Using Stated Preferences and Beliefs to Identify the Impact of Risk on Poor Households

Whilst the importance of uncertainty in shaping economic behaviour of poor households is widely acknowledged, empirically identifying the impact of risk is difficult. By using data on risk preferences and perceptions of risk collected through hypothetical questions in combination with more traditional measures of a household's ability to deal with risk, this article identifies the impact of risk on production decisions. It shows both that data on stated preferences and beliefs can be usefully utilised to explain household behaviour, and that risk has a significant impact on the production decisions of poor households.     

Ethics of Disenfranchisement and Voting Rights in the U.S.:Convicted Felons,the Homeless,and Immigrants

This paper examines the contemporary ethical issues surrounding voting rights of three disenfranchised groups in the U.S.: convicted felons, the homeless, and immigrants. Even in modern countries like the U.S., voting and other forms of political participation are skewed toward the elite, those with higher incomes, those who are employed, and those with more education. Low voter turnout presents serious challenges to democratic responsiveness, or the ability of leaders to respond to the needs and demands of citizens. Hence, voting should be encouraged in accord with the common interest. An important conclusion is that allowing all citizens – irrespective of their status – to vote would give them a voice in the context of governance. This notion is also associated with distributive justice, a philosophical concept that concentrates on just outcomes and consequences.     

A review of recent advances in impurity profiling of illicit MDMA samples

Profiling illicit ecstasy tablets has the potential to become an invaluable tool in the crackdown on drug trafficking, but that potential has yet to be fully realized. The impurity profile of an ecstasy tablet can be used to determine the method employed to synthesize the actual controlled substance, which in most cases, is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Tablets can then be linked to a common synthetic route, potentially to a common manufacturer, and possibly even to a common manufacturing batch, based on the impurities present. Current methods for profiling MDMA tablets typically involve extracting the organic impurities for analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The potential of profiling the trace metals present in tablets has begun to be investigated while more robust statistical and chemometric procedures are being applied to compare and link tablets. This article reviews the recent advances in MDMA impurity profiling from 2002 up to the end of 2006.     

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

This paper presents the results of the first two longitudinal historical cradle-to-grave datasets constructed in Australia: the Aboriginal population of the state of Victoria, reconstituted backwards using genealogical research and vital registrations, 1835–1930; and an impoverished European population born at the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital, 1857–1900 and traced until 1985. It investigates the hypothesis that the health transition in indigenous people was different from that of the dominant non-indigenous population. Both of these studied sub-populations were highly stressed, resulting in high infant mortality and persistent tuberculosis mortality. The Aboriginal population suffered the additional burdens of racism and social exclusion, even though after the passage of the 1886 ‘Half-Castes Act’, the majority of Aboriginal Victorians were legally ‘white’. The impact of that legislation and the systematic exclusion of Aboriginal Victorians from federal entitlements in the twentieth century sent the Aboriginal health transition into reverse. The contrasting fates of poor whites and ‘unofficial blacks’ during the health transition demonstrate the health burdens of inequality and racial discrimination, and reveal that ‘the gap’ in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a historical product of long-term government policy and exclusion from citizenship and its entitlements.     

The Economic Sociology of Labour Law

Drawing on the work of Max Weber, this article considers the utility of an approach to the study of labour law, which it calls the economic sociology of labour law (ESLL). It identifies the contract for work as the key legal institution in the field, and the primary focus of scholarly analysis. Characterizing the act of contracting for work as an example of what Weber called economic social action oriented to the legal order, it proposes that Weber's notion of the labour constitution be used to map the context within which contracting for work takes place. And it argues that, in comparison to traditional socio‐legal approaches, ESLL has the significant advantage of allowing for account to be taken of the individual and commercial, as well as the social and legal, elements of contracting for work.     

NGOs and Cuba: Opportunity or opportunism?

Reporting on a large gathering of international and Cuban NGOs and other agencies, this article explores the issues faced by Cuban society in undergoing rapid economic change; and examines why the New World Order has not led to any significant involvement with Cuba, either by the inter-governmental agencies or by independent NGOs. It describes the roles of State-sponsored bodies in maintaining the major development gains of the last 30 years; and argues that NGOs which see their role as promoting 'democratisation' must avoid falling into simplistic and inappropriate assumptions about the distinction between the State and 'civil society'.