Reducing Unintended Pregnancy and Unsafely Performed Abortion Through Contraceptive Use
Source: Population Reference Bureau
Unmet need for family planning, unintended pregnancy, and unsafely performed abortion are linked. Unintended pregnancy is a common outcome for the more than 200 million women worldwide who want to stop having children or delay their next pregnancy but are not using an effective method of contraception. It is also the primary factor in the nearly 40 million abortions that occur each year globally, nearly half of which are performed in an unsafe or unhygienic way.
Unsafely performed abortion puts the lives of women at risk, leading to the death of 68,000 girls and women every year. Millions more suffer long-term injuries from often life-threatening complications. In many poor countries, treatment of these complications consumes up to half of hospital budgets for obstetrics and gynecology. Estimates derived from data from the World Health Organization (WHO) predict that at prevailing rates, one in five women in developing countries will be hospitalized for complications of unsafe abortion at some time in their lives.
Each year, women in less developed countries have 75 million unintended pregnancies (an estimated one-third of all their pregnancies). Many of these women still lack access to modern contraception (defined as female and male sterilization, oral hormonal pills, the intrauterine device (IUD), the male condom, injectables, the implant, vaginal barrier methods, the female condom, and emergency contraception) or, for various reasons, are not using contraception. Women who did not intend to become pregnant often resort to an abortion, typically carried out beyond the reach of health services or providers. With 97 percent of unsafely performed abortions and 99 percent of maternal deaths occurring in less developed countries, it is clear that improving knowledge of and access to contraception is essential to prevent the unintended pregnancies that lead women to risk an unsafe abortion.
Insurance Regulation: Issues, Background, and Legislation in the 111th Congress (PDF; 196 KB)
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
The individual states have been acknowledged as the primary regulators of insurance as far back as 1868. Since the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act, this system has operated with the specific blessing of Congress, but has also been subject to periodic scrutiny and suggestions that the time may have come for Congress to take back the regulatory authority that it granted to the states. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, congressional scrutiny was largely driven by the increasing complexities of the insurance business and concern over whether the states were up to the task of ensuring consumer protections, particularly insurer solvency.
Prior to the recent financial crisis, congressional interest in insurance regulation focused on the inefficiencies in the state regulatory system. A major catalyst for congressional interest has been the aftermath of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), which modernized the regulatory structure for banks and securities firms, but left the insurance sector largely untouched. Many larger insurers, and their trade associations, had previously defended state regulation but consider themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the current regulatory structure. They are now largely arguing for an optional federal charter akin to that available to banks. The increased internationalization of insurance has also brought more pressure on the current U.S. regulatory system. Various pieces of insurance regulatory reform legislation have been introduced in the current and past Congresses, including bills implementing an optional federal charter for insurance and narrower more targeted bills.
The states, particularly working through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), were not idle in the face of this increased scrutiny. They reacted quickly to the GLBA requirements that related to insurance agent licensing and have since embarked on a wider ranging project to modernize insurance regulation. This has included both regulatory aspects, such as streamlining the process for rate and form filing, and more basic legal aspects, such as the creation of an interstate compact to provide uniformity across states for some life insurance products. Since every state legislature must pass the legal changes suggested by the NAIC, the process typically does not move rapidly.
The large scale financial crisis, initially apparent in the sub-prime mortgage markets in 2007, has had a significant impact on the debate surrounding insurance regulatory reform. Unlike many financial crises in the past, insurers played a large role in this crisis. In particular, the failure of the large insurer American International Group (AIG) spotlighted sources of risk that had been previously unrecognized. The need for a risk regulator for the entire financial system, whether through granting enhanced powers to a currently existing regulatory body or creating a new entity, has been a common thread in many of the recent financial regulatory reform proposals. In particular, the current broad federal insurance chartering bill, H.R. 1880, includes the designation of a separate systemic risk regulator for insurers, whereas the regulatory reform proposal released by the Treasury would give enhanced systemic risk regulatory authority, including oversight over insurers, to the Federal Reserve and to a new Financial Services Oversight Council.
Although the financial crisis has changed the focus of the debate surrounding insurance regulatory reform, many of the pre-crisis pressures for regulatory changes continue. Narrower bills addressing insurance regulation and regulatory requirements have been introduced in the 111th Congress. These include H.R. 1583, H.R. 2554, H.R. 2571/S. 1363, H.R. 2609, and H.R. 3126. None of these have been considered on the floor of the House or the Senate in this Congress. This report will be updated as legislative events warrant.
Top 10 List Of Consumer Complaints Include Credit Cards and Predatory Lending/Mortgages
Source: National Association of Attorneys General
In a sign of the economic times, credit cards and predatory lending/mortgages cracked the national top 10 list of consumer complaints to state Attorneys General offices in the year 2008. The top three: debt collection, auto sales, and home repair/construction remained the same from year 2007. The findings are based on an annual non-scientific survey conducted by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).
State Attorneys General are a leading consumer protection force in the nation. They have primary responsibility in their states for the enforcement of their state’s consumer protection laws. Every state has a consumer protection statute prohibiting deceptive acts and practices, including those that happen online. Attorneys General can take action against businesses that commit fraud in such areas as debt collection, auto sales and repair, telemarketing and misleading advertising, for example.
The National Top 10 Consumer Complaints List for 2008 is:
1. Debt Collection
2. Auto Sales
3. Home Repair/Construction
4. Credit Cards (tie)
5. Internet Goods and Services (tie)
6. Predatory Lending/Mortgages
7. Telemarketing/Do-Not-Call
8. Auto Repair
9. Auto Warranties (tie)
10. Telecom/Slamming/Cramming (tie)
The Financial Crisis of 2008 in Fixed Income Markets
Source: Federal Reserve Board of Atlanta
We explore how a relatively small amount of heterogeneous securities created turmoil in financial markets in much of the world in 2007 and 2008. The drivers of the financial turmoil and the financial crisis of 2008 were heterogeneous securities that were hard to value. These securities created concerns about counterparty risk and ultimately created substantial uncertainty. The problems spread in ways that were hard to see in advance. The run on prime money market funds in September 2008 and the effects on commercial paper were an important aspect of the crisis itself and are discussed in some detail.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 196 KB)
Voters Hold the Key: Lock-In, Mobility, and the Portability of Property Tax Exemptions
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Since California voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978, fifteen states have enacted caps on the annual growth in assessed property values. These laws often impose a great burden on municipal finances and create horizontal inequity among homeowners. Why do voters choose to limit local government in this way? Reasons may include controlling the power of special interests, addressing agency failures of government officials (the “Leviathan” hypothesis), or preserving the impact of a current but fleeting antitax political alignment. Yet research has found that voters’ perception of a limitation’s fiscal consequences do not match reality, questioning the rationality of voter behavior. To counter this position, another strand of literature argues that support for tax limitations is driven not by perceptions of government inefficiency but by reasonable expectations of who will ultimately bear the tax limitation’s burden. We explore this view by exploiting the differential tax treatment generated by assessment caps in the context of a recent, novel referendum in Florida. We examine voter support for a 2008 constitutional amendment that included a unique provision making the existing assessment cap portable within the state. We test the hypothesis that voters understood the mobility consequences of tax limitations and the net burden of the cap. We find that high potential tax savings and high expected mobility rates result in higher support for portability. We also find that the degree of racial segregation, the presence of nonresidential tax bases, and the share of migrants from out of state all contribute to support for the amendment. Results suggest that voters were as concerned with reducing their own tax share at the expense of other property owners as they were with curtailing local expenditures.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 221 KB)
Why Don’t Lenders Renegotiate More Home Mortgages? Redefaults, Self-Cures, and Securitization
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
We document the fact that servicers have been reluctant to renegotiate mortgages since the foreclosure crisis started in 2007, having performed payment-reducing modifications on only about 3 percent of seriously delinquent loans. We show that this reluctance does not result from securitization: Servicers renegotiate similarly small fractions of loans that they hold in their portfolios. Our results are robust to different definitions of renegotiation, including the one most likely to be affected by securitization, and to different definitions of delinquency. Our results are strongest in subsamples in which unobserved heterogeneity between portfolio and securitized loans is likely to be small and in subprime loans. We use a theoretical model to show that redefault risk, the possibility that a borrower will still default despite costly renegotiation, and self-cure risk, the possibility that a seriously delinquent borrower will become current without renegotiation, make renegotiation unattractive to investors.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 247 KB)
Preliminary Annual Report on U.S. Holding of Foreign Securities
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury
Preliminary data from an annual survey of U.S. portfolio holdings of foreign securities at year-end 2008 were released today and posted on the Treasury web site at http://www.treas.gov/tic/fpis.html. Final survey results, which will include additional detail as well as revisions to the data, will be reported on October 30, 2009.
…
The survey measured U.S. holdings at year-end 2008 of approximately $4.3 trillion, with $2.7 trillion held in foreign equities, $1.3 trillion in foreign long-term debt securities (original term-to-maturity in excess of one year), and $0.3 trillion held in foreign short-term debt securities. The previous such survey, conducted as of year-end 2007, measured U.S. holdings of $7.2 trillion, with $5.2 trillion held in foreign equities, $1.6 trillion in foreign long-term debt securities and $0.4 trillion held in foreign short-term debt securities.
New GAO Reports (PDFs)
Source: Government Accountability Office
31 August 2009
1. Home Mortgage Interest Deduction: Despite Challenges Presented by Complex Tax Rules, IRS Could Enhance Enforcement and Guidance
2. Disaster Recovery: Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for Effective Collaboration after Catastrophic Events
3. Border Patrol: Checkpoints Contribute to Border Patrol’s Mission, but More Consistent Data Collection and Performance Measurement Could Improve Effectiveness
4. Medicare Physician Payments: Fees Could Better Reflect Efficiencies Achieved When Services Are Provided Together
5. Private Health Insurance: Research on Competition in the Insurance Industry
New Nationwide Insurance survey shows overwhelming support for laws banning texting while driving
Source: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.
Nationwide Insurance today released the results of its new On Your Side® survey, which found that 8 in 10 Americans surveyed this month say they would support legislation restricting cell phone use while driving. The survey, conducted Aug. 5-9, 2009, by Harris Interactive, reports that 80 percent of Americans favor a ban on texting while driving, while two thirds favor a ban on cell phone calls, and more than half say they would support a ban on cell phone use altogether. Earlier this summer, Nationwide announced its support of the concept of a national ban on texting while driving to help curb crashes and reduce auto insurance claims.
The survey results are being announced as hundreds of highway traffic safety advocates and officials are convening at the Governors Highway Safety Association’s annual conference in Savannah, Ga., to discuss driving while distracted (DWD) and other highway safety issues. This meeting is taking place in advance of a presidential summit on DWD that is scheduled for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in Washington, DC.
+ Full survey results (PDF; 98 KB)
The Current Financial Crisis: What Should We Learn from the Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century? (PDF; 35 KB)
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Studying the experience of countries that have experienced great depressions during the twentieth century teaches us that massive public interventions in the economy to maintain employment and investment during a financial crisis can, if they distort incentives enough, lead to a great depression.
Doubly Robust Internal Benchmarking and False Discovery Rates for Detecting Racial Bias in Police Stops
Source: Journal of the American Statistical Association (via RAND Corporation)
Allegations of racially biased policing are a contentious issue in many communities. Processes that flag potential problem officers have become a key component of risk management systems at major police departments. We present a statistical method to flag potential problem officers by blending three methodologies that are the focus of active research efforts: propensity score weighting, doubly robust estimation, and false discovery rates. Compared with other systems currently in use, the proposed method reduces the risk of flagging a substantial number of false positives by more rigorously adjusting for potential confounders and by using the false discovery rate as a measure to flag officers.We apply the methodology to data on 500,000 pedestrian stops in New York City in 2006. Of the nearly 3,000 New York City Police Department officers regularly involved in pedestrian stops, we flag 15 officers who stopped a substantially greater fraction of black and Hispanic suspects than our statistical benchmark predicts.
China’s International Behavior: Activism, Opportunism, and Diversification
Source: RAND Corporation
China is now a global actor of significant and growing importance. It is active in regions and on issues that were once only peripheral to its interests, and it is effectively using tools previously unavailable. It is no longer appropriate to talk of integrating China into the international system; by and large, it is already there. Its international behavior is clearly altering the dynamics of the current international system, but it is not transforming its structure.
China’s global activism is continually changing and has so many dimensions that it immediately raises questions about its current and future intentions and the implications for global stability and prosperity. This study examines how China views its security environment, how it defines its international objectives, how it is pursuing these objectives, and the consequences for U.S. economic and security interests.
Measuring Crisis Decision Making for Public Health Emergencies
Source: RAND Corporation
Public health emergencies often involve making difficult decisions, including when to notify the public of threats, when to close schools or suspend public events, when to dispense medication, and how to allocate scarce resources. Yet, public health practitioners often have little experience or training in crisis decision making and can be uncomfortable with the need to make decisions based on often-incomplete information and short time lines. Unfortunately, there are no established tools for identifying, measuring, and improving public health crisis decision making.
This technical report describes the development and first generation of a tool to measure key aspects of crisis decision making in public health emergencies, based on performance in exercises (e.g., tabletops, functional exercises, full-scale exercises) and real incidents (e.g., outbreaks of waterborne disease). The tool is a paper-and-pencil assessment form that is intended to allow public health practitioners to assess their baseline crisis decision making capabilities and identify shortfalls and shortcomings that may represent opportunities for internal process improvements. The items in the tool focus on the processes of public health crisis decision making that the scientific and practical literatures identify as key components of effective crisis decision making–developing situational awareness, action planning, and using process controls–that, taken together, represent a continuous loop within public health emergency preparedness decision making. The tool focuses on the quality of decision making processes — how decisions are made — as opposed to the quality of the decisions themselves (which is exceedingly difficult to determine, except in retrospect) or the characteristics of the individuals and organizations involved in the decision (which tell us little about the ability to actually make decisions). To allow for objective observation and coding of performance, the tool focuses on group decision making and overt behaviors, such as explicit discussion among decision makers and completion of Incident Command System (ICS) forms. Thus, the tool requires decisions that require deliberation among two or more individuals, at a location in which decision-making processes can be directly observed. The assessment-tool items assess the execution of specific observable activities, which can be categorized within the three general processes.
The (green) car of the future (PDF; 376 KB)
Source: Parliamentary Library of Australia
A panacea for the environmental problems of modern motor vehicles – especially their use of non-renewable oil and their emissions – has long been the subject of speculation. Various alternative fuels are put forward as solutions to the world’s diminishing reserves of oil, but each seems to have its own issues and problems to deal with, not to mention effects on agricultural crops previously destined for human food consumption.
Child migrants from the United Kingdom
Source: Parliamentary Library of Australia
Between 1922 and 1967 about 150 000 children with an average age of eight years and nine months were shipped from Great Britain to help populate the British Dominions of Canada, Rhodesia, New Zealand and Australia with ‘good white stock’. Estimates of the number of children sent to Australia vary from 3000 to 10 000—most of whom were sent to charitable and religious institutions.
The Australian Government welcomed the scheme and encouraged non-government organisations such as Barnados and Fairbridge to continue settling child migrants to help boost the population and eventually contribute to the labour force. However, many child migrants later spoke of the ill-treatment they received in institutions in Australia.
This background note provides a brief overview of the historical and political context surrounding the arrival of child migrants from the UK. It includes background on government policy responses, other relevant responses and links to some of the key resources. This background note also reviews and updates the contents of Child migrants from the United Kingdom, and extends the discussion to take into account government inquiries and responses into the broader issues of children in institutional care.
