Optimal debt, endogenous fertility, and human capital externalities in a model with altruistic bequests

and human capital externalities. Because of such externalities, education investment is too low and fertility is too high. While education subsidies are the conventional means to deal with these problems, we show that the optimal policy also comprises debt even when distortionary taxes are used. The reason is that debt tips the usual trade-off between children's quantity and quality in favor of the latter by increasing the bequest cost of children. The optimal debt-output ratio exceeds 10% for plausible parameterization. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Critical relationship between sodium valproate dose and human teratogenicity: results of the Australian register of anti-epileptic drugs in pregnancy

To compare the incidence of foetal malformations (FMs) in pregnant women with epilepsy treated with different anti-epileptic drugs (AED) and doses, and the influence of seizures, family and personal history, and environmental factors. A prospective, observational, community-based cohort study. Methods. A voluntary, Australia-wide, telephone-interview-based register prospectively enrolling three groups of pregnant women: taking AEDs for epilepsy; with epilepsy not taking AEDs; taking AEDs for a non-epileptic indication. Four hundred and fifty eligible women were enrolled over 40 months. Three hundred and ninety six pregnancies had been completed, with 7 sets of twins, for a total of 403 pregnancy outcomes. Results. 354 (87.8%) pregnancy outcomes resulted in a healthy live birth, 26 (6.5%) had a FM, 4 (1%) a death in utero, 1 (0.2%) a premature labour with stillbirth, 14 (3.5%) a spontaneous abortion and 4 lost to follow-up. The FM rate was greater in pregnancies exposed to sodium valproate (VPA) in the first trimester (116.0%) compared with those exposed to all other AEDs (16.0% vs. 2.4%, P < 0.01) or no AEDs (16.0% vs. 3.1 %, P < 0.01). The mean daily dose of VPA taken in pregnancy with FMs was significantly greater than in those without (11975 vs: 1128 mg, P < 0.01). The incidence of FM with VPA doses greater than or equal to 1100 mg was 30.2% vs. 3.2% with doses < 1100 mg (P < 0.01). Conclusions. There is a dose-effect relationship for FM and exposure to VPA during the first trimester of pregnancy, with higher doses of VPA associated with a significantly greater risk than with lower doses or with other AEDs. These results highlight the need to limit, where possible, the dose of VPA in pregnancy. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Income Ranking and convergence with physical and human capital and income equality

This paper presents an overlapping generations model with physical and human capital and income inequality. It shows that inequality impedes output growth by directly harming capital accumulation and indirectly raising the ratio of physical to human capital. The convergence speed of output growth equals the lower of the convergence speeds of the relative capital ratio and inequality, and varies with initial states. Among economies with the same balanced growth rate but different initial income levels, the ranking of income can switch in favor of those starting from low inequality and a low ratio of physical to human capital, particularly if the growth rate converges slowly. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Geogenic sources and sinks of trace metals in the Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica: Natural processes and human impact

To evaluate the extent of human impact on a pristine Antarctic environment, natural baseline levels of trace metals have been established in the basement rocks of the Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica. From a mineralogical and geochemical point of view the Larsemann Hills basement is relatively homogeneous, and contains high levels of Pb, Th and U. These may become soluble during the relatively mild Antarctic summer and be transported to lake waters by surface and subsurface melt water. Melt waters may also be locally enriched in V, Cr, Co, Ni, Zn and Sri derived from weathering of metabasite pods. With a few notable exceptions, the trace metal concentrations measured in the Larsemann Hills lake waters can be entirely accounted for by natural processes such as sea spray and surface melt water input. Thus, the amount of trace metals released by weathering of basement lithologies and dispersed into the Larsemann Hills environment, and presumably in similar Antarctic environments, is, in general, not negligible, and may locally be substantial. The Larsemann Hills sediments are coarse-grained and contain minute amounts of clay-size particles, although human activities have contributed to the generation of fine-grained material at the most impacted sites. Irrespective of their origin, these small amounts of fine-grained clastic sediments have a relatively small surface area and charge, and are not as effective metal sinks as the abundant, thick cyanobacterial algal mats that cover the lake floors. Thus, the concentration of trace metals in the Larsemann Hills lake waters is regulated by biological activity and thawing-freezing cycles, rather than by the type and amount of clastic sediment supply. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Redefining 'media' using a 'media-as-a-constitutional-component' concept:an evaluation of the need for the European Court of Human Rights to alter its understanding of 'media' within a new media landscape

This paper considers the impact of new media on freedom of expression and media freedom within the context of the European Convention on Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence. Through comparative analysis of US jurisprudence and scholarship, this paper deals with the following three issues. First, it explores the traditional purpose of the media, and how media freedom, as opposed to freedom of expression, has been subject to privileged protection, within an ECHR context at least. Secondly, it considers the emergence of new media, and how it can be differentiated from the traditional media. Finally, it analyses the philosophical justifications for freedom of expression, and how they enable a workable definition of the media based upon the concept of the media-as-a-constitutional-component.

Crafting Radical Opposition or Reproducing Homonormativity? : Consociationalism and LGBT Rights Activism in Lebanon

Peer reviewed

Crafting Radical Opposition or Reproducing Homonormativity? : Consociationalism and LGBT Rights Activism in Lebanon

Peer reviewed

Reconfiguring the contours of statehood and the rights of the peoples of disappearing states

Many of the elements that have traditionally supported state level normative self-organization, most notably territory, are being actively undermined by rising sea levels, flooding, desertification, amongst other climate change effects. As more and more states come to be redefined as â disappearingâ , that is, states losing their territories to the natural environment through no specific fault of their own, a question arises as to how displaced communities will be assisted in their desire (and right) to continue to practice principles of self-determination and self-government? What is clear is that the international community can no longer continue with the fiction of a unified or unchanging model of the liberal democratic state. Instead, alternative ontological models of sovereign community are required, as is a re-imagining of how statehood might be re-constituted in the future in response to deepening ecological problems. The international community must now begin to address the immanent nature of threats posed to disappearing states and consider how a model of statehood that does not privilege territory as a fixed component of state identity could be operationalized. This paper considers how a democratic reform of statehood might proceed and resettlement agreements for displaced communities determined. The transition to an era of peaceful sovereign relations under deteriorating global climate conditions and growing natural resource scarcity, it argues, will require a significant extension of established traditions of democratic compromise, human rights solidarity and cosmopolitan justice.

Statelessness as a Human Rights Issue: A Concept Whose Time Has Come?

The protection of stateless persons has long been understood as a challenge for the international community, yet for many of the past sixty years a prioritised focus on refugees has dominated, indeed arguably eclipsed, the plight and protection needs of stateless persons. Guy Goodwin-Gill has long argued for a refocus of international attention and effort on the plight, predicament and protection needs of stateless persons. In a seminal contribution over two decades ago he observed that at that time, statelessness was perceived by many as a mere ‘technical problem,’ yet ‘statelessness is indeed a broad human rights issue, even as it retains a distinct technical dimension.’ In this contribution, we examine the challenge set by Goodwin-Gill for the international community, namely, the need for greater recognition and protection of stateless persons, in light of developments over the more than two decades that have passed since his incisive analysis. We celebrate the positive developments and identify areas of ongoing challenge. We focus on the key initiatives he identified as requiring attention, and assess progress that has been made in relation to each, while concentrating predominantly on the need for closer attention to the relevance of developments in human rights law.

Human Rights, Local Plights: The Implications of Rights Discourses in the Struggle over Arab-Palestinian Bedouin Land in Israel

A widely diffused, engaged approach understands human rights as an opportunity to enhance moral progress. Less visible has a critical realm of research that reveals the often ambiguous social life of human rights discourses. This article draws on a specific case study from the intricate issue of how activism for Arab-Palestinian Bedouin citizens in Southern Israel engages with the global human rights discourse. It follows the implications of mobilization, focusing on events related to a campaign against house demolitions in informal,unrecognised settlements. The case shows how human rights discourses tend to silence the agency of political subjects, victimizing and patronizing those who seek emancipation. The ethnographic insights emphasize the role of a range of carnivalesque and spontaneous acts ofresistance, which subvert the patronizing implications of the human rights language.