Abstract
Mobile phones have been rapidly and enthusiastically adopted in rural and even non-electrified regions in Uganda. This trend brings with it new paradigms of access and use as phones have quickly become incorporated into the social dynamics of village life. In this talk I will consider the diverse practices of mobile phone sharing. By sharing I mean granting access or redistributing a privately-owned good without direct financial compensation. Sharing as a social practice is undertheorized but can be better understood drawing from literatures on gifting, common property, moral economy, reciprocity, and other intimate forms of exchange. In this talk I will discuss some of the implications of sharing configurations for equality in access to technology in this region. In rural Uganda, efforts at social policing and managing social obligations were mediated and concretized by mobile phones.  Patterns of phone sharing led to preferential access for needy groups (such as those in ill health) while systematically and disproportionately excluding others (women in particular). I propose a framework that takes into account the distinct roles an individual may have in relation to the phone and the benefits that accrue asymmetrically to each role. This framework may be useful for revising survey design work on technology adoption and access to suit research in a broader diversity of settings beyond the Euro-American context.

Jenna Burrell is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley. She completed her PhD in 2007 in the department of Sociology at the London School of Economics carrying out thesis research on Internet cafe use in Accra, Ghana. Before pursuing her PhD she was an Application Concept Developer in the People and Practices Research Group at Intel Corporation. Her interests span many research topics including theories of materiality, user agency, transnationalism, post-colonial relations, digital representation, and especially the appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by individuals and social groups on the African continent.

The Republic of the Philippines began on the path to universal coverage with the passage of the National Health Insurance Act of 1995 (Republic Act 7875) which established the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) . Building on the Philippine Medicare program which began in 1971, PhilHealth has expanded coverage to more than 80% of the population with basic benefits, but accounts for only 10% of total health financing—wide population coverage with thin public benefits. An extensive system of private insurance provides additional benefits for high-income Filipino households. While the Philippines is pursuing a public insurance approach with private add-ons, Hawaii has mandated private employment-based coverage through the Pre-paid Health Care Act of 1974 and operates under a Congressionally granted ERISA exemption as well as an exemption from the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Combining the employer mandate with generous Medicaid and SCHIP programs, Hawaii has achieved a coverage rate exceeding 90% of the resident population with extensive benefit packages. The presenter will provide an overview of the two systems and present original research on the labor market effects and public insurance effects of the Hawaii system.

How will population aging impact the economies and social protection systems of Japan, South Korea, China, and India? This colloquium showcases research addressing that question by contributors to a new Shorenstein APARC book, Aging Asia, co-edited by Karen Eggleston and Shripad Tuljapurkar. Dr. Bloom discusses how aging of the baby boom generation, declines in fertility rates, and an increase in life expectancy imply several changes for the economies of the region. Notwithstanding the potential challenges, Bloom argues that population aging may have less of a negative effect on economic growth than some have predicted. Bloom will also discuss the longitudinal aging study in India.

David Bloom is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at Harvard University, Chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Director of Harvard University’s Program on the Global Demography of Aging (funded by the National Institute of Aging). He is Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he serves as a member of three research programs: Labor Studies, Aging, and Health Economics. He co-chairs the Public Policy Committee of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Bloom received a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University in 1976, an M.A. in Economics from Princeton University in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Economics and Demography from Princeton University in 1981.

The explosion of mobile phones into a region that, until recently, was nearly devoid of telecommunications infrastructure provides a valuable opportunity to explore the potential effects of information and communication technology on various economic

and social outcomes. This article focuses specifically on the potential influence that mobile phones will exert on corruption in Africa. Two distinct empirical analyses test the hypothesis that mobile phones will reduce corruption in Africa, as a result of decentralizing information and communication and thereby diminishing the opportunities available to engage in corruption as well as increasing the potential of detection and punishment. The results of a fixed effects regression of panel data at the country level reveal a significant negative correlation between a country's degree of mobile phone penetration and that country's level of perceived corruption. In addition to this, a multivariate regression of survey data reveals that the degree of mobile phone signal coverage across 13 Namibian provinces is significantly associated with reduced perceptions of corruption at the individual level.

Catie Snow Bailard received her doctorate in political science from UCLA, before joining the faculty of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University in 2009. She graduated with concentrations in American Politics, Formal and Quantitative Methods, and International Relations. Throughout Catie's academic career, her research agenda has primarily focused on the intersection of telecommunications and politics. This fascination with the effect of mass media on political outcomes began in college as a major in UCLA's Communication Studies Department, a top-ranked undergraduate department. It was this experience that inspired Catie's decision to pursue a doctoral degree in political science at UCLA.  

 Studying under esteemed scholars in the field of political media studies at UCLA provided Catie with a broad substantive understanding of political communication as well as rigorous training in methodology. While the majority of early political communication research focused on television's impact on electoral outcomes in America, Catie's research agenda seeks to broaden this field.  By focusing on political outcomes beyond elections, beyond the American borders, as well as media technologies beyond television, Catie hopes to contribute to the evolution of political communication research to accommodate and effectively study the complex and rapidly-changing landscape of new media.  Catie's preferred approach to research is multi-methodological, with a particular preference for merging cutting edge quantitative analyses with randomized field experiments.