A Structural Solution to Roaming in Europe

This paper suggests that international roaming markets suffer from structural flaws in the way that roaming agreements are established in Europe. The initial roaming interventions by the European Commission in 2007 have been very welfare enhancing and the transfer of producer surplus to consumers has brought significant benefits to end users. Nevertheless, there are clear opportunity costs of maintaining and/or extending the current roaming Regulation. The price for wholesale roaming services in a given country is driven principally by the amount of traffic that an operator is willing to send back to the country requesting a price offer and not on the basis of the roaming services requested. The paper suggests that by breaking the link between the prices offered in one country and the volume of returned traffic will enable the wholesale market for international roaming to operate competitively. It is further suggested that retail price regulation is unwarranted when the wholesale market can operate competitively irrespective of the issue of the retail elasticity of demand for these services. Preliminary, suggestions are put forward as to how policy makers could transition from the current regime to a future market based regime by putting a number of required enablers in place.Roaming regulation, mobile telephony, European single market

Factor Utilisation and Productivity Estimates for the United Kingdom

This paper derives series for capital utilisation, labour effort and total factor productivity from a DGE model with variable utilisation and labour adjustment costs. Capital utilisation tracks survey-based measures closely, while movements in total hours worked drive our labour effort series. TFP is less cyclical than the traditional Solow residual, though a weighted average of capital utilisation and labour effort - aggregate factor utilisation - and the Solow residual are not closely related. Rather, aggregate factor utilisation is correlated with detrended labour productivity, providing more evidence that differences in average and marginal labour productivity may be linked to factor hoarding.

Teaching and Evaluation/Assessment Requirements for LGBTQI2S+ Health and Wellness: A Call to Include LGBTQI2S+ Content in Canadian English Baccalaureate Nursing Curricula / Exigences en matière d’enseignement et d’évaluation pour la santé et le bien-être des personnes LGBTQI2S+: un appel pour inclure du contenu dans les programmes de baccalauréat en sciences infirmières de langue anglaise au Canada

Focusing on sexuality and gender identity health and wellness information in Canadian English language baccalaureate nursing curricula and policy, the data for this study were collected from a small, but representative sample of nursing school leadership in 2013. Surveys were returned from 17 (22.4%) institutions across Canada, and scaffolded against 52 provincial and national professional curricula/ entry to practice policy documents. This research shows that Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex Two-Spirit and Ally (LGBTQI2S+) content in Canadian baccalaureate nursing curricula are nominal, insufficient, and unregulated at best. In general, respondents expressed concern about their ability to teach in the area of sexuality and gender diversity, and about the availability of evidence-based up-to-date teaching resources. More specifically, gender identity/transgender health and wellness issues were overlooked in the majority of institutions despite increasingly explicit reference to such content in curricular policy. The purpose of this research was to investigate the structural embeddedness of LGBTQI2S+ health and wellness information in Canadian English BN curricula. Focusing on conceptualizations and transmission of information in curricula and related policy, the researcher surveyed Canadian nursing school leaders to identify if, how, and where sexuality and gender diversity (specific LGBTQI2S+ health and wellness information) existed in their institution’s curriculum. The findings also reported on the acknowledgement of LGBTQI2S content in Canadian curricula policy used to prepare nurses for entry to practice. Last and finally, (outside of the scope of this journal article) the research developed a list of sexuality and gender identity health and wellness issues, as well as LGBTQI2S+ curricula and policy resources through an annotated bibliography (See: Shortall, 2017) Résumé Centrées sur la santé et le bien-être liés à la sexualité et à l’identité de genre dans les politiques et les programmes de baccalauréat en sciences infirmières offerts en anglais au Canada, les données de cette étude ont été recueillies en 2013 auprès d’un échantillon restreint, mais représentatif, de directions d’écoles de sciences infirmières. Les formulaires, qui ont été retournés par 17 établissements canadiens (soit 22,4 %), ont été étayés par 52 documents de politiques provinciales et nationales quant aux programmes d’études donnant accès à la pratique professionnelle. La recherche indique que le contenu des programmes de baccalauréat en sciences infirmières au Canada qui prend en considération ou qui porte sur les personnes lesbiennes, gaies, bisexuelles, transgenres, queer, inter-sexes, bi-spirituelles et alliées (LGBTQI2S+) est négligeable, incomplet et non réglementé. En général, les répondantes ont exprimé des préoccupations quant à leur capacité à enseigner la sexualité et la diversité de genre, mais aussi concernant la disponibilité de résultats de récentes recherches comme ressources pédagogiques. Plus précisément, les questions de santé et de bien-être des personnes transgenres ont été négligées dans la plupart des établissements malgré des références de plus en plus explicites dans les politiques sur les programmes de formation. Le but de cette recherche était d’examiner l’intégration structurelle de l’information sur la santé et le bien-être de la communauté LGBTQI2S+ dans les programmes de baccalauréat en sciences infirmières offerts en langue anglaise au Canada. En se centrant sur les conceptualisations et la transmission d’information dans ces programmes d’études et les politiques connexes, un sondage a été mené auprès de directrices d’écoles de sciences infirmières pour évaluer si la sexualité et la diversité de genre (informations particulières à la santé et au bien-être des personnes LGBTQI2S+) étaient abordées au sein du programme de leur établissement et de quelle manière. Les résultats ont également examiné les politiques portant sur les programmes d’études canadiens qui préparent les infirmières en vue d’accéder à la pratique. Enfin, la recherche (en dehors du cadre de cet article) a permis de dresser une liste de questions de santé et de bien-être en lien avec la sexualité et l’identité de genre, ainsi que des ressources portant sur les politiques et les programmes d’études qui incluent des contenus sur les personnes LGBTQI2S+ au moyen d’une bibliographie commentée (voir Shortall 2017)

Human Rights and Moral Reasoning: A comparative investigation by way of three theorists and their respective traditions of enquiry: John Finnis, Ronald Dworkin and Jürgen Habermas

This study is a response to the observation of the critical importance of human rights in the ethical discourse of the public sphere. Yet despite the broad consensus, there exists a plurality of approaches to their exposition and justification; each bound to a particular way of moral reasoning. A thorough consideration of rights in moral theology requires that such models be taken seriously. To this end, it presents a comparative investigation of three theorists, each representative of a different tradition of enquiry: namely, John Finnis and the Natural Law tradition, Ronald Dworkin and the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas and the Critical Tradition. It unfolds in four stages (guided by the methodological categories of Bernard Lonergan). The first part, titled «History», maps the central impulses, texts and values that help shape each tradition of enquiry. The second part, «Interpretation», provides a detailed exposition of each of the central theorists. The third part, «Dialectic», embarks on a comparative study that outlines points of convergence and paths of divergence; leading to a final judgement in favour of the Natural Law tradition of enquiry. The final part, «Foundation», considers the theological reasons commonly proposed for supporting human rights in light of the previous study

Book Review: Christian Ethics - Theology and the Boundary Discourse of Human Rights. By Ethna Regan. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010. Pp. 243. Price: £31.25 (pbk). ISBN 978-1-58901-642-2

Ethna Regan concludes this exploration of a theological engagement with human rights by noting the observation of George Newlands that theologians have exerted far less energy on the human rights culture than those of other disciplines (Christ and Human Rights: The Transformative Engagement, p. 177, n. 5). Motivated by her own personal experience, particularly with children on the streets of Port of Spain, Trinidad, and rooted in critical academic research, the previous 222 pages successfully attempt to respond to this implicit challenge

Female Farming Systems

Female farming systems draws attention to women\u27s (re)productive roles in agriculture, with particular attention to questions of power, equity, and empowerment. Female farming systems as an organizing concept highlights what was a surprisingly neglected field of study until the 1970s and provides insights into the gendered nature of agriculture. In the past and the present the term “farmer” presumes a male identity. Globally, women have often been marginalized from farming by denying them access to the material resources needed for success such as land, labor, and capital. Due to a variety of reasons there is a feminization of agriculture underway, and therefore, it remains important to focus on questions of equity and empowerment for women engaged in agriculture. Although originally solely focused on women in low-income countries, female farming systems is now used to think about the varied activities of female food producers in both low- and high-income countries

The Quality of their Education: School Leavers’ Views of Educational Objectives and Outcomes. ESRI General Research Series Paper No. 153, October 1991

Modern educational systems have very important and complex objectives. Socialisation into the highly complicated cultural, and ever evolviilg "technical-rational", characteristics of the economic, social and political arrangements of their societies are amongst the most important objectives. But individual and personal development, preparation for work and aduh life, and the classification and certification of individuals’ attainments are ahnost equally important. This study investigates the success of the Irish educational system in achieving some of its more important stated objectives, as measured b)’ school leavers’ assessments of the effectiveness of their own education