This week, we post links to reports from Center for Economic and Policy Research, Demos, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, and Political Economy Research Institute.

Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, March 10, 2011En Español

The AP’s Ben Fox has a story today on hopes by various former members of the Haitian army (Forces Armée de Haiti, or FADH) that the next president will reconstitute the military force. Haiti has been without an army since President Aristide disbanded it in 1994 following the results of polling that showed 62 percent in favor of the move.

Describing men who “represent nothing more than an informal movement of Haitians eager to re-establish an army - an idea that unnerves Haitians who remember times darkened by military coups, oppression and abuse,” Fox notes that both presidential candidates seem to favor reviving the army, despite its record of human rights abuses:

Presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat, a university administrator and former first lady, says that if elected, she would favor the formation of a military to protect the security of the nation. But, she stressed, it would have to honor human rights.

"Nobody would like the armed forces as they existed before," she told The Associated Press. "There's no way the old practices could be renewed in Haiti."

Martelly, who in the past has suggested he could have dictatorial tendencies as president (abolishing congress and outlawing all strikes and demonstrations in a “Fujimori-style solution”), and who openly supported the coups against Aristide, wants the Haitian army to replace MINUSTAH, which itself has committed a variety of serious rights abuses since arriving in Haiti in 2004:

Her rival, former singer Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly, says a new national security force could include engineers and a medical corps to respond to natural disasters. He also would like to see Haitian troops replace the U.N. force, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, that has kept order since Aristide was deposed.

With the recent spate of attention to public sector workers, here's a (hopefully handy!) summary of CEPR resources about them and public pension funds:

The Origins and Severity of the Public Pension Crisis

This paper shows:

• Most of the pension shortfall using the current methodology is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009.
  
• The argument that pension funds should only assume a risk-free rate of return in assessing pension fund adequacy ignores the distinction between governmental units, which need be little concerned over the timing of market fluctuations, and individual investors, who must be very sensitive to market timing.
  
• The size of the projected state and local government shortfalls measured as a share of future gross state products appear manageable.

Returns on Public Pensions: What Rates Should We Assume?
An explanation that state pension plans should make their projections based on the expected value of their stock holdings. For a fund assuming 3% inflation, that translates into the nominal 9.5-10.0% yield that most assume for the portion of their funds held in stock.