Industrial Removal Office records undated, 1899-1922

Contains Board of Directors minutes (1903, 1907), Executive Committee minutes (1907), Removal Committee minutes (1903-1917), Annual Reports (1910, 1913), Monthly Reports (1901-1919), Monthly Bulletins (1914-1915), studies of those removed, Bressler's "The Removal Work, Including Galveston," and several papers relating to the IRO and immigration. Financial papers include a budget (1914), comparative per capita cost figures (1909-1922), audits (1915-1918), receipts and expenditures (1918-1922), investment records, bank balances (1907-1922), removal work cash book (1904-1911), office expenses cash account (1903-1906), and the financial records of other agencies working with the IRO (1906). Includes also removal case records of first the Jewish Agricultural Society (1899-1900), and then of the IRO (1901-1922) when it took over its work, family reunion case records (1901-1904), and the follow-up records of persons removed to various cities (1903-1914). Contains also the correspondence of traveling agents' contacts throughout the U.S. from 1905-1914, among them Stanley Bero, Henry P. Goldstein, Philip Seman, and Morris D. Waldman.

Turing and the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Intellectual Property, Public Health, and Access to Essential Medicines

A recent controversy in the United States over drug pricing by Turing Pharmaceuticals AG has raised larger issues in respect of intellectual property, access to medicines, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In August 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG – a private biopharmaceutical company with offices in New York, the United States, and Zug, Switzerland - acquired the exclusive marketing rights to Daraprim in the United States from Impax Laboratories Incorporated. Martin Shkreli, Turing’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, maintained: “The acquisition of Daraprim and our toxoplasmosis research program are significant steps along Turing’s path of bringing novel medications to patients with serious disorders, some of whom often go undiagnosed and untreated.” He emphasised: “We intend to invest in the development of new drug candidates that we hope will yield an even better clinical profile, and also plan to launch an educational effort to help raise awareness and improve diagnosis for patients with toxoplasmosis.” In September 2015, there was much public controversy over the decision of Martin Shkreli to raise the price of a 62 year old drug, Daraprim, from $US13.50 to $US750 a pill. The drug is particularly useful in respect to the treatment and prevention of malaria, and in the treatment of infections in individuals with HIV/AIDS. Daraprim is listed on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) List of Essential Medicines. In the face of much criticism, Martin Shkreli has said that he will reduce the price of Daraprim. He observed: “We've agreed to lower the price on Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit.” He maintained: “We think these changes will be welcomed.” However, he has been vague and ambiguous about the nature of the commitment. Notably, the lobby group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhARMA), disassociated itself from the claims of Turing Pharmaceuticals. The group said: “PhRMA members have a long history of drug discovery and innovation that has led to increased longevity and improved lives for millions of patients.” The group noted: “Turing Pharmaceutical is not a member of PhRMA and we do not embrace either their recent actions or the conduct of their CEO.” The biotechnology peak body Biotechnology Industry Organization also sought to distance itself from Turing Pharmaceuticals. A hot topic: United States political debate about access to affordable medicines This controversy over Daraprim is unusual – given the age of drug concerned. Daraprim is not subject to patent protection. Nonetheless, there remains a monopoly in respect of the marketplace. Drug pricing is not an isolated problem. There have been many concerns about drug pricing – particularly in respect of essential medicines for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. This recent controversy is part of a larger debate about access to affordable medicines. The dispute raises larger issues about healthcare, consumer rights, competition policy, and trade. The Daraprim controversy has provided impetus for law reform in the US. US Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton commented: “Price gouging like this in this specialty drug market is outrageous.” In response to her comments, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell sharply. Hillary Clinton has announced a prescription drug reform plan to protect consumers and promote innovation – while putting an end to profiteering. On her campaign site, she has emphasised that “affordable healthcare is a basic human right.” Her rival progressive candidate, Bernie Sanders, was also concerned about the price hike. He wrote a letter to Martin Shkreli, complaining about the price increase for the drug Daraprim. Sanders said: “The enormous, overnight price increase for Daraprim is just the latest in a long list of skyrocketing price increases for certain critical medications.” He has pushed for reforms to intellectual property to make medicines affordable. The TPP and intellectual property The Daraprim controversy and political debate raises further issues about the design of the TPP. The dispute highlights the dangers of extending the rights of pharmaceutical drug companies under intellectual property, investor-state dispute settlement, and drug administration. Recently, the civil society group Knowledge Ecology International published a leaked draft of the Intellectual Property Chapter of the TPP. Knowledge Ecology International Director, James Love, was concerned the text revealed that the US “continues to be the most aggressive supporter of expanded intellectual property rights for drug companies.” He was concerned that “the proposals contained in the TPP will harm consumers and in some cases block innovation.” James Love feared: “In countless ways, the Obama Administration has sought to expand and extend drug monopolies and raise drug prices.” He maintained: “The astonishing collection of proposals pandering to big drug companies make more difficult the task of ensuring access to drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases and conditions.” Love called for a different approach to intellectual property and trade: “Rather than focusing on more intellectual property rights for drug companies, and a death-inducing spiral of higher prices and access barriers, the trade agreement could seek new norms to expand the funding of medical research and development (R&D) as a public good, an area where the US has an admirable track record, such as the public funding of research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies.” In addition, there has been much concern about the Investment Chapter of the TPP. The investor-state dispute settlement regime would enable foreign investors to challenge government policy making, which affected their investments. In the context of healthcare, there is a worry that pharmaceutical drug companies will deploy their investor rights to challenge public health measures – such as, for instance, initiatives to curb drug pricing and profiteering. Such concerns are not merely theoretical. Eli Lilly has brought an investor action against the Canadian Government over the rejection of its drug patents under the investor-state dispute settlement regime of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Health Annex to the TPP also raises worries that pharmaceutical drug companies will able to object to regulatory procedures in respect of healthcare. It is disappointing that the TPP – in the leaks that we have seen – has only limited recognition of the importance of access to essential medicines. There is a need to ensure that there are proper safeguards to provide access to essential medicines – particularly in respect of HIV/AIDs, malaria, and tuberculosis. Moreover, there must be protection against drug profiteering and price gouging in any trade agreement. There should be strong measures against the abuse of intellectual property rights. The dispute over Turing Pharmaceuticals AG and Daraprim is an important cautionary warning in respect of some of the dangers present in the secret negotiations in respect of the TPP. There is a need to preserve consumer rights, competition policy, and public health in trade negotiations over an agreement covering the Pacific Rim.

Executive Stock Options: Exercise Policy and Market Reaction

In this paper I investigate the exercise policy, and the market reaction to that, of the executive stock option holders in Finland. The empirical tests are conducted with aggregated firm level data from 34 firms and 41 stock option programs. I find some evidence of an inverse relation between the exercise intensity of the options holders and the future abnormal return of the company share price. This finding is supported by the view that information about future company prospect seems to be the only theoretical attribute that could delay the exercise of the options. Moreover, a high concentration of exercises in the beginning of the exercise window is predicted and the market is expected to react to deviations from this. The empirical findings however show that the market does not react homogenously to the information revealed by the late exercises.

Share Repurchases, Dividends, and Executive Options

This paper reports empirical results on the determinants of the authorization decision for share repurchases and dividends in Finland. We use a data set with precise data on share repurchases as well as characteristics for the option programs. Contrary to the U.S., we use a data set where 41% of the options are dividend protected, which allows us to separate between the "option funding" and "substitution / managerial wealth" hypothesis for the choice of the distribution method. We find that foreign ownership is the main determinant for share repurchases in Finland and attribute this relationship to tax factors. We also find evidence in support of both the signaling and agency cost hypotheses for cash distributions, especially in the case of share repurchases. Finally, we find a significant difference between companies with and without dividend protected options. When options are dividend protected, the relationship between dividend distributions and the scope of the options program turns to a significantly positive one instead of the negative one documented on U.S. data. This gives some support for the substitution / managerial wealth hypothesis as a determinant for the choice of the distribution method.

The principled executive

Resumen: El artículo presenta el problema de la escisión del hombre de negocios entre su esfera pública en el ámbito del management, y el ámbito privado de la vida familiar y religiosa. Señala la importancia del documento pontificio al detectar este problema e intentar establecer modos de mitigarlo. El autor analiza el tema de la vocación empresaria en el mundo actual, que los nuevos líderes deben poseer para poder enfrentar los problemas propios del mundo financiero tras la crisis económica mundial del año 2008. Finalmente, hace referencia a la importancia de la educación, especialmente dentro del marco de las Universidades católicas

Endogenous fisheries management in a stochastic model: Why do fishery agencies use TAC

The aim of this paper is to explain under which circumstances using TACs as instrument to manage a fishery along with fishing periods may be interesting from a regulatory point of view. In order to do this, the deterministic analysis of Homans and Wilen (1997)and Anderson (2000) is extended to a stochastic scenario where the resource cannot be measured accurately. The resulting endogenous stochastic model is numerically solved for finding the optimal control rules in the Iberian sardine stock. Three relevant conclusions can be highligted from simulations. First, the higher the uncertainty about the state of the stock is, the lower the probability of closing the fishery is. Second, the use of TACs as management instrument in fisheries already regulated with fishing periods leads to: i) An increase of the optimal season length and harvests, especially for medium and high number of licences, ii) An improvement of the biological and economic variables when the size of the fleet is large; and iii) Eliminate the extinction risk for the resource. And third, the regulator would rather select the number of licences and do not restrict the season length.

Lei de acesso à informação (LAI) : investigação da transparência nos três Poderes

A Lei 12.527/2011, Lei de Acesso à Informação (LAI), representa um avanço na disponibilização da informação pública pelos órgãos governamentais, de maneira a promover a transparência das ações e a consolidação da cidadania. Este artigo tem como foco a observância do atendimento dos preceitos de transparência ativa pelos sítios oficiais de órgãos públicos federais dos Poderes Executivo, Legislativo e Judiciário.

The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2005

Executive Summary: For over three decades, scientists have been documenting the decline of coral reef ecosystems, amid increasing recognition of their value in supporting high biological diversity and their many benefits to human society. Coral reef ecosystems are recognized for their benefits on many levels, such as supporting economies by nurturing fisheries and providing for recreational and tourism opportunities, providing substances useful for medical purposes, performing essential ecosystem services that protect against coastal erosion, and provid-ing a diversity of other, more intangible contributions to many cultures. In the past decade, the increased awareness regarding coral reefs has prompted action by governmental and non-governmental organizations, including increased funding from the U.S. Congress for conservation of these important ecosystems and creation of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) to coordinate activities and implement conservation measures [Presidential Executive Order 13089]. Numerous partnerships forged among Federal agencies and state, local, non-governmental, academic and private partners support activities that range from basic science to systematic monitoring of ecosystem com-ponents and are conducted by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and the private sector. This report shares the results of many of these efforts in the framework of a broad assessment of the condition of coral reef ecosystems across 14 U.S. jurisdictions and Pacific Freely Associated States. This report relies heavily on quantitative, spatially-explicit data that has been collected in the recent past and comparisons with historical data, where possible. The success of this effort can be attributed to the dedication of over 160 report contributors who comprised the expert writing teams for each jurisdiction. The content of the report chapters are the result of their considerable collaborative efforts. The writing teams, which were organized by jurisdiction and comprised of experts from numerous research and management institutions, were provided a basic chapter outline and a length limit, but the content of each chapter was left entirely to their discretion. Each jurisdictional chapter in the report is structured to: 1) describe how each of the primary threats identified in the National Coral Reef Action Strategy (NCRAS) has manifested in the jurisdiction; 2) introduce ongoing monitoring and assessment activities relative to three major categories of inquiry – water quality, benthic habitats, and associated biological communities – and provide summary results in a data-rich format; and 3) highlight recent management activities that promote conservation of coral reef ecosystems.

First Biennial Ocean Climate Summit: Finding Solutions for San Francisco Bay Area’s Coast and Ocean. Proceedings of the Summit: April 29, 2008, Golden Gate Club, The Presidio San Francisco, California

Executive Summary: The marine environment plays a critical role in the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that remains within Earth’s atmosphere, but has not received as much attention as the terrestrial environment when it comes to climate change discussions, programs, and plans for action. It is now apparent that the oceans have begun to reach a state of CO2 saturation, no longer maintaining the “steady-state” carbon cycle that existed prior to the Industrial Revolution. The increasing amount of CO2 present within the oceans and the atmosphere has an effect on climate and a cascading effect on the marine environment. Potential physical effects of climate change within the marine environment, including ocean acidification, changes in wind and upwelling regimes, increasing global sea surface temperatures, and sea level rise, can lead to dramatic, fundamental changes within marine and coastal ecosystems. Altered ecosystems can result in changing coastal economies through a reduction in marine ecosystem services such as commercial fish stocks and coastal tourism. Local impacts from climate change should be a front line issue for natural resource managers, but they often feel too overwhelmed by the magnitude of this issue to begin to take action. They may not feel they have the time, funding, or staff to take on a challenge as large as climate change and continue to not act as a result. Already, natural resource managers work to balance the needs of humans and the economy with ecosystem biodiversity and resilience. Responsible decisions are made each day that consider a wide variety of stakeholders, including community members, agencies, non-profit organizations, and business/industry. The issue of climate change must be approached as a collaborative effort, one that natural resource managers can facilitate by balancing human demands with healthy ecosystem function through research and monitoring, education and outreach, and policy reform. The Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change in their 2007 report titled, “Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable” charged governments around the world with developing strategies to “adapt to ongoing and future changes in climate change by integrating the implications of climate change into resource management and infrastructure development”. Resource managers must make future management decisions within an uncertain and changing climate based on both physical and biological ecosystem response to climate change and human perception of and response to the issue. Climate change is the biggest threat facing any protected area today and resource managers must lead the charge in addressing this threat. (PDF has 59 pages.)

The Co-management Survey report: an executive summary

Co-management is typically known to be a resource management system that shares managerial responsibility between the state and other stakeholders of a resource. In the case of Lake Victoria, one would expect the state to be represented by the fisheries departments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, while stakeholder groups may comprise fishing communities, fish processing factories and municipalities. Taking that into account, the survey's objectives were defined as: (a) To identify the difficulties and impracticalities inherent in implementing state-based regulations via a "top-down" management strategy. (b) To assess the prevalence of community-based institutions that either seek to regulate the fishery or have the potential to be used to regulate it. (c) To identify ways in which community-based regulatory and monitory systems may be established, and how these will fare over time. (d) To identify roles for national Fisheries Departments, industrial fish processors and other stakeholders. (e) To develop well-founded policy suggestions for the establishment of a co-management framework to manage the fisheries of Lake Victoria.

Reconciling yield stability with international fisheries agencies precautionary preferences: the role of non constant discount factors in age structured models

International fisheries agencies recommend exploitation paths that satisfy two features. First, for precautionary reasons exploitation paths should avoid high fishing mortality in those fisheries where the biomass is depleted to a degree that jeopardise the stock's capacity to produce the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). Second, for economic and social reasons, captures should be as stable (smooth) as possible over time. In this article we show that a conflict between these two interests may occur when seeking for optimal exploitation paths using age structured bioeconomic approach. Our results show that this conflict be overtaken by using non constant discount factors that value future stocks considering their relative intertemporal scarcity.

The Executive Council of the Charles Darwin Foundation 1964-1988

From a special issue: A Brief History of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands 1959-1988