Prisoners' Labour Market History and Aspirations: A Focus on Western Australia

This paper examines the employability and labour market aspirations of prisoners. The results suggest that repeat prisoners are less likely to be employed than nonrepeat prisoners. However, a large proportion of the employment differential between repeat and non-repeat prisoners is due to differences in coefficients. There is no evidence to suggest that the frequency of incarceration affects individual characteristics which may limit prisoners’ labour market aspirations after their release from prison.

Investment in Human Capital during Incarceration and Employment Prospects of Prisoners

The costs of incarceration and recidivism to the community are substantial. These costs not only include the direct costs of imprisonment but also the opportunity costs arising from depletion of human capital and loss of output. Policy makers have emphasised the importance of rehabilitating prisoners as a way of reducing recidivism. Consequently, the management of prisoners has changed, with more prisoners being encouraged to undertake some form of education, training and/or work during their incarceration in conjunction with any behavioural management programmes. This paper examines, using the 2003 Survey of Prisoners in Western Australia, the decision of prisoners to invest in education/training during their prison term and the potential labour market outcomes of this investment. The results suggest that prisoners use education/training to improve their skills in preparation for release from prison. From this perspective it can be argued that these prisoners see education/training as an investment in human capital rather than consumption. In addition, the decision to participate in either education or training is non-random and varies across the time remaining on the prison sentence, thus suggesting prisoners view education and training as different activities. However, the results show the expected benefit prisoners place on education and training is similar.prisoners, education, training, employment

Heckman\u27s methodology for correcting selectivity bias : An application to road crash costs

Aggregate road crash costs are traditionally determined using average costs applied to incidence figures found in Police-notified crash data. Such data only comprise a non-random sample of the true population of road crashes, the bias being due to the existence of crashes that are not notified to the Police. The traditional approach is to label the Police-notified sample as \u27non-random\u27 thereby casting a cloud over data analyses using this sample. Heckman however viewed similar problems as \u27omitted variables\u27 problems in that the exclusion of some observations in a systematic manner (so-called selectivity bias) has inadvertently introduced the need for an additional regressor in the least squares procedures. Using Heckman\u27s methodology for correcting for this selectivity bias, Police-notified crash data for Western Australia in 1987/88 is reconciled with total (notified and not notified) crash data in the estimation of the property damage costs of road crashes

Teacher as \u27learner\u27: A case study of teaching international economics and finance

How lucky are we to be teaching economics at this time? Discussions enrich our honours and postgraduate teaching programmes which have always been delivered beyond the textbook. But what about our undergraduate programmes in economics? Can we break away from the prescribed text and engage more fully with contemporary debate? Can our undergraduates also be encouraged to think like economists? In 2009 we have an ideal opportunity to eschew the standard textbook based approach to undergraduate economics teaching. This paper highlights a case study in which a third year unit in international economics and finance fed into School, Faculty and Universitycommunity engagement that will live beyond the experience of the global economic crisi

Education and Economic Growth: A Case Study of Australia

The purpose of this paper is to measure the contribution of education to growth in per capita real GDP in Australia over the period 1969-2003 using the growth accounting method. Also estimated is the contribution of total factor productivity to growth. Over the period, per capita real GDP in Australia increased by 1.9 percent per annum. Of this, about 31 percent was contributed by education. This finding has important implications for policy makers in Australia. For example, in order to promote economic growth in coming years, access to post compulsory education, particularly vocational education and training and higher education, for all Australians should be made easier and cheaper. This contradicts recent trends at the federal level towards increasing the student share of education costs.Growth Accounding, Education, Economic Growth

Are Estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life Exaggerated?

The magnitude of the value of a statistical life (VSL) is critical to the evaluation of many health and safety initiatives. To date, the large and rigorous VSL research literature has not explicitly accommodated publication selectivity bias (i.e., the reduced probability that insignificant or negative VSL values are reported). This study demonstrates that doing so is essential. For studies that employ hedonic wage equations to estimate VSL, correction for selection bias reduces the average value of a statistical life by seventy to eighty percent. Our meta-regression analysis also identifies several sources for the wide heterogeneity found among reported VSL estimates.Value of statistical life; meta-regression analysis; selectivity bias

A Participatory Teaching Strategy Developing a Timeline of the Global Financial Crisis

The rapid pace of change of ideas and events in economics places pressure on teachers of university economics to stay abreast of developments in their field and to reflect these developments appropriately in their classes. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was an excellent example of this phenomenon with a great deal of material written on this subject over a relatively short space of time. Under certain circumstances, one way of coping with such developments may be for teachers and students to acquire emerging knowledge and information jointly rather than sequentially. This paper describes a teaching strategy where students constructed a timeline of GFC-related events and contributed knowledge in the classroom context themselves rather than relying solely on the teacher to transmit this knowledge. The paper outlines the nature of the strategy and provides a qualitative evaluation indicating that it contributed to the enhancement of student learning

The Prognosis of Nephritis in Childhood With Reference to the Addis Urinary Sediment Count

1. The prognosis was found to differ in the three types of nephritis. The probable ultimate mortality rate was 24.3% in acute haemorrhagic nephritis, 65.3% in the nephrotic syndrome and 100% in the chronic interstitial group. 2. The age and sex of the patient did not affect the prognosis. 3. The longer and the greater the severity of the initial attack, the worse was the prognosis in both the acute nephritic and the nephrotic groups. 4. In acute nephritis, neither the preceding infection nor infectious complications affect the prognosis, nor is there any definite relationship between renal exacerbations and acute infections. In the nephrotic syndrome, infectious complications are the main cause of death, but in a few cases they may be followed by temporary or permanent relief or symptoms. 5. In acute nephritis, cases with slight or moderate oedema at onset had the best prognosis, but in the nephrotic syndrome, the greater the oedema the worse the prognosis. Also a persistently low serum protein or high blood cholesterol indicated a poor prognosis. 6. The non-protein nitrogen of the blood and the blood pressure readings were of no significance in the initial stage of acute nephritis but if either rose in the later stages of any of the three types of nephritis the prognosis was less favourable. 7, Transfusion of concentrated plasma did not give satisfactory results, but did cause disappearance of the oedema in 2 of the 5 cases of nephrotic syndrome treated. There was,however, no resultant improvement in the urinary findings. 8. By giving alkali, it is possible to prolong life in chronic nephritis by combatting the latent acidosis. Those cases with rickets may respond to large doses of vitamins A and 13 and calcium, 9. In acute nephritis, it was found that an average of 110 (a) days (16 weeks) was required for the Addis count to return to normal after the onset of the initial attack. It is suggested that children should be kept in bed or in hospital until the Addis count is normal. The Addis counts were normal in the recovered stage, but raised in the latent and terminal stages. The latent stage, in which the more usual tests were satisfactory, would have been overlooked but for the Addis count, (b )ln the nephrotic syndrome, the occurrence of haematuria was of poor prognosis. The Addis counts were normal in the recovered stage but were raised in 7 of the 8 cases in the latent stage. Six of these cases had had haematuria. In the active and terminal stages, the counts with one exception were raised for all elements although 2 of the 3 cases in the terminal stage had never had haematuria. (c) In chronic nephritis, the 5 eases tested (3 'dwarfs' + 2 'chronic nephritics with hypertension') had raised Addis counts for all elements. Therefore the probable cause of the dwarfism in these 3 cases was renal destruction, not hypoplasia, (10) In both acute nephritis and the nephrotic syndrome, the Addis count is of greater value than any other test in deciding if recovery is complete or if the latent stage exists. It will give evidence of renal damage when other tests show normal function. It is also a valuable confirmatory test in the late stages when evidence of renal failure can be be detected by other means

Viability of Healthcare Service Delivery Alternatives for the Australian Mining Sector

The changing and demanding nature of the mining workforce in rural and remote Australia brings unique challenges to the delivery of healthcare services. In an attempt to control costs whilst delivering cost effective and quality healthcare, new models of delivery must be considered. For a workforce that is fly-in/fly-out, the provision of healthcare is problematic given the lack of consistency in location. A cost-benefit framework is analysed comparing three models of service provision using travel to a major location, locum services and remote health monitoring. Ultimately, new models of care must be considered to address the issues of increasing workforce turnover, to cater for rising healthcare costs, and to improve the health of such communities