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141. Measuring Unemployment Benefit Recipiency in New Zealand

Author:
Wayne Vroman
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
This is a paper about measurement. It originated within a project that is examining the performance of unemployment compensation (UC) programs from a cross-national perspective. At the current time the larger project has assembled data on the UC programs of more than 20 countries along with supporting labor market data. Within the set of OECD countries, the project has singled out for particular attention six English speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. An analysis of the unemployment protection systems in these six countries was recently completed by Brusentsev (2002).
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand

142. The Scope and Impact of Welfare Reform's Immigrant Provisions

Author:
Michael Fix and Jeffrey Passel
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
For immigrants, welfare reform went well beyond conditioning access to cash benefits on work. Rather, the law set out a comprehensive scheme for determining immigrant eligibility for a wide range of social benefits that are provided by governments at all levels. Reform represented a major departure from prior policy by making citizenship more central to the receipt of benefits, by granting the states rather than the federal government the power to determine immigrant eligibility for benefits, and by drawing a sharp distinction between immigrants arriving before and after PRWORA's enactment on August 22, 1996.
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States

143. Report on Biological Warfare Defense: Vaccine Research Development Programs

Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Section 218 of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Public Law (PL) 106-398 (at Appendix A) requires the submission of a report to the congressional defense committees on the acquisition of biological defense vaccines for the Department of Defense (DoD). As required by section 218, PL 106-398, this report addresses: 1) the implications of relying on the commercial sector to meet the DoD's biological defense vaccine requirements; 2) a design for a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) vaccine production facility; 3) preliminary cost estimates and schedule for the facility; 4) consultation with the Surgeon General on the utility of such a facility for the production of vaccines for the civilian sector and the impact of civilian production on meeting Armed Forces needs and facility operating costs; and 5) the impact of international vaccine requirements and the production of vaccines to meet those requirements on meeting Armed Forces needs and facility operating costs.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Human Welfare, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

144. Patience, Persistence, and Welfare Costs of Incomplete Markets in Open Economies

Author:
Jinill Kim, Andrew Levin, and Sunghyun Henry Kim
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In this paper, we investigate the welfare implications of alternative financial market structures in a two-country endowment economy model. In particular, we obtain an analytic expression for the expected lifetime utility of the representative household when sovereign bonds are the only internationally traded asset, and we compare this welfare level with that obtained under complete asset markets. The welfare cost of incomplete markets is negligible if agents are very patient and shocks are not very persistent, but this cost is dramatically larger if agents are relatively impatient and shocks are highly persistent. For realistic cases in which agents are very patient and shocks are highly persistent (that is, the discount factor and the first-order autocorrelation are both near unity), the welfare cost of incomplete markets is highly sensitive to the specific values of these parameters. Finally, using a non-linear solution algorithm, we confirm that a two-country production economy with endogenous labor supply has qualitatively similar welfare properties.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

145. Fieldwork Methodology for a CDIE Assessment of USAID and Poverty Reduction Approaches

Author:
Jonathan Sleeper and Lynn Salinger
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, U.N. agencies, many bilateral donors, and a number of developing countries have made poverty reduction their overarching development objective. The United States was a signatory in 1996 to the OECD/DAC's international development goals, which included halving of world poverty by 2015. Under the aegis of a comprehensive development framework which empowers national partners to design and implement their own development actions, debt relief for the world's most heavily indebted poor countries is being linked by the multinational development organizations to the development of national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).
Topic:
Development, Economics, Human Welfare, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

146. Defining U.S. National Security for the Next Generation

Author:
John C. Gannon
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
In the post-Cold War world, the United States is challenged by a broader definition of U.S. national security that must take into account a wide range of factors that will contribute to stability or stimulate conflict in the years ahead. For these reasons, it makes sense today, more than ever, for a national security analyst to be engaged with USAID officers in a conference on global conflict prevention. We need to understand how such factors as demographics, natural resources, the environment, economic growth, globalization, and the quality of governance will challenge governments and the international community and, in some cases, sow the seeds of conflict threatening to U.S. interests.
Topic:
Human Welfare and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States

147. Building Foundations for Cooperative Behavior Through U.S. Foreign Aid

Author:
Jr. Hawkins
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
Why do crime levels decrease in a government housing project located in one poor Indianapolis neighborhood but not in similar surrounding neighborhoods? Why do Nepalese farmers in selfgoverning systems consistently outperform their government-managed projects? Why have Turkish fishermen been able to govern inshore fisheries for two-hundred-plus years when theory and conventional wisdom would suggest they should fail?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Welfare, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States

148. Rethinking Development Assistance and the Role of AID in U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:
Jane Holl Lute
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
What should be the role of development assistance in U.S. foreign policy? In a time when major political, economic, and social transformation has altered so much of the international landscape, how are important U.S. interests served through the distribution of development aid? More fundamentally, what needs (that is, what needs of the United States) does a program of development assistance meet? What should be the goals of this program? What strategies should guide aid distribution to help best meet those goals?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Welfare, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States

149. International Constraints and Indigenous Strengths in Preventive Development

Author:
Jonathan Moore
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
I agree with Brady Anderson's guidance that “USAID's development policy and portfolio include integrated interventions aimed at addressing the effects of underlying social, economic and political problems.” My point of departure is that the only real prevention of conflict is root cause development, and that this cannot be separated from —but is closely connected to and part of—the crucial stage of post-conflict mitigation and rebuilding efforts. I will attempt to consider the implications for this proposition in three parts: the international “outside” perspective; the outlook from “inside” the crisis country; and where, broadly, combining these two points of view brings us.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Welfare, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States

150. How Do We Change the Way We Use Foreign Assistance to Help Prevent Deadly Conflicts?

Author:
Ted Morse
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
The topic of this paper is how do we change the way foreign assistance works in an increasingly unstable world: it has been interpreted to mean how do we change the way we use foreign assistance to help prevent deadly conflicts.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Welfare, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States