Tag Archives: policymaker

New Study Finds Consumption Measures Poverty Better than Income

The U.S. Census Bureau should reconsider income-based poverty measures in favor of a consumption-based method, according to a new study that strives to more accurately identify the neediest Americans.

The report found that the official poverty rate and the Census Bureau’s new Supplemental Poverty Measure—both of which are income-based—do not gauge the extent of poverty as well as a method based on real purchasing ability. Bruce D. Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, co-authored the study with James X. Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame. (more…)

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Global Health: Students Build Wiki of Medical Devices Designed for Low-Income Countries

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— In parts of the world without reliable electricity, a pedal-powered nebulizer could provide life-saving asthma treatments. Small wax-filled sleeping bags could keep premature infants warm. A salad spinner centrifuge for blood samples could help clinicians diagnose anemia.

University of Michigan researchers have cataloged more than 100 such technologies in a new wiki of medical devices designed for resource-limited settings. The Global Health Medical Device Compendium, an open-source inventory, is hosted by the popular appropriate technology wiki Appropedia. It is expected to serve as an important communication vehicle for end users, non-governmental organizations, researchers and others to help advance such technologies. (more…)

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New Research Suggests Cap and Trade Programs Do Not Provide Sufficient Incentives for Energy Technology Innovation

Cap and trade programs to reduce emissions do not inherently provide incentives to induce the private sector to develop innovative technologies to address climate change, according to a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In fact, said author Margaret Taylor, a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who conducted the study while an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, the success of some cap and trade programs in achieving predetermined pollution reduction targets at low cost seems to have reduced incentives for research and development that could help develop more appropriate pollution control targets. Taylor is a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab. (more…)

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