Search

In 2015, the FCC issued its most sweeping order protecting net neutrality. Fast forward to today’s environment in which the FCC rolled back most net neutrality protections for consumers and producers of content on the Internet. The essence of such deregulation is that Internet service providers can discriminate among Internet users, allowing prioritization (for a price) in the transmission of their data. In this paper, we address different “discrimination” policies (regulatory regimes) to determine how they could affect nonprofits. We expect this research to inform nonprofits, policymakers, and consumers about technology and media policy for nonprofit organizations in the future.

Our research examines the effect of combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on casualties. We use restricted data from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and Social Security Administration (SSA) to construct a panel of all U.S. Active Duty service members having served at some point during the years 2001-2012. Casualties disproportionately occur at higher rates among (i) young, white, males (ii) enlisted personnel (iii) less educated personnel (iv) and those in combat job types. Our estimates indicate that overall U.S. military personnel who deployed in an individual year to Iraq or Afghanistan had a 48 per 100,000 higher probability of death than non-deployed military personnel who remained stateside. The increased fatal injury risk of deployed U.S. military personnel is 15 times higher than the national average civilian workplace fatality rate, but roughly equal to the fatal injury risk faced in some of the most dangerous civilian occupations. Our estimates suggest a compensating wage differential equal to $808 per month would be appropriate, in comparison to the current status quo of $225 per month in danger pay (and additional tax benefits) provided to U.S. military personnel deployed into combat zones. The additional compensation should also be adjusted by service or job type.

In 2015, the FCC issued its most sweeping order protecting net neutrality. Fast forward to today’s environment in which the FCC rolled back most net neutrality protections for consumers and producers of content on the Internet. The essence of such deregulation is that Internet service providers can discriminate among Internet users, allowing prioritization (for a price) in the transmission of their data. In this paper, we address different “discrimination” policies (regulatory regimes) to determine how they could affect nonprofits. We expect this research to inform nonprofits, policymakers, and consumers about technology and media policy for nonprofit organizations in the future.

This paper offers a first view on the potential economic outcomes for American women serving along-side men in combat roles. Specifically, this paper examines the impact of deployment and exposure to intense combat for women who served in the most high-risk occupations open to them in Iraq and Afghanistan on their subsequent use of GI bill benefits for higher education. It also compares these women to men who served in the same capacities and women who served in lower risk occupations. Women in general, and in these occupations in particular, were more likely than their male counterparts to use the GI bill. Following deployment, this paper presents robust evidence that women in all capacities, and men, were more likely to use their GI bill benefits. Moreover, exposure to intense combat, which was far more likely to impact these women than other women, detracted from their propensity to use the GI bill. This negative impact on pursuit of higher education was similar for both men and women. Taken together, this paper provides evidence that deployment may benefit the young men and women alike who serve in the U.S. military, and that both suffer together when faced with exposure to intense fighting.

Exploiting a database of administrative records for 300,000 members of the US Armed Forces, we find evidence of severe bias in the selection of personnel deployed to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of most concern, we find that African American were far less likely than other service members to have been deployed to serve in combat zones, and were less likely to face intense combat if deployed.

This paper examines the impact of civil war on military expenditure. We employ two measures of military expenditure: the share of military expenditure in general government expenditure and the logarithm of military expenditures. We would reasonably expect a priori that military expenditure as a share of general government expenditure increases during a civil war and that such increases would taper off over the duration of a civil war. We also explore whether the termination of a civil war induces a decline in the share of military expenditure as a share of the general government expenditure in the short-run. We find evidence the of share of military expenditure increases during a civil war and falls in the year succeeding the end of a civil war, and, in particular, if a war ends in a peace treaty. The level of military expenditures, however, rises during civil wars and does not appear to decline in the short-term after the end of a civil war.

A great deal has been written about the various socio-political, economic, and cultural reasons that information and communications technologies (ICTs) fail to achieve the potential they represent. Far less attention has been paid to the technology itself, and the role that the hardware plays in the success or failure of ICT4D. Along these lines, we find a disconnect between much of the scholarly ICT4D research and many of the needs and concerns of practitioners and intended beneficiaries. Using interviews and surveys, this article asks ICT4D practitioners and end-users about the technology and hardware needs and challenges they face in the field. These practitioners consistently suggest that electricity is the most important hardware-related concern, followed closely by cost, robustness/ruggedness, and ease of maintenance/repair. We argue for the inclusion of hardware and technology considerations in the planning and implementation of ICT4D projects. Failure to address these concerns may account for the underperformance of many technologies in the development context.

This article uses transaction costs to predict the probability of incurring a cost breach in a major defense acquisition program (MDAP). As transaction costs are not explicitly measured for MDAPs, the authors use estimates of systems engineering and program management (SE/PM) costs as a share of overall program costs as a proxy for transaction costs. Using survival analysis, a new approach to predicting cost breaches, they also found that an increased share of SE/PM costs in initial program estimates can help predict future cost breaches.

Over 2.5 million Americans served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this short article, we consider the impact of these experiences on their future welfare. Specifically, we ask if those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq are more or less likely to exploit their GI Bill benefits in order to pursue higher education than service members who did not directly participate in these conflicts. We exploit a comprehensive administrative dataset that the US Armed Forces’ Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) provided to us. We find across models that deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq significantly increases the likelihood that veterans will take advantage of their educational benefits, but that exposure to violent combat significantly decreases it.

This article examines the impact of civil war on democratization, particu- larly focusing on whether civil war provides an opportunity for institu- tional reform. We investigate the impact of war termination in general, along with prolonged violence, rebel victory and international interven- tion on democratization. Using an unbalanced panel data set of 96 coun- tries covering a 34-year period, our analysis suggests that civil war lowers democratization in the succeeding period. Our findings also suggest that United Nations intervention increases democratization, as do wars ending in stalemates. However, wars ending in rebel victories seem to reduce democratization. These findings appear robust to conditioning, different instrument sets, modelling techniques and the measurement of democracy.

This paper examines the impact of civil war on democratization, particularly focussing on whether civil war provides an opportunity for institutional reform. We investigate the impact of war termination in general, along with prolonged violence, rebel victory, and international intervention on democratization. Using an unbalanced panel data set of 96 countries covering a 34-year period, our analysis suggests that civil war lowers democratization in the succeeding period. Our findings also suggest that United Nations intervention increases democratization, as do wars ending in stalemates. However, wars ending in rebel victories seem to reduce democratization. These findings appear robust to conditioning, different instrument sets, modelling techniques, and the measurement of democracy.

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that access to electronic payments may reduce crime. Our results suggest that there is a negative and significant statistical relationship between access to electronic payments and the incidence of economic crimes such as robbery and burglary, while electronic transactions do little to reduce the incidence of non-economic crimes such as homicide and rape. This paper provides evidence that policies and technol- ogies that enable the proliferation of cashless transactions have the desired impact of deterring crime.

This paper examines the impact of civil war on democracy. Drawing from the literature on war and democracy, we investigate the impact of prolonged violence, war termination, rebel victory, and international intervention on democratization. Using an unbalanced panel data set of 96 countries covering a 34-year period, our analysis suggests that civil war lowers democratization in the succeeding period. Our findings suggest that United Nations intervention increases democratization, as do wars ending in stalemates. However, wars ending in rebel victories seem to reduce democracy. These findings appear robust to conditioning, different instrument sets, and the measurement of democracy.

The recent global transition to a more diffuse distribution of economic power points to a shift in the balance of global growth from rich to low- and middle- income economies. Colombia may be a prime example as its recent rapid per capita income growth of 10.2% on average since 1999 points to the potential for Colombia's convergence to the ranks of rich countries. However, Colombia's economic growth has been constrained by over 40 years of a costly and ineffective drug war policy that has failed. The illicit activity of drug production and trafficking grosses approximately $10-$20 billion a year; it does not enter into the GDP accounting. In addition, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has stifled Colombia's drive towards economic prosperity. Barring the social and political impasse, the economy would flourish.