The September 1985 earthquakes in Mexico resulted in impacts on the health and well-being of a population and thus provided an opportunity for gaining insights into the little-studied epidemiology of natural disasters. The intent of this research was to examine patterns of morbidity, health care utilization, and relocation trends in the disaster zone of Mexico City during a nine-month period following the earthquake and to provide direction for relief efforts in the aftermath of a similar catastrophe elsewhere Based on a multistage sampling plan, 504 households from twenty-eight randomly selected camps, or twenty-two percent of camp households, were surveyed eight months after the earthquake. Information at the individual level was gathered for 2,427 persons within the disaster zone at the time of the earthquake, or twenty percent of approximately 12,000 camp residents Although less than one percent of the study population was injured, the injured and non-injured differed significantly with respect to age and height of residence relative to ground level. A rate of 74.1 injuries per 1000 persons was determined among the 60+ age group while 5.3 per 1000 was observed in children 6-14 years. Results of logistic regression indicated that age was significant in predicting injury. The injured tended to have been positioned on ground level or on the third floor or higher of a structure. Trauma to the lower extremities was observed with high frequency Although fear accounted for most perceived illnesses at the time of the earthquake, medical care was sought instead for chest pains, high blood pressure, and respiratory conditions Local medical institutions provided emergency care for all cases for which attention was received. No mention was made of foreign medical relief groups While a destroyed dwelling prompted relocation of a household, choice of a temporary settlement was influenced significantly by solidarity of the pre-earthquake neighborhood During the relief period (two weeks-two months after the disaster), households moved most often and nearer the former residence when compared to other phases Results emphasized the need for a working disaster plan in urban areas and that aid be directed by neighborhood. Further research was proposed for disaster-specific epidemiologic methods, statistical generation of movement patterns, and post-disaster behavioral issues / acase@tulane.edu

Punitive Damages has been a very powerful instrument in many common law tradition countries. Although praised by some and attacked by others, it has had a beneficial effect on improving the safety, even the lives, of individuals. Punitive damage awards are intended to punish the most corrupt or careless behavior towards other human beings by disregarding others' safety, sometimes in order to save money rather than undertake proper preventive measures. The award of punitive damages also makes a statement as to what is and what is not an acceptable behavior in the interests of improving society When people in civil law countries engage in unacceptable behavior it may be desirable to impose a penalty both to deter that behavior and encourage correct behavior. Punitive damages awards could provide the legal mechanism for making citizens responsible for their behavior. Many of the same arguments that support the use of punitive damages in common law countries are also applicable in civil law countries despite the absence of a similar legal tradition. Currently in most civil law countries like Mexico penalties directed primarily at punishment and deterrence are not exacted for disregard for others' care. As a result citizens, particularly in the context of business decisions, may find it cheaper not to undertake proper protective measures that would decrease the likelihood of serious injury to other people The liability system of civil law countries, which is even more ancient than that of common law countries, would benefit from adopting some form of punitive damages. This dissertation proposes a Congressional Bill in the form of an Act that will allow consideration of factors relevant to punitive damages under Mexican law and to value human live and safety above profits. It also proposes changes in the Mexican Civil Code and other Mexican Laws, needed to conform to the new structure of punitive damages / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the provision of public beneficence during the Porfiriato using the Hospicio de Pobres, a home for poor and orphaned children, as a case study. Although Mexican historians have usually found the origins of public welfare services in the 1910 Revolution, the Porfirian state did attempt to improve the administration of beneficence. In the case of the Hospicio, the state built for it a modern facility which opened in 1905. This not only represented an improvement in living conditions for the children interned there, but also served as a very visible symbol of the desire of the Porfirian state to be modern It is argued that the Hospicio represented a sphere of interaction between the state and poor families in Mexico City. The use that poor families made of the Hospicio is as important as the elite view of the institution. Although some children living there were orphaned or abandoned, most had some family connection. Poor families used the services of the Hospicio as a tool to cope with their poverty and often interned their children only temporarily. Families particularly requested education for their children there, believing, as did the state, that this was the path out of poverty. Social and institutional history are not seen here as two distinct areas of study. The history of the poor is also the history of their dealings with the state, and the history of the state is also the history of its ideas about its poorest citizens / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation consists of three separate but related essays that examine particular issues relating to insurance markets. The first essay, found public hospital presence and its associated charity care to have a significant impact upon the insurance choices of workers. Independent of income level, access to a public hospital system increases the probability that a worker is uninsured. The magnitude of the effect does depend upon income, with a ten percentage point increase in percent public beds causing a 5.0 point increase in the uninsured amongst the poor while the same change actually decreases the uninsured by 0.1 points for the wealthiest workers. The same change in public hospital presence drives decreases in the supply of employer sponsored insurance ranging from 4.2 percentage points for the poor to 0.1 percentage points for the wealthiest workers. This study was unable to establish whether this decrease in the supply of ESI reflects a lower demand for employer sponsored plans or partially causes the higher uninsured rate by reducing access to group plans The second essay found workers' risk tolerances to have a significant impact upon their insurance choice decision. Risk characteristics affected both the worker's risk aversion and expectations of medical loss. The characteristics identified by a drunk driving indicator had significant effects upon risk aversion as income increased, and the characteristics identified by childhood smoking implied a lower demand for insurance at all income levels. The two risk indicators exhibited little overlap in their influences, and jointly they accounted for 16.6% of the total uninsured in the model The third essay examined the impact of managed care presence and its contracting with hospitals on community level hospital expenditures. For 1991--1997, managed care presence produced significantly lower total market hospital expenditures when measured as expenses per bed and expenses per adjusted admission. Supplemental models traced the sources of the expenditure savings through the local hospital systems with most savings being attributed to reduced staffing levels per bed and reduced prevalence of new medical technologies / acase@tulane.edu

Past research has clearly demonstrated that a high level of interorganizational coordination among human services agencies is extremely difficult to achieve and maintain and that the dynamics of interorganizational coordination and conflict are poorly understood. In the interest of better understanding these phenomena, this study attempted to identify measurable differences between networks of agencies that consistently coordinate well and others that consistently experience coordination problems. / The researcher used county level child protection networks as the study cases. Four networks were selected for comparison, two having a reputation for relatively well coordinated child protection services and two networks having a reputation for coordination problems. / The networks were compared based upon community demographics and workload factors, and upon network professional staff responses to survey questions. The survey sought to measure such factors as staff reported knowledge of other organizations, staff reported frequency of such activities as referral exchange, information exchange and joint meetings, as well as staff perceived quality of interprofessional communications, working relationships and services provided. / Using non-parametric, organizational level, descriptive indicators and network analysis comparisons, no patterns of differences between the "good" and "poor" coordination networks were found. Multiple Regression Correlation (MRC) analyses of individual level scores, for each survey question, did reveal a clear pattern of between group differences. These differences were interpreted as suggesting that individual professionals working in "good" coordination child protection networks tend to associate many of the independent variables more closely with the perceived quality of working relationships and perceived quality of services than do "poor" coordination network respondents. / These findings support the idea that long term patterns of "good" coordination are, to a great extent, the result of well established patterns of learned behavior that have been internalized by management and staff of the network. It was suggested that similar survey methods, once standardized, could potentially be used to evaluate the perceived quality of service coordination in other human services networks. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-11, Section: A, page: 4091. / Major Professor: Michael L. Frumkin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

One of the most important and controversial thinkers to explore the problems of aging and its diverse problems in our modern society, is Daniel Callahan. The central question raised by Callahan is whether the United States has sufficient resources to provide adequate care for the rapidly increasing aging population. Callahan proposes as a matter of government policy, that life extending medical care should be denied to elderly people over the age of seventy. He further argues that length of life is less important than the quality of life and that the government's responsibility is to help people live out their natural life span with no responsibility to actively extend life with any medical intervention or technological procedure. / This author's dissertation explores the current problems in health care, recent public policies which have been formulated in response to the issues involved in health care for the elderly. The issue of ethics and justice is argued, as well as discussion on the many alternative proposals to Callahan's chronological criterion for the allocation of health resources and rationing. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2502. / Director: Richard L. Rubenstein. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This dissertation seeks to understand patterns of systemic corruption that undermine the quality of democracy It presents a theoretical framework to explain the limits of executive accountability in weakly institutionalized presidential democracies, and explores the emergence, organization and transmission of corrupt practices under weak institutions. / Building upon a case study of Argentina, but also introducing the comparative dimension, this research examines how weak formal institutions and informal rules and practices may hinder executive accountability. The study also addresses how, under these conditions, actors sharing illicit goals are able to agree on informal mechanisms of corrupt exchange to circumvent formal norms, and aims to explain the institutionalization of political corruption. / The strength of checks on the executive is explained by focusing on legislators' willingness to defend their prerogatives against encroachment---a function of the actual workings of institutions. Legislators with low levels of institutional commitment do not effectively perform their oversight responsibilities nor invest in strengthening the legislature's capabilities. However, they use oversight mechanisms to informally bargain with the executive for particularistic benefits in exchange for not enforcing sanctions. The executive relies on both formal and informal resources to assert its authority and shrink accountability, neutralizing specialized oversight agencies and paying off legislators. While specialized oversight bodies may produce relevant information, this is hardly consequential if the linkages between different accountability agents do not work properly and legislators do not hold the executive accountable. / This research identifies the informal institutions that uphold the development of corrupt elite cartel networks, and the mechanisms that facilitate their reproduction by ensuring the impunity of corrupt officials. Actors that share illicit goals craft informal mechanisms that provide critical resources (such as iteration and reputation) to overcome the credible-commitment problems that weak institutions produce. The root causes of impunity arise from the enforcement of an informal rule that allows corruption, which shapes incentives facing accountability agents in charge of punishing corrupt practices through criminal sanctions. Among other means, corrupt practices are transmitted through episodes of rule-breaking and informal sanction. By punishing those who attempt to enforce the law, while protecting those who act within the informal rule, actors indicate the costs of noncompliance and discourage others from taking these actions. Building on this analysis, the dissertation advances recommendations for anticorruption policy reform in new democracies.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was enacted amid much controversy and was considered by many observers to mark a major change in the direction of U.S. bankruptcy policy. The dissertation uses the law's passage as a vehicle to develop an explicit model of the integrated role of Congress, issue networks, and the courts in making policy. Following Baumgartner and Jones (1993), Sabatier (1988), and others, the dissertation tracks bankruptcy policymaking and implementation over a seventy-five year period to demonstrate that policy is made in three distinct venues: Congress; a policy community made up of lawyers, bankruptcy judges, and members of academia; and the courts. Agenda setting theory explains why policymaking authority shifts between traditionally understood venues like Congress to non-traditional ones like the courts and the policy community. The community monopolized bankruptcy policymaking from the 1930s until the mid-1990s. Its hold on policymaking was broken when pro-creditor forces successfully characterized proposed reforms as fitting within a broader congressional agenda of retrenchment in social welfare policy in favor of laws promoting particular notions of personal responsibility. / The dissertation identifies the key role of bankruptcy judges in the three-part structure: they make policy not only in their traditional juridical capacities, but also as active entrepreneurs and advocates for legislative reforms as part of the policy community. The inclusion of courts in the model places the dissertation squarely in the emerging area of interbranch scholarship. Moreover, it extends existing studies in that field through its application of agenda setting and policy implementation scholarship. The model suggests the differing policy image increases the likelihood that the new laws will not be faithfully implemented. The dissertation includes a proposal for testing its hypothesis.

As the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the United States government remains undecided as to how it should proceed against those individuals believed to be responsible for the terrorist attacks. Both the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as Congress, have made policy announcements, promulgated Executive Orders and passed legislation that would allow for the prosecution of these individuals in either an Article III court (a criminal trial in federal district court) or before a military commission, or determine whether they should remain in military detention without trial for the duration of hostilities against al Qaeda and those entities responsible for 9/11. To this day, however, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot, remains in U.S. military custody, the future of legal proceedings against him no more certain than they were in 2003, the year he was first detained by U.S. forces. Similarly, should Osama bin Laden or another high level al Qaeda leader be captured in the near future, no policy currently exists that would definitively determine which, if any, judicial forum is most appropriate for the disposition of their case. The lack of a coherent analytical framework that allows for consistent forum determinations when assessing the merits of a case against an overseas terrorist suspect has led to inconsistent decision-making and has fostered a growing credibility gap in U.S. counterterrorism policy. By applying a set of proposed criteria to individual cases, it is possible for policymakers to assess whether an Article III prosecution should be pursued in a given case or whether application of the criteria mitigates toward an alternative disposition, such as military commission or preventive detention.

With panel data from 1981 to 2008 covering 105 countries, this paper investigates the impact of explicit deposit insurance generosity on financial systemic risk. The deposit insurance generosity is measured by the effective deposit coverage limit to GDP per capita ratio. While preliminary results from basic regressions suggest that the correlation between deposit coverage generosity and systemic risk might be U-shaped---an appropriate increase in coverage generosity can reduce systemic risk by building public confidence in the banking system, but may increase systemic risk when policies become too generous, because of moral hazard---this is yet to be confirmed by robust and more appropriate probit analysis. This preliminary finding suggests that the tipping points of effective coverage ratio where explicit deposit insurance systems start to increase systemic risk vary by country groups, and by whether time-fixed effect is controlled for. Further research is needed for confirming the correlation between coverage generosity and systemic risk.