Following the Money 2011: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data

Grades states' progress in launching or enhancing transparency 2.0 Web sites that provide comprehensive, one-stop access to searchable and downloadable databases of government spending. Outlines benefits such as savings, challenges, and recommendations

Tax Shell Game: How Much Did Offshore Tax Havens Cost You in 2010?

Provides an overview of corporations' and individuals' use of offshore tax havens and its impact on government revenue and services. Makes policy recommendations including tightening rules for U.S. multinational corporations and revising tax treaties

Framing the Mother Tac : the racialised, sexualised and gendered politics of modern slavery in Australia

Centred on the slavery trial “Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut” heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the “Mother Tac” or the “mother of contract”, also called “mama tac” or “mae tac”—a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexplored figure has come to assume a disproportionate role in the “modern slavery” approach to human trafficking, with its emphasis on absolute victims and individual offenders. The harms suffered by Kanbut’s victims are put into context by referring to existing literature on women accused of trafficking; interviews with Thai migrant sex workers, including Kanbut’s primary victim, and with members from the Australian Federal Police Human Trafficking Unit; and ethnographic field notes. The article unveils how constructions of both victim and offender, as well as definitions of slavery, are racialised, gendered, and sexualised and rely on the victims’ subjective accounts of bounded exploitation. By documenting these and other limitations involved in a criminal justice approach, the authors reveal its shortfalls. For instance, while harsh sentences are meant as a deterrence to others, the complex and structural roots of migrant labour exploitation remain unaffected. This research finds that improved legal migration pathways, the decriminalisation of the sex industry, and improved access to information and support for migrant sex workers are key to reducing heavier forms of labour exploitation, including human trafficking, in the Australian sex industry

The Minimum Balance at Risk: A Proposal to Mitigate the Systemic Risks Posed by Money Market Funds

This paper introduces a proposal for money market fund (MMF) reform that could mitigate systemic risks arising from these funds by protecting shareholders, such as retail investors, who do not redeem quickly from distressed funds. Our proposal would require that a small fraction of each MMF investor's recent balances, called the minimum balance at risk (MBR), be demarcated to absorb losses if the fund is liquidated. Most regular transactions in the fund would be unaffected, but redemptions of the MBR would be delayed for thirty days. A key feature of the proposal is that large redemptions would subordinate a portion of an investor's MBR, creating a disincentive to redeem if the fund is likely to have losses. In normal times, when the risk of MMF losses is remote, subordination would have little effect on incentives. We use empirical evidence, including new data on MMF losses from the U.S. Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to calibrate an MBR rule that would reduce the vulnerability of MMFs to runs and protect investors who do not redeem quickly in crises

The Scarcity Value of Treasury Collateral: Repo Market Effects of Security-Specific Supply and Demand Factors

In the repo market, forward agreements are security-specific (i.e., there are no deliverable substitutes), which makes it an ideal place to measure the value of fluctuations in a security's available supply. In this study, we quantify the scarcity value of Treasury collateral by estimating the impact of security-specific demand and supply factors on the repo rates of all the outstanding U.S. Treasury securities. Our results indicate the existence of an economically and statistically significant scarcity premium, especially for shorter-term securities. The estimated scarcity effect is quite persistent, seems to be reflected in the Treasury market prices, and could in part explain the flow-effects of the Fed's asset purchase programs. More generally, it provides additional evidence in favor of the scarcity channel of quantitative easing. These findings also suggest that, through the same mechanism, the Fed's reverse repo operations could help alleviate potential shortages of high-quality collateral

The Occurrence of Antibodies to Components of the Natural Coagulation Inhibitor System, Protein Z and Protheombin in Normal Pregnancy

Abstract There are recent reports that indicate that antibodies to components of the natural coagulation inhibitor system and coagulation factors, such as FII, are associated with increased risk for thrombosis and adverse pregnancy outcomes (APO) in patients with autoimmune disease and the anticardiolipin syndrome. In view of the importance of the natural inhibitor system in regulating the prothrombotic process and particularly in the hypercoagulable milieu of pregnancy, we studied the occurrence of several of these antibodies in patients characterized with normal pregnancies (NP). We used 82 1st trimester (TRI), 64 2nd TRI, 78 3rd TRI, and 50 non-pregnant controls for this study. Our data are demonstrated in the tables below. The salient features; the PZ and PS IgM antibodies are greater than the non-pregnant controls throughout gestation but the PZ and PS IgG antibodies are greater than non-pregnant controls in the later phases of pregnancy. IgG and IgM antibodies to FII and PC are increased compared to non-pregnant controls throughout gestation. When the antibody levels are compared in NP in each trimester; PZ IgM increases in the 3rd trimester, PS IgG increase in each trimester and PS IgM in the first two trimesters. FII IgM increases in each trimester and IgG does not increase with gestation. PC IgM increases with each trimester and PC IgG remains unchanged. The prevalence of progressive increases in the antibody response is mainly IgM. This would tend to indicate more acute than chronic response and stimulation. These findings indicate that in NP an immune response is present in most pregnancies that can affect the hemostatic balance. Yet to be determined are the tipping points for pathological consequences. Table 1 1st trimester (OD) 2nd trimester (OD) 3rd trimester (OD) CTR (OD) CTR=non-pregnant control Anti-PZ IgG 0.26+/−0.42 0.21 +/−0.31 0.30+/−0.29 0.19+/−0.14 Anti-PZ IgM 0.36+/−0.22 0.21+/−0.11 0.39+/−0.20 0.07+/−0.17 Anti-PS IgG 0.29+/−0.35 0.45+/−0.25 0.44+/−0.31 0.27+/−0.20 Anti-PS IgM 0.48+/−0.38 0.66+/−0.42 0.61+/−0.36 0.26+/−0.15 Anti-FII IgG 0.92+/−0.53 0.86+/−0.57 0.98+/−0.65 0.44+/−0.41 Anti-FII IgM 0.92+/−0.51 0.612+/−0.42 0.77+/−0.44 0.26+/−0.31 Anti-PC IgG 0.96+/−0.61 0.99+/−0.78 0.91+/−0.57 0.51+/−0.32 Anti-PC IgM 1.01+/−0.43 0.90+/−0.29 0.87+/−0.41 0.54+/−0.27 Table 2 1st vs 2nd 1st vs 3rd 2nd vs 3rd CTR vs 1st CTR vs 2nd CTR vs 3rd NS=non significant Anti-PZ IgG NS NS NS NS NS p<0.05 Anti-PZ IgM NS NS p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-PS IgG P<0.05 P<0.05 NS NS p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-PS IgM p<0.05 p<0.05 NS p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-FII IgG NS NS NS p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-FII IgM p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-PC IgG NS NS NS p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 Anti-PC IgM p<0.05 p<0.05 NS p<0.05 p<0.05 p<0.0