarceration negatively affects family life. Spouses/partners face serious financial strains, social isolation and stigma, loneliness, and negative emotions such as anger and resentment.
# Children of incarcerated fathers also may experience numerous life stressors, including caregiver changes, increased poverty, and involvement with the child welfare system, in addition to the pain of parental separation. These stressors have been linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, learning problems, and aggression.
# Fathers in prison face a host of problems that limit their ability to be successful at reentry including substance abuse, mental illness, low educational attainment, and poor employment histories.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Link to more summary points

Download full pdf report

Eurostat Regional Yearbook

"Eurostat regional yearbook 2008, which this year includes candidate and EFTA countries, uses text and graphics to paint a statistical picture of life in the regions. Th e 13 chapters are written by specialists and presented in a language accessible to all.

The 2008 publication is an ideal opportunity to assess the progress made so far in regional policy programmes recently launched as part of the EU’s new cohesion policy. Th e latest results from the Urban Audit also provide us with a snapshot of city life across the regions.

Download pdf report | Eurostat regional yearbook 2008">

Europe @ Risk

"Ahead of the World Economic Forum on Europe and Central Asia, held 30 October - 1 November, the Global Risk Network has launched a new edition of Europe@Risk. This report examines the global risks most pertinent to Europe, Russia, Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia relating to four areas: economic slowdown, energy security, demographic shifts and education. It considers how interrelated these areas are, and how they might impact all or parts of the wider region. As the report was being prepared, the financial crisis that began with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US in 2007 had reached a critical point.

Figures for Western Europe show that it is officially in recession and the level of uncertainty about the full extent, duration and longer term consequences of this crisis remains very high. This economic situation puts a number of the region’s challenges in new light; slower or no growth, combined with tighter credit conditions, will impact consumer, corporate and government spending. The mitigation of many of the risks considered in this report will require even greater collaboration across the region and considerable investment over the long term, be it in infrastructure, education or alternative energy." Source: World Economic Forum

Download full pdf report | Link to World Economic Forum

Most States Are Setting Low Expectations for the Improvement of High School Graduation Rates

"Among industrialized nations, the United States is the only country in which today’s young people are less likely than their parents to have earned a high school diploma. Reversing this trend could hardly be more urgent.

Yet policymakers in many states are setting graduation improvement targets that won’t get our young people—or our nation—ready to compete in the knowledge-driven world of the 21st century. According to “Counting on Graduation,” a new report released today by The Education Trust, states must ratchet up expectations for high school graduation, substantially and immediately.

Federal law requires states to set benchmarks for improvements in reading and math achievement and for graduating high school students on time. However, the various methods states use to compute graduation rates obscure the reality that too few students are completing high school on time. Nationally, one of every four high school students fails to graduate on time. For African-American and Latino students, that rate increases to more than one in three." Source: The Education Trust

Download full pdf Report | Link to online press release

Republicans: Still Happy Campers

"Chin up, Republicans. Despite the imploding stock market, the looming recession, the unpopular president and the dismal political polls, there's very good news in the one realm of life that's always been a special sanctuary for you.

Personal happiness.
Some 37% of you say you're "very happy" with your lives, compared with just 25% of Democrats who feel the same way, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey conducted from Oct. 3 through Oct. 19 -- a period that's witnessed a race to the bottom between John McCain's poll numbers and the public's 401(k) account balances." Source: Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center

Link to online report : Social and Demographic Trends

Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win

Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don't favor either candidate, and 13% say they don't know which candidate most reporters support.

A separate study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism looks at the media’s recent campaign coverage and finds that McCain received significantly more negative than positive coverage between the GOP convention and the final debate. The study says that press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so. [See "Winning the Media Campaign" released October 22, 2008.] Source: Pew research center for people and the press

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Latinos Account for Half of U.S. Population Growth Since 2000

"Since 2000 Hispanics have accounted for more than half (50.5%) of the overall population growth in the United States -- a significant new demographic milestone for the nation's largest minority group. During the 1990s, the Hispanic population also expanded rapidly, but in that decade its growth accounted for less than 40% of the nation's total population increase. In a reversal of past trends, Latino population growth in the new century has been more a product of the natural increase (births minus deaths) of the existing population than it has been of new international migration. As of mid-2007, Hispanics accounted for 15.1% of the total U.S. population." Source: Pew Hispanic Center




Download full pdf report | Link to online summary | Link to State demographic data

Being Online is Not Enough: State Elections Web Sites

"In this report, Make Voting Work (MVW) examined the state elections Web sites in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine whether citizens can find the official election information they need to register to vote, check their registration status and locate their polling places. More importantly, MVW measured if potential voters can use the information on state elections Web sites and if it helps them. We found that every state has room for improvement. However, states can still take steps to help voters; as the election approaches, many states have updated their Web sites and developed tools to help voters this November." Source: Pew Charitable Trust

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

How Engaged Are Consumers in Their Health and Health Care, and Why Does It Matter

"Patient activation refers to a person’s ability to manage their health and health care. Engaging or activating consumers has become a priority for employers, health plans and policy makers. The level of patient activation varies considerably in the U.S. population, with less than half of the adult population at the highest level of activation, according to a new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Activation levels are especially low for people with low incomes, less education, Medicaid enrollees, and people with poor self-reported health. Higher activation levels are associated with much lower levels of unmet need for medical care and greater support from health care providers for self-management of chronic conditions."

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

University Libraries in Google Project to Offer Backup Digital Library

"The project is called HathiTrust, and so far it consists of the members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of the 11 universities in the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago, and the 10 campuses in the University of California system. The University of Virginia is joining the project, it will be announced today, and officials hope to bring in other colleges as well.

All of the member universities participate in Google's ambitious effort to work with major libraries and with publishers to scan all the world's books. As part of the partnership, Google employees borrow and scan millions of volumes from each participating library to add them to their Google Book Search, and in return each library gets a digital copy of each of its scanned volumes." Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

"But there is an important catch. Because most of the millions of books are still under copyright protection, the libraries cannot offer the full text of the books to people off their campuses, though they can reveal details like how many pages of a given volume contain any passage that a user searches for."

Link to online article

Census Bureau Releases Comprehensive Health Insurance Coverage Estimates by County

“The Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE) provide new and important detail on how health insurance coverage varies across counties,” said Lynn Blewett, director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center in Minneapolis. “Analysts and policymakers can use this information to target outreach activities and other intervention strategies to increase coverage and access to needed health care services.”

"Currently, SAHIE are the only source for county-level estimates of health insurance coverage status. Starting next year the Census Bureau will also release such estimates from its American Community Survey. Single-year estimates will be available for all geographic areas with total populations of 65,000 or more, with three-year estimates being released in 2011 for all areas with total populations of at least 20,000. A health insurance question was added to the 2008 American Community Survey to permit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to more accurately distribute resources and better understand state and local health insurance needs."

Link to SAHIE (datasets available for download)

Auction Basics: Background for Assessing Proposed Treasury Purchases of MortgageBacked Securities

"To address the turmoil in financial markets, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA; H.R. 1424, P.L. 110-343), enacted on October 3, 2008, authorizes purchases of "troubled assets." The act passed the Senate on October 1, 2008, passed the House on October 3, 2008, and was signed into law the same day. The Administration proposed using reverse Dutch auctions to purchase troubled assets -- primarily mortgage-related securities from financial institutions. In reverse Dutch auctions, a buyer purchases multiple objects from private parties at a price set by the last accepted bid. The government has used reverse auctions since the Revolutionary War. Designing efficient reverse Dutch auctions may present some tradeoffs between enhancing competition among bidders and overpaying for assets relative to their quality. Careful auction design, however, can help minimize these problems. Auctions are especially useful for selling assets whose value to potential owners is unknown to the seller. Reverse auctions are useful when a buyer does not know what value sellers place on assets. Auction results could clarify the market value of troubled assets." Source: Congressional Research Service

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

Campaign Seen As Increasingly Negative : McCain Ads Seen as Less Truthful

"With less than three weeks to go before the election, there is a growing sense among the public that the tone of the presidential campaign has changed. A majority of Americans (55%) now say that the campaign is too negative. This is up significantly from 43% a month ago and represents a dramatic change from the beginning of the primary season when only 28% said the campaign was too negative. Perceptions of the tone of the current campaign are nearly identical to views of the 2004 presidential campaign. In October, 2004, 57% of registered voters said the campaign was too negative." Pew Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf publication | Download pdf questionnaire | Link to online abstract

Tobacco industry targeting of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community: A white paper

Smoking prevalence in the lesbian and gay community exceeds that in nearly all other demographic groups. In 2001, we undertook a four-year research project to study tobacco industry targeting of the lesbian and gay community. We researched formerly-secret tobacco industry documents, analyzed tobacco content in the gay press, interviewed leaders of LGBT organizations, and conducted focus groups with LGBT smokers and nonsmokers.

We found that tobacco companies began to advertise in the gay press in the early 1990s, initially wary of unfavorable publicity and quick to deny doing so when confronted. At the same time, the tobacco industry began to sponsor community organizations and events, especially those for AIDS-related causes, which helped burnish the industry's reputation. Many leaders and members of the community viewed this attention from major corporations as a sign that the community was becoming visible and more acceptable.

Our study found that most LGBT leaders did not consider tobacco a "gay issue". Focused on gay-specific concerns, such as homophobia, they saw tobacco as irrelevant or even a distraction from their missions. Twenty two percent of organizations we studied reported accepting financial support from the tobacco industry. Only 24% thought tobacco was one of the top three health concerns of the community. Many believed that smoking was solely a personal choice, not an issue of concern for the community as a whole.

The queer press normalized smoking. Images of tobacco, most conveying positive or neutral messages, were common. We found that many ads for products other than cigarettes glamorized smoking, and many articles having nothing to do with smoking were illustrated with tobacco use images. Only 11% of all non-advertising items we found (images and text) imparted a negative message about tobacco use. Very few LGBT publications had policies against accepting tobacco ads.

By the time the study ended, an increasing number of LGBT advocates were working in tobacco control. We recommend activities that promote a community dialogue about the real costs of accepting tobacco industry advertising and funding. For example, some groups are urging LGBT politicians and organizations to sign pledges not to take tobacco industry money. As mainstream tobacco control has begun to recognize the need of the LGBT community for services, we recommend that LGBT organizations apply for funding, perhaps using the infrastructures the community has developed to provide services for breast cancer and HIV.

Additional research to develop models for getting tobacco on the community's agenda would be useful. For example, understanding how alcohol and other drugs became seen as gay-specific community concerns—even though, like tobacco, they affect everyone—could be helpful. Finding ways to challenge the views of some young gay people—that most queers smoke—might make it easier to help them remain smokefree. Perhaps a greater

understanding of the coming out process—in which one's authentic self challenges societal norms—could help arm young people with the strength to resist tobacco. Finally, one of the lessons of the larger LGBT movement itself—the importance of holding institutions accountable for the harm they cause—might help the community stop thinking of smoking as a personal issue, and think of it instead as a systemic issue, with a culpable industry at the heart of the problem.

* Many community organizations define themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). When possible, we included bisexual and transgender people in our study. Throughout this paper, the terms LGBT, queer, and gay are used interchangeably to acknowledge the diversity of the community and to respect the variety of ways in which LGBT people identify themselves.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Naphtali Offen, Elizabeth A. Smith, and Ruth E. Malone, "Tobacco industry targeting of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community: A white paper" (September 8, 2008). Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Tobacco Control Policy Making: United States. Paper LGBT2008.

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

Untold Truths: The Exclusion of Enforced Sterilizations from the Peruvian Truth Commission's Final Report

"This Article argues that the exclusion of enforced sterilization cases from the Peruvian Truth Commission’s (CVR’s) investigation and Final Report effectively erases state responsibility and greatly decreases the likelihood for justice and reparations for women victims-survivors of state-sponsored violence in Peru. In a context of deep cultural and economic divides and violent conflict, this note recounts how healthcare providers violated Peruvian women’s reproductive rights by sterilizing low-income, indigenous Quechua-speaking women without informed consent through the State’s Family Planning Program. It challenges the reasons given by Commissioners themselves for excluding these cases in the Commission’s investigation and Final Report and also examines the effects of these omissions. Additionally, this Article argues that these systematic reproductive injustices constitute an act of genocide, proposes an independent inquiry and advocates for a more inclusive ! investigation and final report for future truth commissions whose goals include truth, accountability and justice for all victims-survivors of state-sponsored violence. Addressing these systematic violations of the fundamental human rights of Peruvian women is particularly important today as the State prosecutes former President Alberto Ken’ya Fujimori, holding him accountable for his alleged acts and omissions in violation of the fundamental human rights of Peruvians during the internal armed conflict. Leaders responsible for the enforced sterilization of more than 200,000 Peruvian women, including Fujimori, must be held accountable for past violations in order to fully realize future reconciliation and justice in Peru." Source: Cornell Law School. Cornell Law School Working Papers Series. Paper 43.

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

Making Space for Urban Girls: A Politics of Geography and Gender

"This paper presents a multi-year case study of an after-school literacy initiative at an inner city high school. In order to understand the lived experiences and practices of urban girls, this study explores how African American girls, in particular, navigate public and private spaces of their everyday worlds. Spatial limitations, institutional pressures, and teens’ subjectivities shaped an extracurricular literacy program, built on a theoretical framework of participatory research and youth-led digital media production. By considering the politics of after-school programming and the landscape of urban contexts, I problematize programs such as Girlspace, as well as complicate understandings of youth literacies, geography, and participatory research. This paper argues that for youth development programs to succeed, the complexity of socio-cultural and spatial realities facing urban girls-- as well as their perspectives-- must be understood." Source: Institute for the Study of Social Change. U.C. Berkeley ISSC Fellows Working Papers. Paper ISSC_WP_31. [via escholarship repository]

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Digital Quality of Life: Understanding the Personal and Social Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution

In the new global economy information technology (IT) is the major driver of both economic growth and improved quality of life. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) in its 2007 report Digital Prosperity: Understanding the Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution documented how IT, since the mid-1990s, has been the principal driver of increased economic growth not only in the United States but also in many other nations. However, IT is also at the core of dramatic improvements in the quality of life for individuals around the world. In our new report, we show how IT is the key enabler of many, if not most, of today’s key innovations and improvements in our lives and society—from better education and health care, to a cleaner and more energy-efficient environment, to safer and more secure communities and nations. Source: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Sexually Assaulted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics

"Provides information on the estimated number and characteristics of children who were sexually assaulted in the United States in 1999. This Bulletin is the seventh in the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2) series. Information on sexual assault was gathered from NISMART–2 interviews with victims and their families." Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Download full pdf report | Link to Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008

"This report examines both the educational progress of American Indian/Alaska Native children and adults and challenges in their education. It shows that over time more American Indian/Alaska Native students have gone on to college and that their attainment expectations have increased. Despite these gains, progress has been uneven and differences persist between American Indian/Alaska Native students and students of other racial/ethnic groups on key indicators of educational performance." Source: National Center for Education Statistics


Download full pdf report | Link to online Summary

Ashamed Not to Vote for an African-American; Ashamed to Vote for a Woman: An Analysis of the Bradley Effect from 1982-2006

"By systematically analyzing the universe of black, Latino, Asian American Senate and Gubernatorial candidates, a representative sample of female candidates, and a large sample of white male comparison cases, we demonstrate that there is a Bradley Effect for black candidates that continues to the present day. We also show that women are susceptible to a reverse Bradley Effect. In addition to this contribution, the article also introduces a model of preference falsification which fills a gap in the survey response bias literature and is consistent with our overall findings, though to our knowledge no data exists to test it directly."Source: Center for the Study of Democracy. U.C. Irvine Paper 08-08.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Untapped Potential: Latinos and California Community Colleges

"Latinos are now the largest group of students who begin their postsecondary studies at a California community college after graduating from a public high school. This represents an opportunity to improve bachelor degree attainment among Latinos via the community college transfer function. This research brief describes current transfer rates among Latinos, reviews the literature on the barriers to transfer, and concludes with a cohort analysis of Latino community college students that describes their demographic profiles, coursework patterns, transfer readiness and outcomes. The author concludes that California’s community college system is not close to reaching its potential as a stepping-stone to four-year colleges and universities for Latino students." Source: Center for Latino Policy Research. Policy Reports and Research Briefs: Paper Chavez2008.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online Summary

Middle Class, By the Numbers

"With the economy in turmoil, the closing weeks of the presidential campaign are likely to focus increased attention on America's beleaguered middle class.

But just who is in the middle class? And how are things going for them?

The Pew Research Center surveyed 2,413 adults earlier this year, including 1,276 who identified themselves as "middle class." Pew researchers also analyzed U.S. Census data and other demographic and economic statistics." Source: Pew Research Center: Social and Demographic Trends

Download full report on Middle Class | Link to online summary

Trends in Unauthorized Immigration: Undocumented Inflow Now Trails Legal Inflow

"There were 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, according to new Pew Hispanic Center estimates. The size of the unauthorized population appears to have declined since 2007, but this finding is inconclusive because of the margin of error in these estimates.

However, it is clear from the estimates that the unauthorized immigrant population grew more slowly in the period from 2005 to 2008 than it did earlier in the decade.

It also is clear that from 2005 to 2008, the inflow of immigrants who are undocumented fell below that of immigrants who are legal permanent residents. That reverses a trend that began a decade ago. The turnaround appears to have occurred in 2007." Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download full pdf report | Link to online Summary

Many Say Press Has Been Too Tough on Palin

"Strong majorities of the public say the press has been fair to John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. But fewer than four-in-ten (38%) say the press has been fair to Sarah Palin. Many more believe the press has been too tough on Palin (38%) than say it has been too easy (21%).

While opinions about Palin coverage are highly partisan, many independents share the view that the press has been too tough on the Alaska governor. Among independents, 41% say the press has been too hard on Palin, 20% say the press has been too easy and 36% say the press has been fair. Republicans overwhelmingly believe the press has been too hard on Palin (63%). Just 7% say the press has been too easy on her. Nearly one-in-five Democrats (18%) agree that coverage of Palin has been too tough." Source: PewResearch Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf report | Download pdf questionnaire | Link to online summary

Resolving the Foreclosure Crisis: Modification of Mortgages in Bankruptcy

Abstract: For over a century, bankruptcy has been the primary legal mechanism for resolving consumer financial distress. In the current foreclosure crisis, however, the bankruptcy system has been ineffective because of the special protection it gives most home mortgages. Debtors may modify the terms of all debts in bankruptcy except those secured by mortgages on their principal residences. A bankrupt debtor who wishes to keep her house must pay the mortgage according to its original terms down to the last penny. As a result, many homeowners who are unable to meet their mortgage payments are losing their homes in foreclosure, thereby creating significant economic and social deadweight costs and further depressing the housing market.

This Article empirically tests the economic assumption underlying the policy against bankruptcy modification of home mortgage debt - namely that protecting lenders from losses in bankruptcy encourages them to lend more and at lower rates, and thus encourages homeownership. The data show that the assumption is mistaken; permitting modification would have little or no impact on mortgage credit cost or availability. Because lenders face smaller losses from bankruptcy modification than from foreclosure, the market is unlikely to price against bankruptcy modification.

In light of market neutrality, the Article argues that permitting modification of home mortgages in bankruptcy presents the best solution to the foreclosure crisis. Unlike any other proposed response, bankruptcy modification offers immediate relief, solves the market problems created by securitization, addresses both problems of payment reset shock and negative equity, screens out speculators, spreads burdens between borrowers and lenders, and avoids both the costs and moral hazard of a government bailout. As the foreclosure crisis deepens, bankruptcy modification presents the best and least invasive method of stabilizing the housing market. Source: Georgetown Law. Georgetown Law Faculty Working Papers. Paper 86.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Gender, Source Country Characteristics and Labor Market Assimilation Among Immigrants: 1980-2000

"We use 1980, 1990 and 2000 Census data to study the impact of source country characteristics on the labor supply assimilation profiles of married adult immigrant women and men. Women migrating from countries where women have high relative labor force participation rates work substantially more than women coming from countries with lower relative female labor supply rates, and this gap is roughly constant with time in the United States. These differences are substantial and hold up even when we control for wage offers and family formation decisions, as well as when we control for the emigration rate from the United States to the source country. Men's labor supply assimilation profiles are unaffected by source country female labor supply, a result that suggests that the female findings reflect notions of gender roles rather than overall work orientation. Findings for another indicator of traditional gender roles, source country fertility rates, are broadly similar, with substantial and persistent negative effects of source country fertility on the labor supply of female immigrants except when we control for presence of children, in which case the negative effects only become evident after ten years in the United States." Source: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Download pdf publication: Gender, Source Country Characteristics and Labor Market Assimilation Among Immigrants

Link to online abstract

Headed for a Crunch: An Update on Medicaid Spending, Coverage and Policy Heading into an Economic Downturn

"This annual 50-state survey of state officials on Medicaid and state budget actions by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) finds enrollment in Medicaid began to rise in fiscal year 2008 with states expecting even larger increases for fiscal year 2009 as they confront a weakening economy. With the increased enrollment, Medicaid spending is also rising more rapidly than in the recent past, raising the potential for program cutbacks as states confront the combined impact of more enrollees and fewer available resources.

The survey finds that Medicaid enrollment across the country grew 2.1 percent in fiscal year 2008, more than erasing a slight decline in enrollment experienced the previous year. States also experienced spending growth of 5.3 percent, up significantly from the previous two years. For fiscal year 2009, states expect to see even larger increases in Medicaid enrollment and spending.

Conducted by Kaiser researchers with the KCMU and researchers with Health Management Associates, the eighth annual budget survey of state officials found that more states made restorations, enhancements or expansions to their Medicaid programs than made cuts for fiscal years 2008 and 2009. These include changes to provider reimbursement levels, in Medicaid eligibility requirements and enrollment processes, in benefits, and in home- and community-based services for long-term care." Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Download full pdf report | Download pdf executive summary | Link to Press Release

Economy seems better to the educated, whites and Republicans, the National Annenberg Election Survey shows

"As widely reported, polls have shown that the percentage of the American public reporting that the economy is faltering has increased over the past year. Some groups see the situation as more dire than others do. Results from the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey show that college-educated adults, whites, and Republicans are less likely than their demographic counterparts to believe that economic conditions in the country today are worse than they were one year ago, even when controlling for gender, age, education, income, race, ethnicity, and party identification." Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center

Note: This is the work of Kathleen Hall Jameson (CASBS Fellow 2004)

Download full pdf release | Link to Annenberg Public Policy Center

American public has much to learn about presidential candidates’ issue positions, National Annenberg Election Survey shows

From Press Release:
"Many Americans are unable to identify where the major party candidates’ stand on various issues ranging from health care to abortion to free trade, according to recent data collected by the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey. Only a little over a quarter (28 percent) of adults were able to identify Senator John McCain as the presidential candidate more likely to support free trade agreements like NAFTA." Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center

Note: This is the work of Kathleen Hall Jameson (CASBS Fellow 2004)

Download full Release in pdf

2008 State of College Admission report

"As the number of high school graduates grows, so, too, does the number of applications they are submitting to the nation’s four-year colleges and universities, according to the 2008 State of College Admission report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). The association released the sixth annual report during its national conference in Seattle, WA.

While the number of students and applications reached another all-time high, the average (mean) acceptance rate for four-year colleges and universities is much the same as it was when such statistics were first measured nationally in the 1980s. The increasing number of applications students submit may contribute to a more complicated admission environment, including increased uncertainty for colleges about who will attend if accepted, more admission strategies aimed at identifying students likely to attend, and greater attention to factors like a student’s interest in attending a college in the admission decision. Source: National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)."

Download full pdf report | Link to NACAC

Demography Defeated: Florida's K-12 Reforms and Their Lessons for the Nation

This study examines the 10-year impact of these reforms and finds remarkable improvement in Florida’s test scores. Between 1992 and 1998, Florida’s already-low fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores were declining. In 1999, when these reforms were enacted, nearly half of Florida fourth-graders scored “below basic” on the NAEP reading test, meaning that they could not read at a basic level. But by 2007, less than a decade after the education reforms took effect, 70 percent of Florida’s fourth-graders scored basic or above. Florida’s Hispanic students now have the second-highest statewide reading scores in the nation, and African-Americans score fourth-highest when compared with their peers. Source: Goldwater Institute

Download pdf publication: Demography Defeated: Florida's K-12 Reforms and their Lessons for the Nation.

Ten Questions and Answers About the Housing Crisis and the Financial Bailout— In Plain English

From the Press Release: "As Congress tries to hammer out a $700 billion financial rescue plan, many people are still trying to understand how our financial institutions got into so much trouble in the first place, and why the government needs to take action to bail them out. In a new issue brief from The Century Foundation, economist and senior fellow Bernard Wasow answers ten crucial questions about the housing crisis. In “A Guide to the Housing Crisis: Ten Questions and Answers” Wasow offers straightforward answers to basic questions such as:

* Why did lenders make so many bad loans for mortgages?
* Why are so many different banks and brokerages all over the world in hot water?
* Who will eventually own the real estate properties involved?
* What will happen to the bankers and brokers who operated the institutions that created all these bad loans?
* What is the “worst case” outcome of this crisis?
* What is the “best case” outcome of this crisis?"
Source: the Century Foundation

Download pdf of “A Guide to the Housing Crisis: Ten Questions and Answers”

Widespread Confusion About the Voting Rights of People with Criminal Records

"A report released by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law reveals widespread misunderstanding among state election officials of laws governing the right to vote of citizens with felony convictions.

A second ACLU report, also released today, finds that voter registration forms in states across the country fail to clearly explain the eligibility of voters with criminal records.

Both reports reveal widespread problems that endanger the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of eligible voters in a presidential election year. " Source: Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

Download pdf of "De Facto Disenfranchisement" from Brennan Center
Download pdf of "Voting With a Criminal Record: How Registration Forms Frustrate Democracy" from the ACLU

Revolving Door

"Whether they are a presidential appointee plucked from an elite position in corporate America to run a government commission or an outgoing member of Congress looking for a more lucrative job in the influence industry, OpenSecrets.org's Revolving Door database tracks anyone whose résumé includes positions of influence in both the private and public sectors. Government employees may have had the president’s ear or may have simply been the doorkeeper of the congressional cloakrooms. Influence-peddlers merely have to be in a position to influence government policy on someone else's behalf, commonly as a "hired gun" at a K Street firm, an executive of a professional trade association or as a vice president of government relations for a large company." Source: OpenSecrets.org

Link to Revolving Door

Public Vs. Private Good Research at Land-Grant Universities

"The basic concern of this paper is the effect of private sponsorship of university research on the allocation of expenditures between public good research and commercial applications. Throughout the land-grant university system, there is much concern that as a result of reduced government funding, fundamental research will be neglected at the expense of research that is geared toward commercial applications. This paper attempts to shed some light on the relationship between research priorities and the availability of public funding for university research. In particular, we use both a static and a dynamic model to investigate the conditions under which university/private research partnerships can "crowd-in" or "crowd-out" basic science research as public funding becomes scarcer." Source: Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley. CUDARE Working Paper 1066. [via escholarship repository]

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

geo.worldbank.org

"...mashed up Google Maps with World Bank data to give you a visual entry point to browse our projects, news, statistics and public information center by country."

here's a screen shot of Africa. The stars indicate "active World Bank projects"



Link to geo.worldbank.org

"Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity,"

"...traces the origins and transformations of a people—the Zainichi, migrants from the Korean peninsula to Japan and their descendants. Using a wide range of arguments and evidence—historical and comparative, political and social, literary and pop-cultural—John Lie reveals the social and historical conditions that gave rise to Zainichi identity, while simultaneously demonstrating its complex, fractured, even ephemeral nature. " Source: John Lie, "Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity," in Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity. University of California Press / UC Global, Area, and International Archive, vol. #10, 2008.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Problems Paying Medical Bills Increase for U.S. Families, 2003-2007

"About 57 million Americans were in families with problems paying medical bills in 2007—an increase of 14 million people since 2003, according to a new national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Problems paying medical bills increased for both nonelderly insured and uninsured people. Although the rate of medical bill problems is much higher for uninsured people, most people with medical bill problems—42.5 million—had insurance coverage. About 2.2 million people with medical bill problems were in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of their medical bills, and a much larger number reported other financial consequences, such as problems paying for other necessities and having to borrow money. The increase in medical bill problems—especially among insured people—is the main reason why more people reported unmet medical needs because of cost in 2007 than in 2003." Source: Center for Studying Health System Change

Download pdf report | Link to online summary

Draft of proposed government $700 billion financial rescue plan

From NY Times article:
"The final version of the bill included a deal-sealing plan for eventually recouping losses; if the Treasury program to purchase and resell troubled mortgage-backed securities has lost money after five years, the president must submit a plan to Congress to recover those losses from the financial industry. Presumably that plan would involve new fees or taxes, perhaps on securities transactions."

Pdf download of full text of bailout plan

World Investment Report 2008

"World Investment Report 2008 (WIR08) is the 18th in a series published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Report analyses the latest trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) and has a special focus in 2008 on the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in infrastructure development.

Infrastructure - especially electricity, telecommunications, transport, and water - is important for all economies. It provides goods and services crucial for competitiveness. Affordable electricity and drinking water are also important for raising living standards. Many low-income countries need huge investments to improve infrastructure but lack the domestic resources to fund them. Investments from TNCs, along with other forms of TNC involvement, are one way of addressing the shortfall.

The Report maps the investments of infrastructure companies worldwide and in developing countries and explores how TNC participation in infrastructure has increased since the early 1990s, although from a low level. It also discusses how developing-country firms have become prominent investors in some infrastructure industries - and the implications of their foreign activities. The Report further explores how the participation of TNCs mobilizes financial resources for infrastructure investment and how these activities affect industry performance. It highlights the complex policy challenges facing developing countries seeking to use TNCs to spur improvements in such fields as transport and electricity supply and stresses the need for active support of such countries by their development partners." Source: United Nations

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals: First Year Report

"Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway launched the first year Progress Report on the Global Campaign for Health. The Report demonstrates that increased investments in health – a doubling of health aid since 2000 – are having results. More than 2 million people are now receiving AIDS treatment, the rapid scale-up of effective malaria programmes is leading to dramatic reductions in child mortality and measles deaths have fallen by 68% since 1999.

But the Report also calls for urgent, effective international action to accelerate progress towards the UN goals of reducing maternal and child deaths by 2015. To save 3m mothers and 7m newborns – and meet these goals - an extra $2.4bn in 2009 rising to $7bn in 2015 will be needed.

Responding to this call, Heads of Governments and Health Agencies committed to mobilise international support for stronger health systems, including the training and recruitment of over 1 million health workers."

Source: United Nations: Norad

Download full pdf report | Link to online Summary

The Cost of Government Financial Interventions, Past and Present

"In response to ongoing financial turmoil that began in the subprime mortgagebacked securities market, the federal government has intervened with private corporations on a large scale and in an ad hoc manner three times from the beginning of 2008 through September 19, 2008. The firms affected were Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and AIG. Another large investment bank, Lehman Brothers, sought government intervention, but none was forthcoming; subsequently, the firm sought bankruptcy protection. These interventions have prompted questions regarding the taxpayer costs and the sources of funding. The sources of funding are relatively straightforward, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the U.S. Treasury. The costs, however, are difficult to quantify at this stage. In the most recent interventions (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and AIG), all the lending that is possible under the interventions has yet to occur. Also, in all the current cases, the government has received significant debt and equity considerations from the private firms. At this point, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG are essentially owned by the federal government. Depending on the proceeds from the debt and equity considerations, the federal government may very well end up seeing a positive fiscal contribution from the recent interventions, as was the case in some of the past interventions summarized in the tables at the end of this report. The government may also suffer significant losses, as has also occurred in the past." Source: Congressional Research Service

Download full pdf reort | Link to online summary

Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs

To explore decision-making in the typical American home, a Pew Research Center survey asked men and women living in couples which one generally makes the decisions in four familiar areas of domestic life. Who decides what you do together on the weekend? Who manages the household finances? Who makes the decisions on big purchases for the home? And who most often decides what to watch on television?

Source: Pew Research Center : Social and Demographic Trends

Link to report: Gender and Power

Related: Revisiting the Mommy Wars

McCain's Image Faltered in Week of Wall Street Woes

"Views of John McCain turned somewhat more negative last week, amid record public interest in economic news. In a survey conducted Sept. 19-22, fully half of the public said their opinion of the GOP nominee had changed in the past few days, with 30% saying their opinion has become less favorable and only 20% saying their view has become more favorable. McCain's public image had improved significantly the week he chose Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate and the week of the GOP convention." Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

Download full pdf report | Download topline questionnaire | Link to online summary

Privacy, Accountability, and the Cooperating Defendant: Towards a New Role for Internet Access to Court Records

Abstract: "Now that federal court records are available online, anyone can obtain criminal case files instantly over the Internet. But this unfettered flow of information is in fundamental tension with many goals of the criminal justice system, including the integrity of criminal investigations, the accountability of prosecutors and the security of witnesses. It has also altered the behavior of prosecutors intent on protecting the identity of cooperating defendants who assist them in investigating other targets. As prosecutors and courts collaborate to obscure the process by which cooperators are recruited and rewarded, Internet availability, instead of enabling greater public understanding, risks degrading the value of the information obtained.

There is a growing body of scholarship considering the privacy implications of electronic access, but the literature has not yet addressed these issues from the perspective of the criminal justice system. This Article begins to fill that gap by focusing on the skittish responses of prosecutors and courts to the expanding availability of information that had always been public, but was traditionally hard to obtain. Such evasion is particularly troubling in the context of cooperation, an important law enforcement tool that is essentially unregulated and susceptible to capricious application. The Article proposes an approach that pairs limitations on online access with systematic disclosure of detailed plea and cooperation agreements in their factual context, but divorced from identifying data. This proposal would protect privacy and security, while enabling the public and press to engage in genuine government oversight."
Author: Caren Myers Morrison Source:New York University School of Law. New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers. Paper 88.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Postsecondary Career/Technical Education

"This issue brief examines trends from 1997 to 2006 in the number of sub-baccalaureate postsecondary institutions that offer programs in career/technical education (CTE), and the number of sub-baccalaureate CTE credentials awarded by postsecondary institutions. Trends were examined by institutional sector, focusing on the three sectors most commonly offering CTE: Public two -year institutions, for-profit less-than-two -year institutions, and for-profit two-year institutions. In 2006, these sectors collectively accounted for 87 percent of the less-than-four-year institutions that offered CTE and awarded 94 percent of all sub-baccalaureate CTE credentials. Overall, the number of less-than-four-year institutions offering CTE increased 3 percent from 1997 to 2006, and the number of sub-baccalaureate CTE credentials awarded increased 24 percent. Over this time period, there was a shift in both CTE-offering institutions and CTE credentials, from public two-year institutions to for-profit two-year and less-than-two-year institutions. Although the number of credentials awarded grew at a faster rate among for-profit institutions than among public two-year institutions, the latter still awarded most sub-baccalaureate CTE credentials in 2006 (58 percent) while for-profit two-year and less-than-two-year institutions combined awarded 35 percent." Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Teens, Video Games and Civics: Teens' gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement

"The first national survey of its kind finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement. The survey was conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Center and was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation." Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online summary

Low-Wage Workers in the United States: Status and Prospects

Abstract:" This testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support describes the size and characteristics of the low-wage workforce and the jobs low-wage workers hold, the prospects for wage growth and upward mobility, and policies and programs that help support low-wage workers and their families." Source: Urban Institute

Download full pdf publication | Link to online announcement

Black advances erode as labor market weakens

"While bad economic news continues to pile up for America’s working people, the economic trends are even more disheartening for African American families. Gains made during the strong labor market of the latter 1990s business cycle have eroded, even as the economy grew significantly. On all major indicators – income, wages, employment and poverty – African Americans lost ground between 2000 and 2007." Economic Policy Institute

Download full briefing paper | Link to online press release

Current Population Reports: School Enrollment

"This report discusses school enrollment levels and trends in the population aged 3 and older based on data collected in 2006 by the U.S. Census Bureau in the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS). Historically, the CPS has been the only data source used to produce school enrollment reports. This is the first report to show data from the ACS, supplemented with CPS data where they provide better information. The ACS has a larger sample size and will provide statistics for small levels of geography, which are reason why it is used as a main source of enrollment data." Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Download full pdf report

fivethirtyeight.com: Electoral Projections

Mission: "Most broadly, to accumulate and analyze polling and political data in way that is informed, accurate and attractive. Most narrowly, to give you the best possible objective assessment of the likely outcome of upcoming elections."

Frequency of updates:
"Generally, the charts, graphs and polling averages on the site are refreshed once per day to reflect any new polls. Sometimes, there might not be any polling on a given day, and so an update will not take place. Other times, volume may be so heavy that multiple updates are necessary.

You can tell that the charts and graphs on the site have been updated any time you see the "Today's Polls" tag in the footer.

Senate polls are updated less frequently: generally once per week, on Mondays."

Thanks to Former Fellow Jay Hamilton (class of 2008) for pointing out this resource.

Link to main page : fivethirtyeight.com

2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanics See Their Situation in U.S. Deteriorating; Oppose Key Immigration Enforcement Measures

"Half (50%) of all Latinos say that the situation of Latinos in this country is worse now than it was a year ago, according to a new nationwide survey of 2,015 Hispanic adults conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center.

This pessimism is especially prevalent among immigrants, who account for 54% of all Hispanic adults in the United States. Fully 63% of these Latino immigrants say that the situation of Latinos has worsened over the past year. In 2007, just 42% of all adult Hispanic immigrants--and just 33% of all Hispanic adults--said the same thing." Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

Views of Palin Fluid as Spotlight Remains on GOP Ticket

"Sarah Palin continued to be a dominant factor in presidential campaign coverage last week, but her impact on the race remains unclear and her public image is very much in flux.

Palin clearly has boosted John McCain’s visibility. From mid-June through the last week of August, Barack Obama consistently led McCain as the candidate the public was hearing the most about in the news. McCain received an expected bump following the Republican convention, but he continued to top Obama last week as 41% pointed to McCain as the more visible candidate while 32% named Obama. Notably, 17% said they had been hearing the most about Palin – even though they were specifically asked to name a presidential candidate." Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

Link to online summary | Download complete pdf report | Download pdf questionnaire

Lehman Special Correspondence Files

The Special Correspondence Files of the Herbert Lehman Papers contain correspondence with nearly 1,000 individuals from 1864 through 1982. Beginning with letters from Lehman's family in the late nineteenth century, the series documents the range and scope of Lehman's long career in public service. In addition to family letters, the Special Correspondence Files contain letters from every President of the U. S. from Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, as well as from notables such as Dean Acheson, Benjamin Cardozo, Paul Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, W. Averill Harriman, Harold Ickes, Robert F. Kennedy, Fiorello LaGuardia, Henry Morgenthau, Alfred E. Smith, Adlai Stevenson, and Robert Wagner, among many others.

The Columbia University Libraries has scanned and made available here electronically the Special Correspondence Files of Herbert Lehman. More than 37,000 documents are included. Typed documents have also been OCRed, permitting full-text searching.
Source: Columbia University

Link to online database: Herbert Lehman Papers

Projections of Education Statistics to 2017

"This publication provides projections for key education statistics. It includes statistics on enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary schools, and enrollment and earned degrees conferred expenditures of degree-granting institutions. For the Nation, the tables, figures, and text contain data on enrollment, teachers, graduates, and expenditures for the past 14 years and projections to the year 2017. For the 50 States and the District of Columbia, the tables, figures, and text contain data on projections of public elementary and secondary enrollment and public high school graduates to the year 2017. In addition, the report includes a methodology section describing models and assumptions used to develop national and state-level projections." Source: National Center for Education Statitstics

Download full pdf report
| Link to online abstract

Network Neutrality, Consumers, and Innovation

"Professor Christopher Yoo directly engages claims that mandating network neutrality is essential to protect consumers and to promote innovation on the Internet. It begins by analyzing the forces that are placing pressure on the basic network architecture to evolve, such as the emergence of Internet video and peer-to-peer architectures and the increasing heterogeneity in business relationships and transmission technologies. It then draws on the insights of demand-side price discrimination (such as Ramsey pricing) and the two-sided markets, as well as the economics of product differentiation and congestion, to show how deviating from network neutrality can benefit consumers, a conclusion bolstered by the empirical literature showing that vertical restraints tend to increase rather than reduce consumer welfare. In fact, limiting network providers’ ability to vary the prices charged to content and applications providers may actually force consumers to bear a greater proportion of the costs to upgrade the network. Restricting network providers’ ability to experiment with different protocols may also reduce innovation by foreclosing applications and content that depend on a different network architecture and by dampening the price signals needed to stimulate investment in new applications and content. In the process, Professor Yoo draws on the distinction between generalizing and exemplifying theory to address some of the arguments advanced by his critics. While the exemplifying theories on which these critics rely are useful for rebutting calls for broad, categorical, ex ante rules, their restrictive nature leaves them ill suited to serve as the foundation for broad, categorical ex ante mandates pointing in the other direction. Thus, in the absence of some empirical showing that the factual preconditions of any particular exemplifying theory have been satisfied, the existence of exemplifying theories pointing in both directions actually supports an ex post, case-by-case approach that allows network providers to experiment with different pricing regimes unless and until a concrete harm to competition can be shown. "
Christopher S. Yoo, "Network Neutrality, Consumers, and Innovation" (August 29, 2008). University of Pennsylvania Law School. Scholarship at Penn Law. Paper 243.
Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

Race Matters in Adoption

"In Part I of this Essay, Professor Howe shares some personal concerns that the real needs of African American children and families are not met if race is ignored. The findings and recommendations of the May 2008 Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute paper: Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race & Law in Adoption From Foster Care are reviewed in Part II. Next in Part III., Professor Howe discusses the current Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) Standards of Excellence for Adoption Services - the lens through which the Adoption Institute assessed the efficacy of current federal laws. Professor Howe concludes this Essay by urging members of the family law bar to endorse the Adoption Institute study recommendations and to work for their expeditious implementations. " SUGGESTED CITATION:
Ruth-Arlene W. Howe, "Race Matters in Adoption" (September 6, 2008). Boston College Law School. Boston College Law School Faculty Papers. Paper 228.

Download full pdf publication | Link to online abstract

After Busy Week, Views of Both Candidates Improve

Interest in the presidential election surged last week, with the public following campaign news more closely than at any point since the Super Tuesday primaries in February. As attention to the campaign has increased, the images of both Barack Obama and John McCain have improved in recent days.

In a survey conducted Aug. 29-31, 29% say their opinion of Obama has become more favorable in recent days, while 19% say their opinion of the Illinois senator has become less favorable; 50% say their opinion of Obama has not changed. This marks the first time since the question was first asked in March that significantly more people said their opinion of Obama had become more favorable, rather than less favorable, in the days before the survey. Source: Pew Research Center

Link to online report with graphics

Hispanics and Health Care in the United States: Access, Information and Knowledge

"More than one-fourth of Hispanic adults in the U.S. lack a usual health care provider, and a similar proportion report obtaining no health care information from medical personnel in the past year. At the same time, more than eight in ten report receiving health information from media sources, such as television and radio, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of Latino adults, conducted in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation." Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Download full pdf report | Link to online summary

FedSpending.org

"...provides site users with full spending data for federal contracts through the first two quarters of FY 2008 and federal assistance data for the first three quarters of FY 2007. This update also made minor site improvements, including added advanced search functionality and bugs fixes. The FedSpending.org database now contains over $18.7 trillion in federal spending dating back to FY 2000."

"The mapping feature (which appears in the upper-right hand corner of all search results) allows users to view federal spending graphically, either at a national level (broken out by state) or at the state level (broken out by congressional districts). In addition, earlier versions, the "summary" output pages on FedSpending.org displayed the top 5 or top 10 of certain search categories such as products and services or contracting agencies. FedSpending.org now has the functionality to expand those lists within the "summary" view to include all data under each category."
Source: OMB Watch

Link to FedSpending.org

Civil Rights Oral History Interviews

"In February of 2001, the [Washington] Spokesman-Review produced a month long series of articles on black history titled "Through Spokane's Eyes Moments in Black History," focusing in particular on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. As part of that series, Rebecca Nappi conducted a series of interviews with individuals with ties to both the civil rights movement and to Spokane." Source: Washington State University

Real Audio Player is needed to listen to the audio files

Link to Civil Rights Oral History Interviews site

Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient?

"The U.S. health system has been described as the most competitive, heterogeneous, inefficient, fragmented, and advanced system of care in the world. In this paper, we consider two questions: First, is the U.S. health care system productively efficient relative to other wealthy countries, in the sense of producing better health for a given bundle of hospital beds, physicians, nurses, and other factor inputs? Second, is the U.S. allocatively efficient relative to other countries, in the sense of providing highly valued care to consumers? For both questions, the answer is most likely no. Although no country can claim to have eliminated inefficiency, the U.S. has fragmented care, high administrative costs, and stands out with regard to heterogeneity in treatment because of race, income, and geography. The U.S. health care system is also more likely to pay for diagnostic tests, treatments, and other forms of care before effectiveness is established and with little consideration of the value they provide. A number of proposed reforms that are designed to ameliorate shortcomings of the U.S. health care system, such as quality improvement initiatives and coverage expansions, are unlikely by themselves to reduce expenditures. Addressing allocative inefficiency is a far more difficult task but central to controlling costs." Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

Download full pdf report | Link to online abstract

PolicyArchive: Public Policy Research Online

"PolicyArchive is an innovative, new digital archive of global, non-partisan public policy research. It makes use of the power, efficiency, and economy of modern Internet technology to collect and disseminate summaries and full texts, videos, reports, briefs, and multimedia material of think tank, university, government, and foundation-funded policy research. It offers a subject index, an internal search engine, useful abstracts, email notifications of newly added research, and will soon expand to offer information on researchers and funders, and even user-generated publication reviews. Over time, it will grow to include policy content from international and corporate organizations." Registration required. Source: Indiana University-Purdue University Center for Governmental Studies.

Link to PolicyArchive

African International Courts and Tribunals

This website provides a centralized source for scholars, practitioners and laypersons working in or on the Continent and a reference to the work of these courts and tribunals for others studying the global phenomenon.

Here you will find for each international court or tribunal substantially touching Africa:

* An overview
* Any recent news
* The basic documents
* A selected bibliography
* Biographies of its judges
* Related jurisprudence from Member States


Link to African International Courts and Tribunals

Michelle Obama: the "Darker Side" of Presidential Spousal Involvement and Activism

"Pundits and commentators have attempted to make sense of the role that race and gender have played in the 2008 presidential campaign. Whereas researchers are drawing on varying bodies of scholarship (legal, cognitive and social psychology, and political science) to illuminate the role that Senator Obama’s race and Senator Clinton’s gender has/had on their campaign, Michelle Obama has been left out of the discussion. As Senator Clinton once noted, elections are like hiring decisions. As such, new frontiers in employment discrimination law place Michelle Obama in context within the current presidential campaign. First, racism and sexism are both alive and well within the domains of politics and employment. And within both domains, the intersection of these biases uniquely handicap Black women. As such, Michelle Obama, as an individual who has broken the socially acceptable constrictions of race and gender, has suffered some backlash as a result of her beliefs and actions. Second, most racial and gender bias is not express, but unconscious. And these unconscious biases influence behavior—including voting and hiring/promotion. In that vein, there are instances during the 2008 campaign where unconscious biases against Mrs. Obama have occurred. Such instances are similar to fact-patterns in employment discrimination cases. Third, under Title VII, employment discrimination may be directed at a third party for their association with members of a disliked group. Here, some voters’ unconscious race and gender biases against Mrs. Obama likely affected/affects their voting decision vis-à-vis Senator Obama. Source: Cornell Law School." Cornell Law School Working Papers Series. Paper 39.

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Exporting Harshness: How the War on Crime Has Made the War on Terror Possible

"This Essay responds to a consensus that has formed among many opponents of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror. The consensus narrative goes like this: America has a long-standing commitment to human rights and due process, reflected in its domestic criminal justice system’s expansive protections. Since September 11, 2001, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and their allies have dishonored this tradition.

It is too simple, I suggest, to assert that the Bush administration remade our justice system and betrayed American values. This Essay explores the ways in which our approach to the war on terror is an extension—sometimes a grotesque one—of what we do in the name of fighting the war on crime. By pursuing certain punitive policies domestically, I suggest, we have become desensitized to the harsh treatment of criminals. Revelations of abuse, therefore, are less likely to move us. In part for this reason, despite the mounting evidence regarding secret memos, inhumane prison conditions, coercive interrogations, and interference with defense lawyers, the Bush administration’s approach to the war on terror remains largely unchecked and unchanged." Author: James Forman Jr., Georgetown Law

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Education and Certification Qualifications of Departmentalized Public High-School Level Teachers of Core Subjects

This report examines the percentage of public school teachers who held an in-field postsecondary major, in-field certification, or both, in a selection of high-school level main assignment fields. Teachers of these subjects were considered to be in-field majors if they held a major that they had earned at the bachelor's degree level or higher in the subject(s) that they taught. Source: National Center for Education Statistics.

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Influence of Having Breakfast on Cognitive Performance and Mood in 13- to 20-Year-Old High School Students: Results of a Crossover Trial

METHODS."A crossover trial was performed in boarding schools, involving 104 students between 13 and 20 years of age. The participants were randomly assigned to 2 equal-size groups on the morning of the first testing day. One half of the total sample received a standardized breakfast, whereas the other half received no breakfast. Seven days later, the treatment order was reversed. Measurements of cognitive function included standardized tests of attention and concentration, as well as tests of verbal and spatial memory. In addition, mood was rated with a self-administered questionnaire covering the dimensions of positive and negative affect, information uptake, arousal, and alertness. Statistical analysis consisted of repeated-measures analysis of variance."

RESULTS. Breakfast had no effect on sustained attention among high school students. Visuospatial memory was improved in male students. Self-reported alertness improved significantly in the entire study population. Male students reported feeling more positive after consuming breakfast, compared with the fasting condition.

CONCLUSIONS. This crossover trial demonstrated positive short-term effects of breakfast on cognitive functioning and self-reported alertness in high school students.
Source: PEDIATRICS Vol. 122 No. 2 August 2008, pp. 279-284 (doi:10.1542/peds.2007-0944)

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HUD Reports Drop in the Number of Chronically Homeless Persons

From Press Release: "Last year, nearly 32,000 fewer persons lived on the nation's streets and in emergency shelters. That's according to a new report released today by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that points to a 15 percent average yearly reduction in chronic homelessness since 2005." Source: U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development

Download full pdf report: HUD Annual Homeless Assessmsent Report to Congress | Link to Press Release

Change in wages and salaries in constant dollars, June 2007-June 2008

"Employment Cost Index – June 2008,"

"After adjusting for the changes in the prices of consumer goods and services, wages and salaries for private industry workers decreased 1.8 percent for the 12-month period ended June 2008, compared to a 0.7-percent increase for the 12-month period ended June 2007."

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The China trade toll

Widespread wage suppression, 2 million jobs lost in the U.S.

The growth of U.S. trade with China since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. Between 2001 and 2007 2.3 million jobs were lost or displaced, including 366,000 in 2007 alone. New demographic research shows that, even when re-employed in non-traded industries, the 2.3 million workers displaced by the increase in China trade deficits in this period have lost an average $8,146 per worker/year. In 2007, these losses totalled $19.4 billion.1

The impacts of the China trade deficit are not limited to its direct effects on the jobs and wages of those displaced. It is also critical to recognize that the indirect impact of trade on other workers is significant as well. Trade with less-developed countries has reduced the bargaining power of all workers in the U.S. economy who resemble the import-displaced in terms of education, credentials, and skills. Annual earnings for all workers without a four-year college degree are roughly $1,400 lower today because of this competition, and this group constitutes a large majority of the entire U.S. workforce (roughly 100 million workers or about 70% of all workers, Bivens (2008a)). China, with nearly 40% of our non-oil imports from less-developed countries, is a chief contributor to this wage pressure.

Source: Economic Policy Institute

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America's Four Middle Classes

:There isn't one American middle class; there are four. Each is different from the others in its attitudes, outlook and financial circumstance--sometimes in ways that defy traditional stereotypes of the middle class, according to an analysis of a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends Project." Source: Pew Research Center

Link to online report

Inflation Staggers Public, Economy Still Seen as Fixable

The public continues to be extremely downbeat about the national economy. Just 10% say the economy is in good shape, while 72% say the economy is either in a recession (54%) or a depression (18%). On a personal level, concerns about rising prices have surged. Beyond widespread anxiety about energy costs, a growing number of Americans say it is difficult for them to afford food.

The percentage of Americans who cite rising prices as the nation's most important economic problem has nearly doubled since February - from 24% to 45%. Nearly two-thirds (64%) now say their incomes are not keeping up with the rising cost of living, which also is up substantially from February (58%). The number saying it is difficult to afford food has followed a similar upward path; 38% say that now, compared with 27% five months ago. Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press

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