Occasional Papers
Occasional Paper 84
The American Dream - Job Migration Into The United States
Thomas Cieslik, 2009
The United States remains an attractive destination for millons of migrants yearning for freedom and prosperity, especially from Mexiko. But illegal immigrants has stirred up controversy in both of the neighbour nations: the US and Mexico. The following essay outlines the contemporary debate over immigration in Mexico and the United States.
Occasional Paper 82
Migration matters - How Germany and the world can benefit from a free movement of people
Philippe Legrain, 2009
Immigration divides our globalising world like no other issue. No government would dream of trying to ban the movement of goods and services across borders. But even within the EU, for which the free movement of labour is supposedly a fundamental principle, restrictions still exist. For P. Legrain such controls are morally wrong, economically stupid and politically harmful.
Occasional Paper 78
Addressing Climate Change in the Context of Other Problems ? A Plea for Realism over Ideology
Indur M. Goklany, 2009
Some governmental leaders, scientists and media outlets have claimed that climate change is the world’s most important environmental problem. The World Health Organization indicate that a dozen other environmental, food and nutritional risk factors contribute more to global mortality and burden of disease than climate change.
Occasional Paper 56
Reform of the financial scheme in Germany: A never-ending story?
Thomas Lenk, 2009
Professor Thomas Lenk, Director of the Institute of Finance at the University of Leipzig, describes the origins, functioning and complexity of the financial equalisation scheme in the German states or Länder. He is of the opinion that the scheme has become increasingly unmanageable and complex over the years.
Occasional Paper 48
Freedom Properly Understood
Tom G. Palmer, 2008
Freedom is rightly considered to be the highest end of mankind. While many people agree on this, many people do not agree what freedom actually is. Quite often it is confused with the material goods that flow from it, such as wealth. health or knowledge. This often provides politicians with some justification for limitations of freedom in the name of these goods. Tom Palmer (Cato Institute, Washington) in his essay tries to clarify the discussion about what freedom actually is.
Occasional Paper 47
Civil Society? NGOism at Work
Temba A. Nolutshungu, 2008
Temba Nolutshungu criticizes NGOs in the ?statist camp?. They are a mostly living with a bifurcated view to the world ? villains on one side, victims on the other. As they permanently lobby for increased state intervention in their particular area, they hardly deserve the label ?NGO?. In a further step he characterizes the approach of classical liberal NGOs, who believe in taking personal responsibility for one?s own destiny.
Occasional Paper 45
Human Rights in Danger? Myths and Realities in the UN
Doug Bandow, 2008
On the whole, the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations 60 years ago offers a positive vision for humanity. Doug Bandow gives a disillusioned description of today?s human rights engagement of the UN, which he regards a lost opportunity and failure. Should democratic states consider investing the bulk of their current UN contributions in a new organization, open only to liberal democratic nations?
Occasional Paper 44
SR: CAPITALISM AT ITS BEST OR AN ANTI-CAPITALIST MENTALITY?
Parth J. Shah, 2008
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely accepted as a high moral achievement in modern market society. Self-interest and morality are still seen as opposites. Shah disapproves special ethics for business men: ?What we need is not corporate social responsibility but individual self-responsibility.? Not special ethics for social groups are required: ?Business morality is simply personal morality. No more and no less.?
Occasional Paper 43
Soft Power and International Rule-making
Frank Vibert, 2008
In international rule-making there is a mix of hard and soft techniques. In his paper Frank Vibert focuses particularly on soft power in the sense of making international rules of behaviour as a way of avoiding the use of coercive means also as economic sanctions and the use of force.
Occasional Paper 41
The Crisis of the WTO
Wolf-Dieter Zumpfort, 2008
The paper begins with a short overview of world trade after World War II, followed by a discussion of the current situation. WTO with its 151 member countries today is the legal backbone of world trade. The ongoing round of negotiations has come to a standoff. A failure would nullify all that has been achieved so far. If there is no outcome, what is at stake for world trade - and e.g. for the developing countries?
Occasional Paper 39
Early Childhood Education in Finland
Liisa Heinämäki, 2008
In this paper Early Childhood Education in Finland is presented by three main aspects: 1. Finnish Social policy as a frame for Early Years Education, 2. Arranging Services: systems and forms, and 3. Early Years Education: Principles and Guiding. Early Childhood Education and Care includes Caring, Educating and Teaching. ECEC is educational interaction taking place in young children's different living environments, aimed at promoting their balanced growth, development and learning.
Occasional Paper 38
The Impact of Tax and Benefits on Family Structure
Patricia Morgan, 2008
Are we a social species? Not if UK household trends are anything to go by ? these just suggest increasing fragmentation or atomisation. As strongly deterrent tax and benefit structure and messy marital laws mean that less and less people will get married, the percentage of all children born to unwed mothers will go on rising and, in the ongoing contest between two reproductive strategies, the direction of the social dynamic is towards fewer conjugal families and more woman-state-child families.
Occasional Paper 37
Quality, Quantity and Type of Child Care: Effects on Child Development in the USA
Jay Belsky, 2008
This paper summarises major findings emerging from the largest and most systematic investigation of the developmental effects of nonmaternal child care on children?s development ever conducted in USA, the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (SECC).
Occasional Paper 36
Free Markets and Peace ? An International Overview
Erik Gartzke, 2007
Generating peace obviously is an important condition of allowing market mechanisms, limiting the ambit of government and of integrating nations through the network of voluntary exchanges.
Occasional Paper 33
Devolution as a Guarantor of Peace
Leon Louw, 2007
The term "devolution" does mean, that power is passed down to regions, districts, local governments, communities, etc. We know from experience that devolution does further liberty, peace, prosperity and is in harmony with principles of democracy.
Occasional Paper 20
Liberty: The best Remedy against Poverty
Otto Graf Lambsdorff, reprint 2005
Opponents of the free market often argue, that freedom was good for the rich, but bad for the poor. Otto Graf Lambsdorff (former chairman of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung) argues that ? on the contrary ? the market economy was and is the only path to economic development for the poor.
Occasional Paper 19
The Social Dimension of Liberal Policy
Hubertus Müller-Groeling, reprint 2005
Liberal policy has per se an important social dimension?, says Prof Müller-Groehling in his new paper. ?It is based on a model of society which is intrinsically social, and safeguards the freedom of the individual to fulfil his life plan in the civil society,? says Professor Hubertus Mueller-Groeling, a member of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation?s board and former vice-president of the Institute for World Economics.
