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91. U.S. Foreign Assistance to Africa: Claims vs. Reality

Author:
Susan E. Rice
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The Bush Administration has significantly increased aid to Africa, but that increase falls far short of what the President has claimed. U.S. aid to Africa from FY 2000 (the last full budget year of the Clinton Administration) to FY2004 (the last completed fiscal year of the Bush Administration) has not "tripled" or even doubled. Rather, in real dollars, it has increased 56% (or 67% in nominal dollar terms). The majority of that increase consists of emergency food aid, rather than assistance for sustainable development of the sort Africa needs to achieve lasting poverty reduction.
Topic:
International Relations and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

92. U.S. Trade Policy Toward China: Discrimination and its Implications

Author:
Rachel McCulloch and Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The bilateral relationship with China has become a major focus of U.S. trade policy. This paper examines recent U.S. policy toward imports from China, highlighting important explicitly and implicitly discriminatory elements. Discriminatory restrictions on U.S. trade with China protect competing domestic industries as well as non-Chinese foreign suppliers with an established presence in the U.S. market. Unlike discriminatory U.S. treatment of Japan in the 1980s, in which "gray-area" measures like voluntary export restraints were prominent, most U.S. actions toward China are fully consistent with current WTO rules, including the special terms of China's 2001 WTO accession. However, as with earlier discriminatory actions directed primarily at Japan, U.S. trade policy toward China is likely to have complex effects on global trade flows and may produce outcomes far different from those intended.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

93. No Child Left Behind: How to give It a Passing Grade

Author:
Martin R. West
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has the potential to improve many of America's schools, but this potential is currently undermined by serious flaws in how the program evaluates school performance. Because NCLB's measurement system compares only students' performance at a single point in time against state-determined standards, the information generated on school performance is often misleading and creates perverse incentives for states to lower their expectations.
Topic:
Development, Education, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

94. Treatment of Coronary Artery Disease: What Does Rationing Do?

Author:
Henry J. Aaron
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Providing all beneficial care to those who need it is rapidly becoming unaffordable, even for a nation as rich as the United States. The highly decentralized U.S. payment system is unique in its lack of effective levers for limiting health care spending, and managed care has largely been ineffective. A different solution, considered extreme by many in the United States, is rationing.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States

95. Health Care Rationing: What it Means

Author:
Henry J. Aaron
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The United States spends more on health care than any other nation. In 2003, medical spending made up more than 15 percent of U.S. GDP, and if historical trends persist, this share will climb to more than one-third of GDP by 2040. With medical technology advancing at an ever-increasing rate, the potential for spending on procedures not worth their costs is growing. But there are few good ideas for reining in medical costs without hurting patients.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

96. Why Federalism Matters

Author:
Pietro S. Nivola
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
What do we want from federalism?” asked the late Martin Diamond in a famous essay written thirty years ago. His answer was that federalism—a political system permitting a large measure of regional selfrule—presumably gives the rulers and the ruled a “school of their citizenship,” “a preserver of their liberties,” and “a vehicle for flexible response to their problems.” These features, broadly construed, are said to reduce conflict between diverse communities, even as a federated polity affords inter-jurisdictional competition that encourages innovations and constrains the overall growth of government.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

97. Insuring America's Workers in a New Era of Offshoring

Author:
Robert E. Litan, Nicholas Warren, and Lael Brainard
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
With a new wave of white-collar offshoring coming fast on the heels of accelerated job losses in manufacturing, an ever-broader pool of American workers is finding that the nation's safety net has more holes than netting. The nation can and must do more to help insure the livelihoods of American workers in the face of structural shifts of whatever form, while preserving the benefits of an open and innovative economy. With technological change and offshoring accelerating job turnover and the pace at which workers' job-specific skills lose value, the time has come for the federal government to strengthen the existing safety net.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States and America

98. Can the U.S. Government Live Within Its Means? Lessons from Abroad

Author:
Allen Schick
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
When George W. Bush leaves office in 2009, the federal government will owe at least $15,000 more for every American than it did when he became president eight years earlier. This unprecedented build-up of public debt will result from budget deficits projected to average more than $250 billion a year during the Bush presidency, plus more than one trillion dollars borrowed from social security trust funds. Although this budget projection may be high, there is far greater risk that actual deficits will exceed current estimates than that they will be lower.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
United States

99. Well Being and Unemployment in Russian in the 1990's: Can Society's Suffering Be Individuals' Solace?

Author:
Andrew; Gaddy Eggers
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
This paper studies the effect of regional unemployment rates on subjective well-being in post-Soviet Russia. Research conducted in Europe and the United States has documented that higher unemployment rates lead to lower reported life-satisfaction. By contrast, our Russian study finds a small but significant effect in the other direction. We estimate that du ring the period of our study (1995-2001), each percentage point increase in the local unemployment rate was correlated with the average well-being of people in the region increasing by an amount equivalent to moving 2% of the population up one level in life satisfaction measured on a five-point scale. Our intuition is that the so-called comparison effect drives this result: when individuals observe their peers suffering in a troubled economy, they lower their standards of what is good enough. All else equal, they thus perceive themselves to be better off in worse times. In highlighting the dependence of subjective well-being scores on expectations and reference groups, we sound a note of caution against using happiness data from economies in crisis to draw macroeconomic policy conclusions.
Topic:
Economics and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

100. The Rise of New Immigrant Gateways

Author:
Audrey Singer
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The United States is in the midst of a wave of unprecedented immigration. Immigrants comprised 11.1 percent of the U.S. population in 2000. During the 1990s alone, the foreign-born population grew by 11.3 million, or 57.4 percent, bringing the Census 2000 count of immigrants to 31.1 million. The rapidity of this influx, coupled with its sheer size, means that American society will con- front momentous social, cultural, and political change during the coming decades and generations.
Topic:
Demographics, Human Welfare, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States