Silences: Irish women and abortion.

Notably absent from the public debate on abortion in Ireland have been the voices of women who have experienced induced abortion. Interviews with six acquaintances of the author who underwent abortion identified four themes underlying women's post-abortion silence. First, women fear public condemnation and personal rejection. Second, women are concerned that any emotional ambivalence they express about the abortion experience will be misconstrued as anti-abortion sentiment. Third, women worry that speaking out about their experience would be upsetting to friends and family. Fourth, women report frustration about the lack of a suitable public forum for voicing the complexities inherent in the abortion issue. The women's perception that their experience did not fit neatly with the rhetoric of either pro- or anti-abortion groups caused them to feel alienated from a political discourse that tends to depersonalize abortion. Although none of the women regretted the abortion decision, they continued to struggle with unresolved conflicts over taking responsibility for ending some form of life. A cycle has been created in which women do not feel safe to discuss their personal experiences until a more favorable political climate exists, yet the public perception of abortion is unlikely to change until more women's voices are heard. Feminist leaders are urged to address this dilemma.     

Rent-seeking,political influence and inequality: A simple analytical example

A simple model allowing an analysis of the interaction between economic policy decisions and rent-seeking by private agents competing for political influence, is developed. Rent-seeking may be of the directly unproductive type, requiring resources that are withdrawn from productive activities, or it may manifest itself as income transfers (corruption) to political decisionmakers. In the political-economic equilibrium of the model the extent of rent-seeking, economic policy decisions, income inequality, etc. are endogenously determined.     

Heterogenous demand for public goods: Behavior in the voluntary contributions mechanism

Numerous laboratory experiments have investigated the performance of several processes for providing public goods through voluntary contributions. This research has been able to identify features of the institution or environment which are reliably likely to produce outcomes “close” to the free riding outcome or “substantially” greater than the pessimistic prediction of standard models. One such feature is the “marginal per-capita return” (MPCR) from the public good. Various authors have altered MPCR between groups or for an entire group at the same time. The experiments reported here address a different question, “What would happen if, within a group, some persons faced a ‘high’ MPCR while others faced a ‘low’ MPCR?”     

Building sustainable capacity in the public sector: What can be done?

Effective government performance is central to the creation of market-oriented economies, secure and productive populations, and democratic political systems in developing countries. Capacity building to improve public sector performance is thus an important focus of development initiatives. Several implicit assumptions underlie most such efforts: that organizations or training activities are the logical site for capacity-building interventions; that administrative structures and monetary rewards determine organizational and individual performance; that organizations work well when structures and control mechanisms are in place; and that individual performance improves as a result of skill and technology transfer through training activities. Each of these assumptions is called into question by the findings of research carried out in six developing countries and reported in this article. Our studies indicate designing interventions that most constructively address sources of poor performance must follow from an assessment of a relatively broad set of variables, including the action environment in which all such activities take place. We also found that effective public sector performance is more often driven by strong organizational cultures, good management practices, and effective communication networks than it is by rules and regulations or procedures and pay scales. Our case studies further indicate that individual performance is more affected by opportunities for meaningful work, shared professional norms, teamwork, and promotion based on performance rather than it is by training in specific skills. In this article, we describe a framework or conceptual map that emphasizes that training activities, organizational performance and administrative structures are embedded within complex environments that significantly constrain their success and that often account for training or organizational failure. When it was applied in the six case study countries, the framework proved useful in identifying capacity gaps and providing a tool for the strategic design of interventions that are sensitive to the roots of performance deficits. This allows us to conclude that the assumptions underlying many capacity-building initiatives may focus attention on interventions that do not generate the highest payoffs in terms of improved performance.     

THE WELFARE COSTS OF SUPPLY RESTRICTIONS IN THE GENERAL PRACTICE LABOUR MARKET

Abstract: This paper examines policy arguments for further restricting supply to the Australian General Practice profession by immigration and medical school policies. It uses economic analysis to assess the costs and benefits of supply restrictions. The effects of Medicare and GP income-targeting on policy design are analysed. Restrictions are shown to impose net costs on the community as a whole and on government. Even with Medicare subsidies, the inefficiency costs of the current health system are minimised with liberal policies for accepting foreign- trained GPs.     

A comparative modeling of tax reform before and after the legislative process

This research modeled the extent to which the normative goals of equity and efficiency are embodied in three seminal tax reform proposals (Bradley-Gephardt, Kemp-Kasten, and the Treasury Department proposals) relative to the extant regime. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) is also modeled in the same manner. The objective of this study is to compare the equity and efficiency of the initial proposals with that of the final tax reform law. This before and after analysis is designed to ascertain the degree to which the legislative process undermined the normative goals of the tax reform movement. The National Tax Model was applied to model each regime and to measure the distributional and redistributional effects on tax burdens and wage efficiency costs associated with each system across ten income classes. The reform models, including TRA86, are shown as superior to the pre-reform system with respect to the normative criteria. The legislative process did not substantially compromise the goals as reflected in the seminal reform proposals in the development of a more politically acceptable tax reform law. This exercise demonstrates that it is possible for sound legislation to survive a political process that frequently permits the sacrificing of normative goals in favor of special interests.Financial support provided by the Arthur Young Foundation Tax Research Grant Program and The Ralph E. Kent Fund. The helpful suggestions of Jim Curtis were sincerely appreciated.