The Doctrine of Prior Restraint

The concept of prior restraint, roughly speaking, deals with official restrictionsimposed upon speech or other forms of expression in advance of actual publication.Prior restraint is thus distinguished from subsequent punishment, which is a penaltyimposed after the communication has been made as a punishment for having made it.Again speaking generally, a system of prior restraint would prevent communicationfrom occurring at all; a system of subsequent punishment allows the communicationbut imposes a penalty after the event. Of course, the deterrent effect of a later penaltymay operate to prevent a communication from ever being made. Nevertheless, for avariety of reasons, the impact upon freedom of expression may be quite different,depending upon whether the system of control is designed to block publication inadvance or deter it by subsequent punishment

Pre-European fire regimes in Australian ecosystems

We use multiple lines of evidence, including palaeo-environmental, ecological, historical, anthropological and archaeological, to investigate pre-European fire regimes in Australia, with particular focus on the extent to which the use of fire by Aboriginal peoples since their colonisation of the continent at least 45,000 years ago has impacted on the Australian biota. The relative roles of people and climate (including past climate change) as agents driving fire regime are assessed for the major climate–vegetation regions of the continent. Both historical accounts and evidence from current land-use practices in some areas support the argument that Aboriginal peoples used fire as a land management tool. Evidence for pre-European fire regimes suggests that while large areas of savanna woodlands in northern Australia, and dry forests and woodlands in temperate southern Australia, were subjected to increased fire under Aboriginal land management; others were not. Areas where fire regime was controlled primarily by ‘natural’ climate-fuel relationships probably included those that were difficult to burn because they were too wet (e.g. rainforests), fuel levels were usually too low (e.g. desert and semi-arid rangelands), or resource availability was low and did not support other than transient human occupation (e.g. some shrublands). Scientific studies suggest that many fire-sensitive woody species would decline under more frequent burning, so that the use of a small patch size, frequent fire regime – such as may have existed over large parts of Australia in the pre-European (Aboriginal occupation) period – may have harmful biodiversity conservation outcomes if instituted without careful consideration of individual ecosystem and species requirements

"The Fallacy of the Revised Bretton Woods Hypothesis: Why TodayÕs International Financial System Is Unsustainable"

The stability of the international financial system is in doubt. Analysis of the system has focused mainly on the sustainability of financing the U.S. trade deficit and has failed to understand the microeconomics of transactions within the system. According to this brief by Thomas I. Palley, the international financial system is unsustainable for reasons of demand, not supply. He recommends a global system of managed exchange rates to replace the current system before it crashes, along with the U.S. economy. East Asian economies are pursuing export-led growth and running huge trade surpluses with the United States by actively pursuing policies aimed at maintaining undervalued exchange rates. Their governments continue to accumulate U.S. financial assets in order to support and stabilize the international financial system.While East Asian policymakers are correct in their belief that they can improve economic outcomes through exchange rate intervention, the system is undermining the structure of income and aggregate demand and eroding U.S. manufacturing capacity.

Endogenous Money: Implications for the Money Supply Process, Interest Rates, and Macroeconomics

Endogenous money represents a mainstay of Post Keynesian (PK) macroeconomics. Analytically, it provides a critical linkage between the financial and real sectors, with the link running predominantly from credit to money to economic activity. The important feature is credit is placed at the beginning of this sequence, which contrasts with conventional representations that place money first. The origins of PK endogenous money lie in opposition to monetarism. Whereas neo-Keynesian economics challenged monetarism by focusing on the optimality of money supply versus interest rate targets, PK theory challenged monetarism’s description of the money supply process. PK theory is itself divided between “horizontalist” and “structuralist” approaches to the money supply. Horizontalists believe the behavior of financial institutions is unconstrained by the availability of liquidity (reserves) provided by the central bank and the supply-price of finance to banks is fixed at a price set by the central bank. Structuralists believe liquidity pressures matter and the supply price of finance to banks can increase endogenously. Horizontalists can be further sub-divided into “strong” and “weak” positions. The strong position holds the bank loan supply schedule is horizontal and interest rates are unaffected by lending. The weak position holds that interest rates may rise with lending if borrower quality deteriorates. The PK debate has been useful in articulating the mechanics of the money supply process, but inadequate attention has been paid to the implications of endogenous money for interest rate determination, the business cycle, and economic growth.

Academic Freedom of the Faculty Member as Citizen

The faculty member in an institution of higher learning functions in two capacities.He is, first of all, a scholar

Financialization: What It Is and Why It Matters

Financialization is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. Financialization transforms the functioning of economic system at both the macro and micro levels. Its principal impacts are to (1) elevate the significance of the financial sector relative to the real sector; (2) transfer income from the real sector to the financial sector; and (3) increase income inequality and contribute to wage stagnation. There are reasons to believe that financialization may render the economy prone to risk of debt-deflation and prolonged recession. Financialization operates through three different conduits: changes in the structure and operation of financial markets; changes in the behavior of non-financial corporations, and changes in economic policy. Countering financialization calls for a multi-faceted agenda that (1) restores policy control over financial markets, (2) challenges the neo-liberal economic policy paradigm encouraged by financialization, (3) makes corporations responsive to interests of stakeholders other than just financial markets, and (4) reforms the political process so as to diminish the influence of corporations and wealthy elites.Financialization, neo-liberal policy, deregulation, debt, financial fragility

Rethinking the Economics of Capital Mobility and Capital Controls

This Working Paper reexamines the issue of international financial capital mobility, which has become today’s economic orthodoxy. The policy discussion is often framed in terms of the impossible trinity. That framing distorts discussion by representing capital mobility as having equal significance with sovereign monetary policy and control over exchange rates. It also distorts discussion by ignoring possibilities for coordinated monetary policy and exchange rates, and for managed capital flows. The case for capital mobility rests on neo-classical economic efficiency arguments and neo-liberal political arguments. The case against capital mobility is based on Keynesian macroeconomic inefficiency arguments, neo-Walrasian market failure arguments, and neo-Marxian arguments regarding distortion of the social structure of accumulation. Close examination shows the case for capital mobility to be extremely flimsy. That points to the ideological dimension behind today’s policy orthodoxy.capital mobility, capital controls, impossible trinity

"Globalization and the Changing Trade Debate: Suggestions for a New Agenda"

The failure of the Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations in July 2006 was the first major collapse of a multilateral trade round since World War II. Research Associate Thomas I. Palley sees the failure as an event that could mark the close of a 60-year era of trade policy largely centered on increasing market access and reducing tariffs, quotas, and subsidies. Doha’s demise represents an opportunity to challenge the intellectual dominance of the current WTO paradigm, to expose the failings of the neoliberal model of economic development, and to reposition the global trade debate.