Search

Begin New Search Topic Human Welfare Political Geography United States

31. A Comprehensive and Inclusive Peace Process for Chad

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Analysts, policy makers and experts are now accepting that the conflicts in Chad and Sudan have mutually reinforcing dynamics. Chad's internal political instability is having devastating consequences on the peace processes in Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR). The U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee Panel of Experts on Sudan stated that Chad supports Sudanese insurgent groups with arms, ammunition, vehicles, food, training and safe haven Violations of humanitarian law and international human rights continue unabated in the region and violators in eastern Chad operate in an environment of almost total impunity. A new U.S. Government strategy must be created to stabilize Chad and bring to an end the continued degradation of conditions in the region. This strategy must work in parallel with the peace process for Sudan and with the efforts led by the “Contact Group” to normalize Chad-Sudan relations.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Health, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Peace Studies, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Sudan

32. Global Health Governance and Multi-Level Policy Coherence: Can the G8 Provide a Cure?

Author:
Heidi Ullrich
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper highlights the ailing state of global health governance as evidenced by the lack of progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular the goals related to health. Policy coherence within the global health governance system is not evolving fast enough to ensure that trade and development issues related to public health, particularly concerning access to medicines, are effectively aligned at national, regional, and multilateral levels. The paper briefly reviews the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the 2001 Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. A case study outlines the manner in which "TRIPS-plus" provisions in selected US free trade agreements (FTAs) have undermined multi-level policy coherence in trade, development, and public health. The discussion then identifies three unique governance mechanisms of the G8 that make the group a potentially powerful catalyst for innovation in global health governance, and assesses the opportunities that the 2008 G8 Hokkaido Summit may offer. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for enhancing multi-level policy coherence and for strengthening the system of global health governance.
Topic:
Globalization, Health, Human Welfare, International Cooperation, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States

33. Has the Use of Physician Gatekeepers Declined among HMOs? Evidence from the United States

Author:
Hai Fang, Hong Liu, and John A. Rizzo
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Since the mid-1980s, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) have grown rapidly in the United States. Despite initial successes in constraining health care costs, HMOs have come under increasing criticism due to their restrictive practices. To remain viable, this would seem to suggest that HMOs have to change at least some of these behaviors. However, there is little empirical evidence on how restrictive aspects of HMOs may be changing. The present study investigates one mechanism for constraining costs that is often associated with HMOs – the role of the primary care physician as a gatekeeper (e.g., monitoring patients' use of specialist physicians). In particular, we estimate the effect of primary care physician involvement with HMOs on the percentage of their patients for whom these physicians serve as gatekeepers. We examine these relationships over two time periods: 2000-2001 and 2004-2005. Because physicians can choose whether and to what extent they will participate in HMOs, we employ instrumental variables (IV) estimation to correct for endogeneity of the HMO measure. Although the single-equation estimates suggest that the role of HMOs in terms of requiring primary care physicians to serve as gatekeepers diminished modestly over time, the endogeneity-corrected estimates show no changes between the two time periods. Thus, one major tool used by HMOs to constrain health care costs – the physician as gatekeeper – has not declined even in the era of managed care backlash.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

34. Social Welfare Conservatism

Author:
Douglas Besharov
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Finding that an op-ed by Michael Gerson poorly defined the conservative approach to social problems, Douglas J. Besharov outlined six principles that underlie the conservative position on government social programs. Besharov notes that being cautious about the possible ill effects of government intervention is not unique to conservatives. It is simply realistic to be skeptical about the federal government's ability to mitigate serious social welfare problems.
Topic:
Human Welfare, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

35. The New Deal Jobs Myth

Author:
Amity Shlaes
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Democratic presidential candidates are invoking the New Deal as a model for addressing infrastructure, economic, and employment problems in the United States. But a careful look at New Deal spending suggests, in the words of Amity Shlaes, “not how much the public works achieved . . . [but] how little.” Advocates for new federal government spending on highways, buildings, and roads should carefully weigh the need against the damage that comes from projects and jobs created for political reasons.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

36. Immigration: Wages, Education and Mobility

Author:
Ron Haskins
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The idea of economic mobility in America often evokes a personal story. For many Americans, it is one of immigrant parents or grandparents, or even one's own journey and arrival. In recent decades, immigration has been rising steadily, with nearly one million legal immigrants entering the country per year throughout the 1990s and in the early years of this century, compared to only about 300,000 per year in the 1960s. In addition to legal immigrants, it is estimated that about 500,000 illegal immigrants now arrive each year.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States

37. US Policy on Small Arms Transfers: A Human Rights Perspective

Author:
Susan Waltz
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
From Somalia and Afghanistan to Bosnia, Haiti, Colombia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo, small arms and light weapons were a common feature of the human rights calamities of the 1990's. More than a hundred low-intensity conflicts flared across the globe in that final decade of the bloodiest century, and virtually all of them were fought with small arms and light weaponry. Hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and bazookas, mortars, machine guns, and shoulder-fired missiles were the common weapons of warfare, along with the ubiquitous AK- 47--as readily slung over the shoulder of a 14 year old boy as a 40 year old man. Human rights and humanitarian organizations pondered the evidence: there was an inescapable linkage between the abuses they sought to curb, and the prevalence of these easy to handle, durable, and imminently portable weapons. In many instances the weapons were used as direct instruments of repression and devastation. In others, armed groups and government-sponsored militia used them to facilitate assaults with cruder weapons, spread fear, and create insecurity that effectively deprived people of their livelihood. Ironically, none of the countries in turmoil produced their own small arms. Behind the plethora of weapons lurked shadowy arms dealers looking for a profit, indifferent to the public's moral outrage and UN-imposed arms embargoes.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Bosnia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Somalia

38. An Empirical Analysis of Middle Class Welfare - Testing Alternative Approaches

Author:
Aparna Mathur and Kevin A. Hassett
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Every year the Census Bureau reports data on income inequality and poverty, based on income estimates derived from the Current Population Survey. Our analysis suggests that the data may not be presenting an accurate picture. By under-reporting incomes, leaving out certain sources of income, and not making equivalence adjustments that are now standard among researchers, the reports present an imperfect picture of overall welfare. We develop an alternative that relies on data from the National Income and Product Accounts. Our data reveal that real median incomes have been increasing in the recent period, albeit at a slower rate than the long-term average. Using the same methodology for consumption, we find that consumption for all income groups, including the middle, has been growing robustly in recent times. This is in contrast to statistics reported by the Consumer Expenditure Survey, the most often cited data for all consumption analysis, which show middle class consumption declining.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

39. Bolivia on the Brink

Author:
Eduardo A. Gamarra
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Since gaining independence from Spain in 1825, Bolivia has endured nearly two hundred coups and countercoups. Despite the establishment of comparatively democratic, civilian rule in Bolivia in 1982 through a system of “pacted democracy,” Bolivian leaders still face many of the same difficult problems as they did twenty years ago: deep-seated poverty, social exclusion of the indigenous and mestizo (of mixed racial ancestry) majority, and illegal drug production.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States, South America, Spain, and Bolivia

40. Using the Earned Income Tax Credit to Stimulate Local Economies

Author:
Alan Berube
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Over the 30 years of its existence the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been described variously as a wage supplement, a program to reduce tax burdens, an antipoverty tool, a welfare-to-work program, and a form of labor market insurance. The program has enjoyed expansions under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and in 2006, the EITC will provide more than $40 billion to low-income working families. The credit lifts nearly 5 million Americans above the poverty line each year. Moreover, because the EITC aids only those families with earnings from work, researchers have credited it with raising labor force participation levels and helping families transition from welfare to work.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States and America