CEMMAP: Measuring Living Standards and Wellbeing

Date: 11 Mar 2011 ( 10:00 - 17:00)
Organiser: Thomas Crossley
Venue: Institute for Fiscal Studies, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE
Rates: Free of charge
Programme: Download programme

A cemmap workshop sponsored by the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM)
This workshop will explore the measurement of living standards and wellbeing, particularly at and individual and household level. Speakers will report new findings on the value of traditional measures such as income and consumption, as well as describing new approaches such as subjective measures of welling being and the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM).

Confirmed speakers include:


•Mike Brewer, IFS
•Michael Daly, Trinity College Dublin
•Gunther Fink, Harvard
•Bruce Meyer, University of Chicago
•Steve Pudney, Essex
•Arthur van Soest, Tilburg

Please note: We do not have funds to assist with travel for this event. Lunch will be provided.

Population Association of America Conference

Papers and sessions from this event to take place in late March are up on the following website. There is an immense amount of interesting material up here including drafts of papers. One session that will be of interest to people looking at early conditions and later health is linked here. The usual caveat that conference papers represent earlier stage work than published peer review papers should apply but this is a provocative finding worth looking at in the context of the natural experiment literature.

The 1918 U.S. Influenza Pandemic as a Natural Experiment, Revisited

Ryan P. Brown, Duke University

Douglas Almond's use of the 1918 U.S. influenza pandemic as a natural experiment led to the seminal works on the subject of in utero health's impact on later life outcomes. The identification strength of his work, though, is driven by the inherent natural experiment supposition of random assignment. By using data from the 1920 and 1930 U.S. Censuses, this study investigates this keystone assumption and shows that the families of the "treatment" cohort were significantly less literate and economically prosperous than the families of the "control" group. Additionally, when proxies for childhood environment are added to Almond’s analyses, his findings are appreciably reduced in magnitude and significance. This research implies that failing to control for the first order effect of parent's education and wealth on a child's long-run outcomes, eliminates Almond's ability to use the 1918 U.S. influenza pandemic to make direct inferences regarding fetal health's impact on long-term wellbeing.

CEMMAP Event: Measuring Living Standards and WellBeing

Date: 11 Mar 2011 ( 10:00 - 17:00)

Organiser: Thomas Crossley

Venue: Institute for Fiscal Studies, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE

Rates: Free of charge

Sponsored by the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM)

This workshop will explore the measurement of living standards and wellbeing, particularly at and individual and household level. Speakers will report new findings on the value of traditional measures such as income and consumption, as well as describing new approaches such as subjective measures of welling being and the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM).

Confirmed speakers include:

Michael Daly, Trinity College Dublin

Gunther Fink, Harvard

Bruce Meyer, University of Chicago

Steve Pudney, Essex

Arthur van Soest, Tilburg

Please note:We do not have funds to assist with travel for this event. Lunch will be provided.

Psychology Health and Medicine Conference

Via Email from the Organisers

Dear Colleague,


We are delighted to announce our hosting of the 8th Annual Psychology, Health and Medicine One-Day Conference on 4th April 2011 here at National University of Ireland, Galway. Our keynote speakers this year include Prof. Derek Johnson from University of Aberdeen, Dr. Valerie Morrison from Bangor University and Dr. Catherine Woods from Dublin City University.


Our final date for submission of abstracts has been extended to Friday 11th February 2011. Abstract submission and conference registration details are available on our website, which can be accessed by clicking on the link below.


http://phm2011.wordpress.com


Please see the attached document for details on conference fees. If you have any queries regarding the conference, please do not hesitate to email us at


PHMconference2011@gmail.com


Please forward this announcement to interested colleagues.


Looking forward to welcoming you to Galway in April,


Molly Byrne and Jane Walsh,

On behalf of the Conference Organising Committee.

ESRI and Social Inclusion Conference on Financial Exclusion

Advance Notice for Conference:

Financial Exclusion and Over-indebtedness: Challenges and Policy Responses

Tuesday, 8th March, 2011
ESRI, Dublin



A chara,

The Social Inclusion Division along with the Economic and Social Research Institute, The Policy Institute at Trinity College and the Social Finance Foundation, are organising a conference on financial exclusion and over-indebtedness: challenges and policy responses.

The aims of the conference are to examine recent findings from national research on financial exclusion and over-indebtedness in Ireland and to examine policy responses to these issues based on European and national experience.

In particular the conference will present a new study by the Economic and Social Research Institute on the nature and extent of financial exclusion and over-indebtedness in Ireland, based on the CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions in 2008.

The conference will feature inputs from Irish and European experts and panel discussions with key stakeholders on the way forward. The opening address will be given by Pat Carey, TD, Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Further information on the conference, including a detailed programme and booking arrangements, will be circulated in the next few weeks.

Is mise le meas,


Deirdre Bodkin
Social Inclusion Division
Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs

Irish Economic Association Call for Papers

2011 Irish Economic Association Annual Conference - Call for Papers

Venue: Radisson Blu Hotel, Ennis Road, Limerick

Date: 14/04/2011 to 16/04/2011

The twenty-fifth annual conference of the Irish Economic Association will be held from 14th to 16th April 2011 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ennis Road, Limerick. The Association invites submissions of papers to be considered for inclusion in the conference programme.

Download the details of the submission procedure below. The deadline for submission is Friday 14th January 2011. Contact: john.sheehan@ucd.ie.

www.iea.ie.

Download 'Call for Papers' Details

ESRI Geary Lecture: Canice Prendergast

ESRI Geary Lecture: "Is Pay-For-Performance Effective?"
The second Geary Lecture of 2010 will be given by Professor Canice Prendergast, W. Allen Wallis Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Venue: ESRI, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2
Date: 25/11/2010
Time: 4 p.m.

For the last couple of decades, there has been a large body of work arguing for the widespread use of pay-for-performance as the appropriate means of aligning the interests of workers with those of their employers. This lecture outlines recent contributions to this body of work, and focuses on a number of general themes. First, the successes of pay-for-performance schemes are limited to a small class of agency settings that do not seem to generalise to other settings. Second, the literature has now begun to consider instruments other than pay as the most natural way to align interests. Finally, there iscontroversial literature in psychology that now challenges the basic assumptions of this strand of economic literature. The talk will review all these recent contributions, and likely directions for future research.

Canice Prendergast, who was a research assistant at the ESRI from 1983 to 1985, is now one of the world's foremost researchers on workplace incentives and their impact on productivity. He is currently the W. Allen Wallis Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. More information on Canice Prendergast.

The Geary lecture is organised each year by the ESRI and honours Dr R. C. Geary (1896 –1983), the first Director of the Institute. Click here for information on the ESRI Geary Lectures.
This is one of the special events being held during 2010 to mark the Institute's fiftieth birthday.

Booking
Attendance at the event is free but must be pre-booked. There are a limited number of places available and early booking is encouraged. To book a place, please send details of attendee's name, organisation and contact telephone number by email to admin@esri.ie. Details of ESRI's location are available at http://www.esri.ie/about_us/contact_details/ or telephone (01) 8632000.

Ends
The Economic and Social Research Institute
Whitaker Square,
Sir John Rogerson's Quay,
Dublin 2.
Telephone: +353 1 8632000;
Fax +353 1 8632100;
email: admin@esri.ie;
web site: www.esri.ie.

Economics and Medicine One-Day Conference: Reminder. TOMORROW!

The UCD Geary Institute in conjunction with the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science will hold an event on September 9th designed to discuss research at the interface of economics and medicine taking place within the university. The keynote speaker is Professor David Meltzer from the
University of Chicago. The venue is the UCD Geary Institute seminar room.

All are welcome.

The provisional schedule is below - the schedule, and any changes, will be available on the Institute web calendar at www.ucd.ie/geary

1100    Peter Carney (UCD) - "Health Insurance and Health"

1130    Sarah Gibney (UCD) - "Networks, Health and Ageing"

1200     Mark McGovern (UCD) - "Early Life Conditions and Health

1230     Eimear Crowe (St Vincents & UCD Geary Institute) - "Stress, Ageing
and Well-Being"

1300    Lunch

1345     David Meltzer (Chicago) - "Coordination, Switching Costs and the
Division of Labor in General Medicine."

1445     Padraic MacMathuna (Mater/UCD) - "Clinical Pathways for GI
Treatment - Some Initial Experiments."

1515    Coffee

1530    Kanika Kapur (UCD) - "Is Employer-Based Health Insurance a Barrier
to Entrepreneurship?"

1600    Michael Daly (TCD & UCD Geary Institute) - "Cortisol, Affect and
Psychological Distress"

1630     Eibhlin Hudson "Vignettes and Childhood Health"

David Meltzer Talk

On September 9th Geary Institute and the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science will cohost a one-day symposium on social science and medicine. Professor David Meltzer from the University of Chicago will speak at 2.30pm and there will be several UCD talks before and after. We will post details here next week and distribute to our mailing list. Please email geary@ucd.ie if you would like to attend. Professor Meltzer will speak about the economics of hospitalist doctors in the US (paper here ).

Networking Event

The Women's Organization of Special Education Professionals (WOSEP) is holding their semi-annual tea this Sunday. Details can be found on www.wosep.com.

WOSEP is an organization of professionals in the special education community in Southern California. Members include psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and other providers, as well as advocates and attorneys. WOSEP provides networking opportunities, including the semi-annual tea, for members to get to know each other in person, share information about their various specialties and practices, and socialize. WOSEP also provides a directory of resources available to the public on its website.

November's tea will be hosted by WOSEP member Pam Clark of the Help Group. Come out and join us for a great afternoon of socializing and networking!

Autism on 20/20 Tonight

Watch 20/20 tonight, and be inspired by Carly, and
by her family's determination to help her find her voice.

You can read more about Carly on at "Carly's Voice"

Reminder: IDEA Fairness Restoration Act

A reminder that today is a national call-in day for the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act, H.R., 2740.

Call your Congressional Representative to ask him or her to co-sponsor the Act and help level the playing field.Dial 202-224-3121 (TTY 202-225-1904) and ask for your Representative. You can also find direct dial numbers for your Representative, including local numbers (if long-distance is too costly), on your Representative’s web page at http://www.house.gov/.

How to Find Out Who Your Congressional Representative is: If you do not know who your Congressional Representative is, go to http://www.house.gov/ and put your zip code into the box in the upper left corner.The IDEA Fairness Restoration Act will override the Supreme Court's decision in Arlington Central School District v. Murphy (2006) and allow parents who prevail in due process or litigation to be reimbursed for their expert witness fees.

When prevailing parents cannot recover expert costs, the playing field is neither level nor fair, and children are denied a free appropriate public education and other fundamental IDEA rights.For more detailed information about the Act click here and to read the Act in its entirety click here.

IDEA Fairness Restoration Act

In 2006, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Arlington Central School District vs Murphy finding that parents who were prevailing parties in a due process hearing or subsequent litigation were barred from recovering expert witness fees. Around the same time period, the Supreme Court issued a decision in another case that clarified the burden of proof in special education disputes; a ruling that has subsequently placed that burden onto parents in almost all cases arising under the IDEA.

The Unfairness Problem

School Districts can spend tax dollars to employ and hire experts to provide testimony in due process hearings and litigation. School Districts use their resources to fund psychologists, specialists, technical experts, etc to provide testimony related to programs, placements, services, assessment findings, and a child's unique needs.

Most parents don't have the resources to access expert witnesses and bear that financial burden. Experts are necessary to be able to have a fair change at prevailing in a due process hearing and litigation! If the School District is putting on testimony by psychologists and specialists, and the parents are unable to, it will be extremely difficult for parents to meet their burden of proof.

This makes due process unfair and often not affordable. Advocates and Attorneys see this problem in real life on a daily basis. We see parents who are watching their child struggle and fail in a program that is not appropriate, with insufficient services, or without proper supports in the classroom. The school district has psychologists and specialists who are "backing" the program. Parents need access to experts who can testify about what services and programs are required to meet those students' unique needs. We see kids who are completely denied eligibility for services. Parents cannot possibly challenge that determination without an expert who can testify about the child's diagnosis and how it impacts their ability to access their education. We see kids who are on their way to expulsion, and school district "experts" who claim that their behavior was not related to their disability. Parents need the ability to utilize experts to testify as to how and why the behavior is a manifestation of the disability.

If the due process proceedings under the IDEA are not affordable, and therefore not accessible, then parents are denied their rights and children are ultimately denied a FAPE. The underlying IEP process and decision-making regarding a child's program becomes more and more unfair and one sided, because the parents' right and ability to challenge the IEP and the school district's decisions becomes meaningless.

The Solution?

The IDEA Fairness Restoration Act seeks to override the Supreme Court's ruling in Murphy, and thereby restore the ability of parents who prevail in due process or litigation to be reimbursed for expert witness fees incurred during the process.

The Act will level the playing field for parents, enabling them to have a fair chance in a meaningful process to seek a remedy when a child is denied FAPE by the school district.

For more information about the act, including the full text and a brochure, check out http://www.copaa.org/news/IFRA_intro_2009.html. Over 185 disability organizations support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act, which is a bipartisan bill. You can also read more about it at http://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/09/nl.0630.htm

What you can do

Call your congressperson and ask them to support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act. July 9th is the national call in day! You can call your representative and tell them why the Act is important, and why it needs to pass to ensure that parents have meaningful access to due process procedures.

Find out who your congressperson is and how to reach them directly at www.house.gov. You can also call the switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to your congressperson. Remember to ask for the Education Aide in order to speak to a person who is interested in this issue! Leave a message, and call back, if you need to!

Webinar Series for Parents, Parent-Attorneys and Advocates

COPAA is hosting a four part webinar series with Drs. Holden and Farrall to introduce participants to the stages of reading development, issues related to reading assessment and the principles of direct, systematic multisensory instruction. They will review how reading skills develop in typical learners with the struggle experienced by those with educational disabilities and dyslexia; and will discuss the role of Response to Intervention in designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions.

The sessions are as follows:

Part One: Learning to Read – Thursday, June 25, 2009, 2:00 -3:30 pm (Eastern)
Part Two: Reading to Learn – Thursday, July 9, 2009, 2:00 -3:30 pm (Eastern)
Part Three: Assessment – Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 2:00 -3:30 pm (Eastern)
Part Four: Direct, Systematic Multisensory Instruction – Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 2:00 -3:30 pm (Eastern)

For more information about cost and to register please go to http://www.copaa.org/training/webinars.html

Two Schools in Two Days

A2Z is often invited to open house events in Southern California to learn about and tour local non public schools. As these opportunities are made available to us, we will post to let you know about schools in your community and how they may be appropriate for your child.

Last week, I had the pleasure of touring two different schools in Los Angeles County: The Pacific Schools & Aviva High School

1. The HELP Group's Pacific Schools



Where: 15339 Saticoy Street, Van Nuys, California

What makes it unique: The Help Group's Pacific Schools are actually made up of 3 specialized programs: Pacific Ridge, Pacific Harbor and Project Six. In the Pacific Ridge and Pacific Harbor program, which are therapeutic day programs, the class size averages about 10 students with 2 adults. Various services, including family therapy, psychiatric services, counseling, speech and language services and Occupational Therapy are available on site. The Pacific Schools serve elementary, middle and high school aged students.

• Pacific Ridge is a day program serving children and adolescents with special needs in the areas of emotional, behavioral and neurological challenges.
  

• Pacific Harbor is for students who internalize their feelings, such as depression and anxiety, and may display mild behaviors. This program is also appropriate for students with emotional disturbances that require more intensive and comprehensive mental health services.
  

• Project Six is a residential treatment center for adolescents with emotional and behavioral challenges.
  

Is it appropriate for your child? The Pacific Schools may be appropriate for your child if he/she has emotional disabilities, behavioral disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, significant behavioral challenges or internalizing disorders. It provides a safe environment for students who were previously bullied at a typical school due to their differences, and who now show internal or external behaviors.

What I love about this school: The staff at the Pacific Schools place a strong emphasis on finding individualized incentives that are of interest to its students and using those things to help the student access his/her education. For instance, if your child is interested in playing instruments, sewing or guitar hero, these things would be made available as an incentive. For each program, there were "reward lounges" where students could play games, watch TV or use the computers. The importance of incorporating a child's interests into his/her program was a universal message across all three programs at the Pacific Schools. I believe that it was for this reason that the Pacific Schools had a personal touch where the personalities of the children were very evident.

2. Aviva High School




Where: 7120 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046

What makes it unique: Aviva High School is one of the few all girl, non public schools in Los Angeles County. Aviva also has a residential treatment program that has 42 students enrolled in the high school. Aviva provides a range of on-site clinical and educational services. Aviva also offers a mandatory 6 week summer school program designed to enrich and broaden the students' reading, writing, and math skills and prepare them to pass the California HIgh School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Aviva High School has a maximum enrollment of 84 students. The maximum student:teacher ratio in class is 6:1. Over 95% of its students go on to post secondary programs, including universities and junior college.

Is it appropriate for your child? Aviva High School is appropriate for girls in grades 7 through 12 who need special academic, emotional, or behavioral support to maximize their educational potential. If your daughter requires a dual enrollment program, then Aviva may be the appropriate placement for her.

What I loved about this school: It was very clear that the staff at Aviva were dedicated not only to its students, but were also dedicated to working on improving the bureaucratic system that can often be an impediment to special education students. The staff at Aviva have forged relationships with individuals in the LAUSD system that are in charge of making important decisions, and are working with them to try to evoke a change in the system. This passion was not only present at the administrative level of Aviva, but was also apparent through the teachers, aides, and even hallway monitors at the school.

Join A2Z tomorrow at the Autism Walk in Pasadena.

Come tomorrow morning to the Rose Bowl to participate in Autism Speaks Walk Now for Autism. Even if you can't participate in the walk, you can come check out the booths at the resource fair where there will be attorneys, service providers, therapists, school representatives and many opportunities to network with the special education community! There are also activities for the kids to participate in as well as food and live entertainment.

Also, don't forget to stop by A2Z's booth to say hello and pick up some goodies.

A Conversation with Advocates, Attorneys, and a school district board member

This morning, Elizabeth and I attended a breakfast and tour at Aviva High School, a non-public school here in the LA area. As part of the morning's activities, Aviva had invited Marlene Cantor, LAUSD board member, to be a guest speaker. The audience included advocates and attorneys who represent special needs kids. I can't speak for everyone, but I found Marlene's comments to be very insightful. The conversation focused on issues related to the relationship between parents and school districts. While this is a big, important conversation beyond the scope of an hour-long talk, I appreicated hearing Marlene's thoughts on these issues, which were exactly on point to what we all need to be doing to take steps in the right direction towards collaboration. So, I wanted to briefly summarize in our blog:

1) Bring the focus of the conversation back to the child! Too often we focus on the actions of the other side, how rights have been violated, or (on the part of the district) what has to be done to meet technical compliance. This isn't what it is about. The conversations related to special education programs have to be focused on the kid, not on adult feelings and issues. What Marlene said about this that I found particularly insightful was that we all have to remember to take responsibility for how we engage in these conversations, and we as adults need to focus not on our own feelings or opinions, but on the needs of the child and that child's best interest.

2) Come to the table with compassion and understanding! Parents of kids with disabilities obviously already have a lot to deal with emotionally. As Marlene put it, the last thing they need is to come to the school looking for help and get stuck in some "compliance driven process" rather than being able to focus on helping their child. Teachers and administrators need to remember this, and they need to approach conversations with parents with true compassion for what those parents are experiencing.

3) Relationships are the key! Marlene talked to us about the importance of starting out by building a relationship. This applies to parents, teachers, administrators, advocates and attorneys, to people on both sides of the issue. We all need to work on building relationships when possible, so that we can be collaborative when the situation calls for it, and effective in our advocacy when we need to be more zealous.

Overall, I enjoyed hearing a presentation from a very balanced viewpoint on the issue of special education. I think we can all recognize, no matter what "side" of this we are on, that the community as a whole, including advocates, attorneys and folks on the school district side, could be doing a lot better in terms of collaborating to meet the needs of these students.

These discussions were certainly thought-provoking to all of us there. You can look forward to future blog topics related to the issues of relationships between parents and school districts, as we believe there is a lot to discuss on that subject!

50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know

A quick note from Andrew Loh who's promoting the above competition ;)

theCICAK has launched its second annual writing competition with the theme 50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know in conjunction with Malaysia's 50th Merdeka Day.

Prizes worth RM 1,000 are up for grabs and the top 50 stories will be published into a book!

All one has to do is write about an unsung Malaysian hero between 12 and 29 years of age who has persevered against the odds to succeed or helped his community in unique ways that has not been previously highlighted. The story should not be more than 1000 words in English or Malay, and must be accompanied with a photograph of the hero.

People can choose anyone at all to be their heroes. Just as long as they tell us why he or she is one. Tell us about something heroic that the hero has done and justify it: theCICAK welcomes liberal interpretations of heroism and looks forward to reading he public's take on this competition's theme.

Judges include Jeff Ooi and Marina Mahathir.The submissions deadline is July 15th.

Check out the competition website for more details. These are what the Star and Tinkosong has to say about it.

HPAIR Conferences 2007

The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) invites you to participate in our annual summer student conference in Asia.

HPAIR is a partnership between the students and faculty of Harvard University, offering a sustained academic program and a forum of exchange to facilitate discussion of the most important economic, political, and social issues relevant to the Asia-Pacific region.

This year, the event will be held between August 17-20th in Beijing.

HPAIR's international conference has emerged as the largest annual Harvard event in Asia and the largest annual student conference in the Asia-Pacific region, attracting a wide variety of distinguished speakers and future leaders as Harvard's student outpost in Asia. Past speakers at our conferences include former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Singapore President S.R. Nathan, Secretary-General of ASEAN Ong Keng Yong, and former Japanese Finance Minister Heizo Takanaka.

Both delegates and papers are welcome! The theme will be Engaging Asia: Discourse and Dialogue. More details are available on their website. You can also make your application online before March 15th.

The Workshop Topics include:

• Economic Growth in Asia and its Effects on Society
• Comparative Notions of Leadership
• Understanding Security Issues in East Asia
• Inequality and Social Policy in Asia
• Asia's Information Society
• Popular Culture in Asia

In addition, HPAIR Academic Conference will offer delegates opportunities to participate in field trips, visits to our host schools, and gala dinner.

For those interested, there is also a Business Conference (as opposed to the Academic Conference above) which will be held on 24th-26th August in Hong Kong, co-hosted by the University of Hong Kong.

The HPAIR Business Conference now invites all university students to apply to participate as conference delegates. Graduate students, post-graduate students and professionals are also welcome to apply as a regular delegate.

More information is available on the business conference website. Similarly, applications need to be submitted before 15th March 2007.

For any inquiries about HPAIR, please feel free to email help@hpair.org. Or alternatively, contact Sriram Krishnan @ sriramkri (at) gmail.com.