Does the minimum wage affect welfare caseloads?

Although minimum wages are advocated as a policy that will help the poor, few studies have examined their effect on poor families. This paper uses variation in minimum wages across states and over time to estimate the impact of minimum wage legislation on welfare caseloads. We find that the elasticity of the welfare caseload with respect to the minimum wage is between 0.1 and 0.2, but this estimate is sensitive to the sample period and assumptions about state trends. We tentatively conclude that higher minimum wages increase welfare dependence; however, more research is warranted.© 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Evaluating Simulant Materials for Understanding Cranial Backspatter from a Ballistic Projectile

In cranial wounds resulting from a gunshot, the study of backspatter patterns can provide information about the actual incidents by linking material to surrounding objects. This study investigates the physics of backspatter from a high‐speed projectile impact and evaluates a range of simulant materials using impact tests. Next, we evaluate a mesh‐free method called smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to model the splashing mechanism during backspatter. The study has shown that a projectile impact causes fragmentation at the impact site, while transferring momentum to fragmented particles. The particles travel along the path of least resistance, leading to partial material movement in the reverse direction of the projectile motion causing backspatter. Medium‐density fiberboard is a better simulant for a human skull than polycarbonate, and lorica leather is a better simulant for a human skin than natural rubber. SPH is an effective numerical method for modeling the high‐speed impact fracture and fragmentations.     

Political Management in Australia: The Case of the Northern Territory

This article reviews the evolution of administrative arrangements in the Northern Territory since the 1970s, covering both the devolutionary phase and, with somewhat more emphasis, the self-government period since 1978. The article centres on the theme of political management which, as in the recent work by Halligan and Power (1992), has become a major focus in the study of Australian administrative reform. Political management involves a 'modernising reform agenda. internal in orientation and concerned mainly with making the organizational and human resources of the executive branch more responsive to the priorities of superordinates' (Halligan and Power 1992: 249). Particular attention here is given to the evolving pattern of relationships between the political and bureaucratic arms of the Northern Territory executive.     

‘Too Many’

The statement that Australia has ‘too many abortions’ often circulates with intensity in times of increased worry over the vulnerability of white demographic and sociocultural dominance in Australia. Contrasting two such periods—the 1970s (with 1979 as the apex point) and the mid-2000s (2002–2008)—this article will show that, in times of national crisis, debates over abortion can become a site where politicians, journalists and other influential social commentators displace and assuage anxieties regarding the size and constitution of Australia's future population. The statement that Australia has ‘too many abortions’ carries the imperative for white women to reproduce the nation. This demand is made perceptible through a history of maternal citizenship for white women, which reverberates in the present, and the articulation of the desire to eradicate abortion (amongst white women) alongside other key biopolitical technologies—the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty and the exclusion of non-white immigrants from the nation. The figure of the aborting woman thus stands alongside other bodies perceived as threats to white sociocultural hegemony in Australia and one of its key institutions—the white, hetero-family. In the 1970s, such figures included the communist, the divorcee and the (non-white) immigrant, and in the 2000s, the lesbian mother, the single mother and the boatperson. The association of aborting women with other threats to the security of white sociocultural hegemony in Australia produces her as an object of fear for the nation, re-affirming the goal of white reproduction as a national duty and social good.     

CAUSATION IN EC MERGER CONTROL

"there are ever so many ways that a world might be; and oneof these many ways is the way that this world is" (David Lewis,1986)

This article looks at two areas of merger control under EC Lawwhere the principles of causation are applied and, in our view,misapplied. The article traces the development of the conceptof the "counterfactual" in antitrust law. It then draws on thisanalysis in considering the operation of the "failing firm defense,"and in particular the standard of proof employed by the Commissionwhen analyzing the "counterfactual" in relation to the failingfirm defense. We argue that the Commission employs an excessivelyhigh standard of proof, and that this standard of proof contributesto the drawing of the failing firm defense too narrowly, througha misapplication of the principles of causation. We then proceedto contrast and prefer the approach of the UK Competition Commissionin recent cases. In the final part of the article we considerscenarios where two or more mergers are contemplated in thesame market at the same time, in cases of both parallel andoverlapping mergers. In these complicated scenarios, which requireprospective, multifaceted analysis, we set out in detail how,despite inherent difficulties, a similarly rigorous applicationof the principles of causation produces coherent results.     

Negotiating access to populations of concern in South-East Asia

South-East Asia is home to both conflict and ‘natural’ disasters which have caused significant displaced populations. Given this context, there is a need to better understand the motivations of the multiple actors involved in negotiating humanitarian responses, and to account for the impact the finished agreement has on the region both in the short and long terms. This article investigates the motivations behind two humanitarian responses in South-East Asia. The first case is the set of humanitarian responses to the Indochinese exodus in the 1970s and 1980s. The second case is the humanitarian response to those affected by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar during the late 2000s and early 2010. Both of these agreements have been held up as historic and ground breaking achievements within the international relations of South-East Asia. This article assesses these agreements to identify the multiple levels of governance involved and the individual actors’ motivations behind them. It argues that greater appreciation of these dynamics will contribute to understanding the governance of humanitarian responses to populations of concern in South-East Asia. This will be important to consider as new crises emerge that demand new negotiations within a crowded field of actors governing humanitarian responses in the region.     

The Non-Compliance Mechanism Under the Aarhus Convention as ‘Soft’ Enforcement of International Environmental Law: Not So Soft After All!

Netherlands International Law Review - This article engages in the exercise of measuring the ‘degree of judiciality’ of the Non-Compliance Mechanism under the Aarhus Convention by...