Biopower, Disability and Capitalism: Neoliberal Eugenics and the Future of ART Regulation

Discourse around reproductive and contraceptive technology in the United States is typically organized around ideas of autonomy, privacy, and free choice. The dichotomy of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” structures all debates on the topic, and the political framework of neoliberalism channels discussion into prepackaged frameworks of cost-benefit analysis and the primacy of free market choice. However, an examination of history and present policy developments paints a different picture. This Note argues that access to and regulation around contraception, abortion, and overall reproductive health and technology has been informed by and continues to interact with ideas of biopower and both positive and negative eugenics, and that neoliberal conceptions of free reproductive choice ignore the implications of this connection. Part II traces the history of the eugenics movement in America, exemplified by forced and coerced sterilization of people considered mentally or physically “degenerate,” particularly those confined to institutions, and explores the rhetoric in early contraceptive-focused treatises and court decisions that reflect eugenicist views. Part III analyzes the modern trends on legal access to and regulation of reproductive and contraceptive technology and its interaction with race, socioeconomic status, and, in particular, disability (one of the more anxiety-producing categories of humanity in the neoliberal era). In Part IV, the Note goes on to argue that construction of a rational and compassionate legal framework where a woman’s right to choose is preserved (or revived) and the humanity of disabled persons is also respected is not only possible, but essential. A truly feminist reproductive framework must be built on justice, not market choice, and must respect both the agency and autonomy of pregnant women and the humanity and individual subjectivity of disabled persons. Policy strategies towards this end will not be easy, but attention to all the intersectional and overlapping factors that affect women’s reproductive decision-making, especially with regard to disability and reproductive technology, can change the way we view and value disabled personhood in our society

THE RECESSION, BUDGETS, COMPETITION, AND REGULATION: SHOULD THE STATE SUPPLY BESPOKE PROTECTION? RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 12 OCTOBER 2009

Recessions are harsh. Demand declines. Firms shed labour, reduce output or file for bankruptcy. Pressure mounts to reduce prices and increase productivity. Returns decline; margins are squeezed; dividends are suspended. Unemployment increases. Firms seek to delay payments to suppliers, while simultaneously demanding suppliers reduce input prices and extend credit. Carefully assembled workforce teams are broken up. New products and innovations are put on hold. Competition is characterised as cut-throat, destructive and excessive. Faith in markets begins to be questioned

Parameterized Algorithmics for Computational Social Choice: Nine Research Challenges

Computational Social Choice is an interdisciplinary research area involving Economics, Political Science, and Social Science on the one side, and Mathematics and Computer Science (including Artificial Intelligence and Multiagent Systems) on the other side. Typical computational problems studied in this field include the vulnerability of voting procedures against attacks, or preference aggregation in multi-agent systems. Parameterized Algorithmics is a subfield of Theoretical Computer Science seeking to exploit meaningful problem-specific parameters in order to identify tractable special cases of in general computationally hard problems. In this paper, we propose nine of our favorite research challenges concerning the parameterized complexity of problems appearing in this context

Smallholder Participation in Agricultural Value Chains: Comparative Evidence from Three Continents

Supermarkets, specialized wholesalers, and processors and agro-exporters’ agricultural value chains have begun to transform the marketing channels into which smallholder farmers sell produce in low-income economies. We develop a conceptual framework through which to study contracting between smallholders and a commodity-processing firm. We then conduct an empirical meta-analysis of agricultural value chains in five countries across three continents (Ghana, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Nicaragua). We document patterns of participation, the welfare gains associated with participation, reasons for non-participation, the significant extent of contract non-compliance, and the considerable dynamism of these value chains, as farmers and firms enter and exit frequently.

Two Economists, Three Opinions? Economic Models for Private International Law - Cross Border Torts as Example

Many agree that private international law does a poor job of leading to good and predictable results. Can law and economics bring more scientific, objective foundations to the discipline? Economics, one may hope, can bring the conclusiveness to the field that doctrine could not. But even a fleeting review of existing studies reveals a discrepancy of views or economic approaches that mirrors the discrepancy in the traditional private international law doctrine. This article sets out to test whether different models lead to different outcomes. It makes arguments in three economic models - a private law model, an international law model, and a model combining the two. The subject area for this analysis is private international law of torts, more specifically the question of the law applicable to cross-border torts. The result is that the debate whether private international law is private law or (public) international law is replicated in the economic analysis of private international law. Rather than resolve problems of private international law, economic analysis reformulates them. This does not make economic analysis useless at all, but it puts into question its promise of objective neutral solutions

Regulating altruistic agents

Altruism or `regard for others' can encourage self-restraint among generators of negative externalities, thereby mitigating the externality problem. We explore how introducing impure altruism into standard regulatory settings alters regulatory prescriptions. We show that the optimal calibration of both quantitative controls and externality taxes are affected. It also leads to surprising results on the comparative performance of instruments. Under quantity-based regulation welfare is increasing in the propensity for altruism in the population; under price-based regulation the relationship is non-monotonic. Price-based regulation is preferred when the population is either predominantly altruistic or predominantly selfish, quantity-based regulation for cases in between