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Immigration to what is now the United States has been a contentious issue from the earliest days of the European settlement. Perhaps the earliest recorded incident of contention…
Abstract
Immigration to what is now the United States has been a contentious issue from the earliest days of the European settlement. Perhaps the earliest recorded incident of contention occurred over 350 years ago in 1654, when 23 Jewish refugees sought refuge into New Amsterdam, fleeing what they rightly believed would be the extension of the Portuguese Inquisition to Recife in Brazil. Peter Stuyvasant's objection to their settlement was rejected by the Dutch West Indies Company. The tension between those opposing further immigration on either social or economic grounds and those favoring it has continued over these three and a half centuries to this very day.
Angela Wasunna and Daniel W. Fitzgerald
No other region of the world has suffered from such devastating epidemics in the recent past than sub-Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS poses the worst single health threat on the…
Abstract
No other region of the world has suffered from such devastating epidemics in the recent past than sub-Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS poses the worst single health threat on the continent and approximately 28.5 million of people infected with HIV/AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa, yet, less than 8% have access to treatment. As African countries start or continue to expand their HIV/AIDS treatment programs with the assistance of international donors, they are facing several ethical and health policy challenges, including difficult decisions on how to ration available treatment, the high cost of drugs, the complexity of treatment regimens, the inadequacy of health and delivery systems, the lack of knowledge about treatment, and the threat of drug resistance.
The chapter presents a timeline and an analysis of economic and social policy in Finland. Finland is an example of an étatiste late industrialiser, in which the post-war period up…
Abstract
The chapter presents a timeline and an analysis of economic and social policy in Finland. Finland is an example of an étatiste late industrialiser, in which the post-war period up to the mid-1980s was a phase of catching up and energetic mobilisation of resources. The policy regime relied on vigorous State intervention comparable to that of the Asian tiger regimes, in Finland's case motivated also by the stringent geopolitical constraints of Cold War. Public saving contributed to a high rate of capital accumulation, credit was rationed to favour manufacturing investment and corporatist incomes policy was used to sustain the profitability of key export industries. Keynesian demand management was largely neglected, and the high growth rate was associated with large fluctuations and devaluations cycles. The credit and financial market liberalisation of the 1980s resulted in overheating, a deep recession and a failure of the attempted fixed exchange rate anchor. In the 1990s, incomes policy was used to boost the rise of the information technology sector, whereas monetary stability was sought by a strive towards EMU membership. Finland's long-run growth performance has been good, but economic policy will be challenged by the sharp deterioration of the dependency ratio as well as the politics of right-wing nationalism. The wage setting regime is in a state of flux.