In recent years, many Small Island Developing State governments have worked to increase openness and transparency of their transactions as a means to enhance efficiency and reduce corruption in their economies. In order to achieve a cost-effective and efficient strategy to implement a transparent government, Information Communication Technologies offer an opportunity of virtualization by deploying e-government services to promote transparency, accountability and consistency in the public sector and to minimize corruption. This paper explores the potential impact of government virtualization by (...) SIDS and against corruption by comparing the corruption perception index rates of 15 SIDS countries. The CPI relates to the degree by which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians by business people and country analysts. In order to reveal the long-term impact of virtual deployment and its consequences on corruption, an in-depth case analysis based on the CPI index rates was conducted on the deployment of the e-government system in Cyprus. (shrink)

If elective abortion is publicly funded, then the government is obligated to take active measures designed to reduce its prevalence. I present two arguments for that conclusion. The first argument is directed at those pro-choice thinkers who hold that while some or all elective abortions are morally wrong, they still ought to be legally permitted and publicly subsidized. The second argument is directed at pro-choice thinkers who hold that there is nothing morally wrong with elective abortion and that it should (...) be both legally permitted and publicly subsidized. The second argument employs premises that generalize beyond the abortion debate and that may serve to shed light on broader questions concerning conscience and the requirements of political compromise in a democracy. (shrink)

While a growing number of firms are being evaluated on environment, social and governance criteria by sustainability rating agencies, comparatively little is known about companies’ responses. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with companies operating in Italy, the present paper seeks to narrow this gap in current understanding by examining how firms react to ESG ratings, and the factors influencing their response. Unique to the literature, we show that firms may react very differently to being rated, with our analysis yielding (...) a fourfold typology of corporate responses. The typology captures conformity and resistance to ratings across two dimensions of firm behaviour. We furthermore show that corporate responses depend on managers’ beliefs regarding the material benefits of adjusting to and scoring well on ESG ratings and their alignment with corporate strategy. In doing so, we challenge the idea that organisational ratings homogenise organisations and draw attention to the agency underlying corporate responses. Our findings also contribute to debates about the impact of ESG ratings, calling into question claims about their positive influence on companies’ sustainability performance. We conclude by discussing the wider empirical, theoretical and ethical implications of our paper. (shrink)

This article examines how well the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics ratings measure past corporate social performance and predict future corporate social performance in Diversity and Governance categories. The results show that the KLD ratings effectively measure and predict social performance in both categories. The results also suggest that the KLD ratings may identify differences in the quality of management and firm which can affect future social performance and is not entirely explained by past social (...) performance. The findings of this study lend some support for empirical studies relying on the KLD ratings to operationalize corporate social performance. The findings suggest that users of the ratings need to have a clear understanding of what information they are seeking from the KLD ratings in order to maximize the utility of these ratings. (shrink)

Given the increasing importance attached to both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance, this study investigates the association between these two complimentary mechanisms used by companies to enhance relations with stakeholders. Consistent with both legitimacy and stakeholder theory and controlling for industry profile, firm size, stockholder power/dispersion, creditor power/leverage, and economic performance, our analysis of the annual reports for a sample of 222 listed companies suggests that firms providing more CSR information: have better corporate governance ratings; (...) are larger; belong to higher profile industries; and are more highly leveraged. Our findings support the limited prior research suggesting a link between corporate governance quality and CSR disclosure in company annual reports and suggest that, rather than mandating specific disclosures, regulators might be better served focussing on corporate governance quality as a way of increasing CSR disclosures. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to better understand how sustainability rating agencies, through discourse, promote an “ideology of numbers” that ultimately aims to establish a regime of normalization governing social and environmental performance. Drawing on Thompson’s (Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication, 1990 ) modes of operation of ideology, we examine the extent to which, and how, the ideology of numbers is reflected on websites and public documents published by a range (...) of sustainability rating agencies. Our analysis indicates that the ideology of numbers promotes a relatively narrow vision of corporate social and environmental responsibility. That is, it establishes some areas of visibility while leaving in the shadow certain aspects of the ways in which companies fulfill, or fail to meet, their social and environmental responsibilities. The ideology of numbers also exerts power by identifying those companies that are deemed to be worthy of inclusion, or not, in a supposedly socially responsible corporate elite. (shrink)

Vaccination is a highly effective public health strategy that provides protection to both individuals and communities from a range of infectious diseases. Governments monitor vaccination rates carefully, as widespread use of a vaccine within a population is required to extend protection to the general population through “herd immunity,” which is important for protecting infants who are not yet fully vaccinated and others who are unable to undergo vaccination for medical or other reasons. Australia is unique in employing financial incentives to (...) increase vaccination uptake, mainly in the form of various childcare payments and tax benefits linked to timely, age-appropriate vaccination. Despite relatively high compliance with the childhood vaccination schedule, however, the Australian government has determined that rates should be higher and has recently introduced policy that includes removing certain tax and childcare benefits for non-vaccinators and formally disallowing conscientious objection to vaccination. In addition, it has raised the possibility of banning unvaccinated children from childcare centres. This article examines the impact of coercive approaches to childhood vaccination and raises the question of the ethical justification of health policy initiatives based on coercion. We consider the current evidence regarding childhood vaccination in Australia, the small but real risks associated with vaccination, the ethical requirement for consent for medical procedures, and the potential social harms of targeting non-vaccinators. We conclude that the evidence does not support a move to an increasingly mandatory approach that could only be delivered through paternalistic, coercive clinical practices. (shrink)

The base rate fallacy is a fallacy that occurs in probabilistic reasoning when available general information is omitted from the calculations and attention is given to specific information only. To illustrate this concept, this chapter discusses the scenario in Philip K. Dick's short story “Minority Report”, with some details augmented by the 2002 movie daptation by Steven Spielberg. The legislative approach seems to be based not just on the base rate fallacy but on assuming a base rate that is divorced (...) from reality, that the drug use rate among welfare applicants is significantly higher than the national rate. Once the accurate base rate is applied (be it the proportions between the races in the US population, or the percentage of drug users among the people receiving government welfare, etc.), one can clearly see that the original conclusion does not follow. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe major credit rating agencies contributed substantially to the sub‐prime mortgage crisis by giving their highest rating to most of the collateralized debt obligations securities that were backed by these sub‐prime mortgages. Because the rating agencies are compensated by the issuers whose CDO bonds they rate, this relationship creates a prima facie conflict of interest, one that is compounded when the rating agency also consults for the issuers on designing the CDOs. While Congress and the Securities Exchange Commission investigate possible (...) wrongdoing, various reforms have been proposed. This article analyzes these conflicts of interest and the cognate corporate governance issues. It then categorizes and critiques several of the reform proposals—which range in severity from requiring more disclosure to the suspension of the rating agency's license. (shrink)

In the first thirty years after World War II, the US economy performed very well. The rate of growth averaged 4—5%, the rate of unemployment was seldom above 5%, inflation was almost non-existent, and the living standards of workers improved steadily. These were the ‘good old days'. However, this long period of expansion and prosperity ended in the 1970s. Since then, both the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation have been much higher than before, and the average real (...) wages of workers have declined some 20%. Productivity growth has also slowed down and the debt burden of both capitalist enterprises and the Federal government has increased dramatically. It is in this sense that we may refer to the ‘economic crisis’ of the US economy over the last two decades. This crisis has certainly not been as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the economic performance has been significantly worse than in the early post-war period. (shrink)

Introduction: The actions taken by the government to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus diseases 2019 pandemic caused different levels of restriction on the mobility of the population. The need to continue offering physical exercise to individuals after stroke became an emergency. However, these individuals may have barriers to adhere to the programs delivered remotely. There is a lack of evidence related to adherence, attendance, safety, and satisfaction of remote exercise programs for this population.Objective: The aim was to evaluate (...) adherence and barriers to attend a remote physical exercise program for individuals after stroke. We aimed to identify adherence and attendance rate of the remote physical exercise program ; to identify the safety of a remote physical exercise program ; and to identify the overall experience to participate in a remote program.Materials and methods: This is a longitudinal study, including 36 stroke survivors who already attended a face-to-face physical exercise program prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remote physical exercise program included sessions for 2 days/week for a duration of 22 weeks, with a total of 44 sessions, which were delivered asynchrony via recorded video sessions. As outcome measures, we performed two questionnaires to identify attendance, barriers, safety, and overall experience related to the program.Results: The adherence rate was 86. The attendance rate was 19, with a total of 8 sessions. The main barriers for lower attendance rate were as follows: lack of motor skills and physical fitness to workout in 80 reports, followed by no exercise companion in 44 reports. The remote physical program has been shown to be safe, and the overall experience was positive from the perspectives of the participants and the family members.Conclusion: Although the adherence rate was high, the attendance rate was low on the remote physical exercise program. The main barriers to attending the program remotely reflect the need of tailoring individually an asynchrony mode of delivering the sessions to individuals after stroke. Our results also indicate how the COVID-19 impacted the health conditions of stroke survivors. The program was safe, and the overall experience indicated a change in the mental, physical, and social health of individuals after stroke and their family members. (shrink)

The performance appraisal process is increasingly seen as a key link between employee behaviour and an organization’s strategic objectives. Unfortunately, performance reviews often fail to change how people work, and dissatisfaction with the appraisal process has been associated with general job dissatisfaction, lower organizational commitment, and increased intentions to quit. Recent research has identified a number of factors related to reactions to performance appraisals in general and appraisal satisfaction in particular. Beyond the appraisal outcome itself, researchers have found that appraisal (...) reactions are affected by perceptions of fairness and the relationship between the supervisor and the employee. To explain the relationships among these factors, the present article proposes a moral cognition perspective. We suggest that employees judge a performance appraisal from the perspective of its moral justifiability, and that appraisal reactions will be determined, at least in part, by the perceived moral justifiability of the process. The proposal was supported by results from a survey of government employees using measures of performance ratings, leader–member exchange, perceived utility, and organizational justice. (shrink)

Hip implants have provided life-changing treatment, reducing pain and improving the mobility and independence of patients. Success has encouraged manufacturers to innovate and amend designs, engendering patient hopes in these devices. However, failures of medical implants do occur. The failure rate of the Articular Surface Replacement metal-on-metal hip system, implanted almost 100,000 times world-wide, has re-opened debate about appropriate and timely implant governance. As commercial interests, patient hopes, and devices' governance converge in a socio-technical crisis, we analyse the (...) responses of relevant governance stakeholders in the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2014. We argue that there has been a systemic failure of the governance system entrusted with the safety of patients fitted with medical implants. Commercial considerations of medical implants and the status quo of medical implant governance have been given priority over patient safety despite the availability of significant failure data in an example of uncertainty about what constitutes appropriate precautionary action. (shrink)

This study examines how taxpayer support for government spending can improve tax compliance. While there is ample evidence on the deterrent effect of audit probability on taxpayer noncompliance, there is no evidence related to the moderating role that taxpayer support may have on compliance behavior. We also examine the moderating role that taxpayer ethics plays in compliance decisions. Results of our study indicate that the level of taxpayer support influences taxpayer compliance decisions, in that those with greater support for how (...) tax dollars are spent report higher amounts of taxable income. In addition, we find that audit probability influences taxpayer compliance decisions when there is support for the government’s use of tax dollars for non-welfare programs, such as defense. However, for welfare programs, such as healthcare, taxpayer support leads to increased compliance regardless of audit rate. When taxpayers do not support government programs, their compliance is lower regardless of the audit probability. This highlights the importance of gaining taxpayer support for government programs and indicates that attempts to align the interests of taxpayers with those of the government may increase voluntary compliance among taxpayers. Finally, we find that taxpayer ethics influences compliance such that, for individuals who have lower ethical standards, a high audit rate as well as support for a program may be necessary to improve compliance behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

During the short span of a few months in 2008, 14 trillion dollars of highly rated bonds fell into junk status, surprising the global financial system and accelerating an economic decline. The result was the worst fracture of the US financial system since the Great Depression. Credit rating agencies (CRAs) in particular have come under intense scrutiny as a result of this latest disaster, both domestically and internationally, including many congressional inquiries and government investigations. Most of the public and scholarly (...) discussions about CRAs focus on reforming the financial system so that the crisis of the magnitude of the 2008 disaster will not happen again. An important overtone of industry criticisms includes a sense of ethical impropriety on the part of CRAs and ethical uncertainty about the institutional mechanisms that are currently in place. Rarely, however, are the ethics of the industry the explicit subject of analysis. In this article, we discuss the lessons from the policy debates and recent legislation to develop an account of the ethics of the CRA industry. (shrink)

We have studied the adaptation of mutation rates in a simple model of evolution. The model consists of a two-dimensional world with a periodically replenished resource and a uctuating population of evolving agents whose survival and reproduction are an implicit a function of their success at nding resources and their internal metabolism. Earlier work suggested that mutation rate is a control parameter that governs a transition between two qualitatively di erent kinds of complex adaptive systems, and that the power of (...) adaptive evolution is maximized when the mutation rate is around this transition. This paper provides evidence that evolving mutation rates adapt to values around this transition. Furthermore, the mutation rates adapt up (or down) as the evolutionary demands for novelty (or memory) increase. (shrink)

Rape conviction rates have fallen to all-time lows in recent years, prompting governments to explore a range of strategies to improve them. This paper argues that, while the current legal impunity for rape cannot be condoned, increasing conviction rates is not in itself a valid objective of law reform. The paper problematises the measure of rape law that conviction rates provide by developing an account of (some) feminist aims for rape law reform. Three feminist aims and associated measures are explained—all (...) of which look beyond conviction rates to qualitative and victim-centred outcomes of criminal justice processes. Applying these measures, I argue that strategies designed solely to increase conviction rates are more likely to work against, rather than in support of, feminist aims. The paper thus underscores the need for continued feminist engagement with rape law reform, broadly conceived, notwithstanding its acute limitations for feminist anti-violence politics. (shrink)

The concept of sustainable and responsible (SR) investments expresses that every investment should be based on the SR investor’s code of ethics. To a large extent the allocation of SR investments to more sustainable companies and ethical practices is based on the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) scores provided by rating agencies. However, a thorough investigation of ESG scores is a neglected topic in the literature. This paper uses Thomson Reuters ASSET4 ESG ratings to analyze the influence (...) of firm size, a company’s available resources for providing ESG data, and the availability of a company’s ESG data on the company’s sustainability performance. We find a significant positive correlation between the stated variables, which can be explained by organizational legitimacy. The results raise the question of whether the way the ESG score measures corporate sustainability gives an advantage to larger firms with more resources while not providing SR investors with the information needed to make decisions based on their beliefs. Due to our results, SR investors and scholars should reopen the discussion about: what sustainability rating agencies measure with ESG scores, what exactly needs to be measured, and if the sustainable finance community can reach their self-imposed objectives with this measurement. (shrink)

This chapter argues for deregulation of the credit-rating market. Credit-rating agencies are supposed to contribute to the informational needs of investors trading bonds. They provide ratings of debt issued by corporations and governments, as well as of structured debt instruments (e.g. mortgage-backed securities). As many academics, regulators, and commentators have pointed out, the ratings of structured instruments turned out to be highly inaccurate, and, as a result, they have argued for tighter regulation of the industry. This chapter shows, (...) however, that the role of credit-rating agencies in achieving justice in finance is not as great as these commentators believe. It therefore argues instead for deregulation. Since the 1930s, lawgivers have unjustifiably elevated the rating agencies into official, legally binding sources of information concerning credit risk, thereby unjustifiably causing many institutional investors to outsource their epistemic responsibilities, that is, their responsibility to investigate credit risk themselves. (shrink)

This paper unravels an unprecedented interplay between board gender diversity (BGD) and corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disputes among Chinese A-share-listed nonfinancial companies from 2017 to 2021. Framed within a knowledge-based and sensemaking perspective of institutional frameworks, the research not only illuminates the profound impact of internal (corporate governance ratings) and external (regional institutional development) institutional factors on this intricate relationship but also brings to light a paradigm-shifting revelation. The study employed a diverse set of empirical (...) tests, ranging from ordinary least squares regression to advanced methods such as the generalized method of moments, two-stage least squares, and propensity score matching, providing a nuanced and comprehensive analysis. The findings highlight the pivotal role of female directors in significantly mitigating ESG disputes. A mechanism analysis further uncovers that internal and external institutional quality are potent positive moderators in shaping the BGD–ESG dispute dynamic. This research has profound implications, providing valuable insights for stakeholders, policymakers, and scholars, offering a comprehensive understanding of how gender diversity fosters sustainability while unravelling the intricate tapestry of internal and external institutional dynamics that shape ESG outcomes. (shrink)

Mental timing studies may be influenced by powerful cognitive illusions that can produce an asymmetry in their rate of progress relative to neuronal timing studies. Both types of timing research are also governed by a temporal asymmetry, expressed by the fact that the direction of causation must follow time's arrow. Here we refresh our earlier suggestion that the temporal asymmetry offers promise as a means of timing mental activities. We update our earlier analysis of Libet's data within this framework. Then (...) we consider the surprises which often occur on those rare occasions when neural timing experiments parallel mental timing work exactly. Together, these surprises and asymmetries prescribe a relentlessly meticulous and fully transparent exposition of timing methods, terms, and concepts which shuns plausible narratives, even when buttressed by rigorous formal models, unless guided by apposite empirical evidence. (shrink)

In response to stakeholder pressure, companies increasingly make ambitious forward-looking sustainability commitments. They then draw on corporate policies with varying degrees of alignment to disseminate and enforce corresponding behavioral rules among their suppliers and business partners. This goal-based turn in private sustainability governance has important implications for its likely environmental and social outcomes. Drawing on paradox theory, this article uses a case study of zero-deforestation commitments in the Indonesian palm oil sector to argue that goal-based private sustainability governance’s (...) characteristics set the stage for two types of paradoxes to emerge: performing paradoxes between environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals, and organizing paradoxes between cooperation and competition approaches. Companies’ responses to these paradoxes, in turn, can explain the lack of full goal attainment and differential rates of progress between actors. These results draw our attention to the complexities hidden behind governance through goal setting in the corporate space, and raise important questions about the viability of similar strategies such as science-based targets and net-zero goals. (shrink)

We investigate the association between a wide range of community-level environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes and the credit risk of U.S. municipal finance fixed-income securities. We develop a novel dataset of multiple ESG outcomes for U.S. counties and connect it to a 2001-2020 panel of municipal bonds issued within those counties. Overall, we find supportive evidence that collective increases in community-level ESG factors (i.e., ESG outcomes) are associated with reductions in credit risk for U.S. municipal finance instruments over (...) time. We theorize that these associations arise from variations in investor perceptions and manifested changes in fiscal health over time as a function of changing ESG outcomes. Post hoc analyses leveraging quasi-exogenous shocks to uncertainty, as well as connecting ESG outcomes to various measures of fiscal health at the county-year level, and credit ratings at the bond-year level, help validate this theory. Our research suggests that even socially agnostic investors should investigate the environmental and social performance of a municipality as part of their credit due diligence. (shrink)

The new lesson for banking sector came on March 10th 2023, when the bank, which had $212bn of assets, failed with spectacular speed, making it the biggest lender to collapse since the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. By loading up on long-term bonds, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) had taken an enormous unhedged bet on interest rates staying low. That bet went wrong, leaving the bank insolvent. The analysis of selected reports, data in conjunction with the analysis of financial documents are (...) to indicate the areas of threats related to the privileged treatment of government bonds in banks’ balance statements. As a result of the analysis, the negative consequences of the accumulation of government bonds in banks’ balance sheets and their preferential treatment as zero-riskand background of series of events unfavorable for the bank were indicated. The collapse has been presented as an example of a misguided strategy. The new reality teaches that safe securities, such as government bonds, can no longer be considered as safe. The result of the analysis is to show the possibility of the prediction of not enough liquid assets to satisfy deposit withdrawals and confluence of events caused higher risk. (shrink)

We investigate whether the distinct nature of multinational firms (MNC) differently influence the governance-performance relationship compared to the local firms in Pakistan. We used a dynamic system GMM estimator that produces consistent and efficient estimation after controlling for dynamic endogeneity and simultaneity. Our results demonstrate that corporate governance (CG) has a significant positive impact on firm financial performance whilst CG practice of MNC firms is more effective than local firms in Pakistan. We observed two distinct financing behaviours, i.e., (...) ‘pro-active investment behaviour’ of MNC firms and ‘conservative investment behaviour’ of local firms. We conclude that a well-established corporate culture, significant financial worth and firms’ higher growth rate are key determinants of better CG practice. (shrink)

This study reports on the hierarchy of organizational values in public and private sector organizations in Slovenia and the Netherlands. We surveyed 400 managers in Slovenia and 382 in the Netherlands using an identical questionnaire on the importance of a selection of values in everyday decision making. In Slovenia, impartiality, incorruptibility, and transparency were rated significantly higher in the public sector, while profitability, obedience, and reliability were rated more important in business organizations. In contrast, in the Netherlands, 11 values differed (...) significantly between the sectors. Thus, a greater value congruence exists between the sectors in Slovenia than in the Netherlands, with a larger “common core” of values in Slovenia (14) compared with the Netherlands (9), just as we hypothesized. Historical and cultural developments, such as the communist rule in Slovenia and the different influences of the Protestant work ethic in both countries, led to more similarities between business and government organizations in the “new” EU member state, Slovenia. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt was only in the early twentieth century that China discovered that it had a population, at least if a population is understood not as a simple number of people but instead in terms of such features as variable levels of health, birth and death rates, age, sex, dependency ratios, and so on—as an object with a distinct rationality and intrinsic dynamics that can be made the target of a specific kind of direct intervention. In 1900, such a developmentalist conception (...) of the population simply did not exist in China; by the 1930s, it pervaded the entire social and political field from top to bottom. Through a reading of a series of foundational texts in population and family reformism in China, this paper argues that this birth of the Chinese population occurred as a result of a general transformation of practices of governing, one that necessarily also involved a reconceptualization of the family and a new logic of overall social rationalization; in short, the isolation of a population–family–economy nexus as a central field of modern governing. This process is captured by elaborating and extending Foucault's studies of the historical emergence of apparatuses into a notion of fields of governability. Finally, this paper argues that the one‐child policy, launched in the late 1970s, should be understood not in isolation from the imposition of the “family‐responsibility system” in agriculture and market reforms in exactly that period, but as part—mutatis mutandis—of a return to a form of governing that was developed in the first half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent rise of initiatives for responsible agricultural investment and provides a preliminary assessment of their likely success in curbing the ecological and social costs associated with the growth in private financial investment in the sector over the past decade. I argue that voluntary responsible investment initiatives for agriculture are likely to face similar weaknesses to those experienced in responsible investment initiatives more generally. These include vague and difficult to enforce guidelines, low participation rates, an uneven business (...) case, and confusion arising from multiple and competing initiatives. In addition, the large diversity of investors and high degree of complexity of financial investments further complicate efforts to discern who bears the burden of responsibility in practice. As a result, there is a strong likelihood that voluntary governance initiatives for responsible agricultural investment will shift discourse more than they will change practice. (shrink)

We consider a two-patch epidemiological system where individuals can move from one patch to another, and local interactions between the individuals within a patch are governed by the classical SIRS model. When the time-scale associated with migration is much smaller than the time-scale associated with infection, aggregation methods can be used to simplify the initial complete model formulated as a system of ordinary differential equations. Analysis of the aggregated model then shows that the two-patch basic reproduction rate is smaller than (...) the 1 patch one. We extend this result to a linear chain of P patches . These results are illustrated by some examples for which numerical integration of the system of ordinary differential equations is performed. Simulations of an individual based model implemented with a multi-agent system are also carried out. (shrink)

The social rate of discount--that is, the way decision makers today evaluate future consequences of collective activity--raises difficult issues of intergenerational justice. When benefits are discounted at the present rate the United States government requires, serious efforts to promote public health over the long term will fail cost-benefit tests. No consensus exists among theorists to establish fair rates; philosophers support discounting with economic arguments that economists reject, while economists no less paradoxically support the concept using philosophical arguments that philosophers disavow. (...) A new emphasis on the role of consumers' and citizens' time preferences, however, will keep open rather than close debates on the social discount rate. (shrink)

Discounting is a manifestation of behavioral impulsivity, which is closely related to self-regulation processes. The decision-making process for intertemporal choices is governed by the inhibition of impulses, which can influence both risk and time-related attitudes. This paper utilizes self-reported measures of risk, impatience, and impulsivity attitudes to examine their impact on the implicit discount rate used when weighing the current purchase cost against future energy savings of appliances. It analyzes and tests the interplay between these attitudes using specific functional forms (...) and causal models. The results highlight the role of risk, impatience and impulsivity on the discount rate and the biases that arise from omitting impulsive attitudes. In addition, other factors such as environmental and social preferences, attitudes, and financial constraints contribute to the implicit discount rate. (shrink)

Is a given instance of rape more likely to result in pregnancy than a given instance of consensual sex? This paper undertakes a review and critique of the literature on rape-pregnancy. Next, it presents our own estimation, from U.S. government data, of pregnancy rates for reproductive age victims of penile-vaginal rape. Using data on birth control usage from the Statisticalof the United States, we then form an estimate of rapepregnancy rates adjusted for the substantial number of women in our sample (...) who would likely have been protected by oral contraception or an IUD. Our analysis suggests that per-incident rape-pregnancy rates exceed per-incident consensual pregnancy rates by a sizable margin, even before adjusting for the use of relevant forms of birth control. Possible explanations for this phenomenon are discussed, as are its implications to ongoing debates over the ultimate causes of rape. (shrink)

We study behind-the-scenes investor activism promoting environmental, social, and governance improvements by means of a proprietary dataset of a large international, socially responsible activist fund. We examine the activist’s target selection, forms of engagement, impact on ESG performance, drivers of success, and effects on the targets’ operations and value creation. Target firms are typically large and visible, perform well, and have high liquidity and low ESG performance. Engagement induces ESG rating adjustments: firms with poor ex ante ESG ratings (...) experience a ratings increase after complying with the activist’s demands, whereas firms with high ex ante ESG ratings experience a ratings decrease following the revelation of their ESG problems. Activism that is focused on environmental and social issues is more likely to succeed if targets are ESG-sensitive. Successful engagements boost targets’ sales. Risk-adjusted excess stock returns of successful engagements outperform those of unsuccessful engagements by 2.7%. Results are especially strong for firms with low ex ante ESG scores. Specifically, targeted firms in the lowest ex ante ESG quartile outperform matched peers by 7.5% in the year after the end of the engagement. Our results thus suggest that the activism regarding corporate social responsibility generally improves ESG practices and corporate sales and is profitable to the activist. Taken together, we provide direct evidence that ethical investing and strong financial performance, both from the activist’s and the targeted firm’s perspective, can go hand-in-hand together. (shrink)

This is a book that brings together material from an unusually wide range of perspectives on an important topic. The scholarship is first-rate--one profits from reading the footnotes as well as the text.

A hypothetical scenario is presented in which a female patient is admitted to a private hospital to undergo a mastectomy and breast reconstruction. The surgeons and anaesthetists conducting the different procedures charge three times the medical aid rates. When the patient asks what the co-payments are likely to be, she is informed by the doctors’ accounts section that they can only provide this information after each procedure. The patient’s medical scheme also advises her that it cannot determine the likely co-payments (...) unless she completes the assessment form sent to her. The form requires her to include the costs reflected against the relevant ICD10 codes. The patient cannot complete the form because the doctors’ accounts sections have not informed her about the proposed procedures and the likely costs of each. This article builds on a previous article discussing doctors’ overarching responsibility to disclose medical treatment costs in advance. The present article outlines the legal requirements in the South African Constitution, the National Health Act and the Health Professions Act, and refers to the Promotion of Access to Information Act and Consumer Protection Act. Similar to the earlier article, this article addresses the ethical requirements of the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the internationally recognised biomedical ethical principles. Furthermore, it also refers to the National Patients Charter, the government’s policy document on health care services. (shrink)

This paper offers three contributions to the burgeoning movements of AI for Social Good (AI4SG) and AI and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, we introduce the SDG-Intense Evaluation framework (SDGIE) that aims to situate variegated automated/AI models in a larger ecosystem of computational approaches to advance the SDGs. To foster knowledge collaboration for solving complex social and environmental problems encompassed by the SDGs, the SDGIE framework details a benchmark structure of data-algorithm-output to effectively standardize AI approaches to (...) the SDGs. Second, as a specific instantiation of the SDGIE framework, the SDG Impact Intensity Model (SDGIIM) is theoretically and operationally established. SDGIIM embeds expert decision-making and SDG keyword banks in textual data processing to determine overall SDG “impact intensity.” Ideally, SDGIIM can be applied to textual data sets from any sector or discipline: academia, business, government, non-profit, civil society, etc. Third, the SDGIIM instantiation is applied to the specific domain of academic journal rating systems as a case study. Traditionally, academic journals have been evaluated on loosely conceived and empirically shaky notions of ‘quality.’ Aligned with the trend of AI4SG and broader calls to action, ‘impact’ is rapidly becoming the primary normative consideration for assessing academic journals. We hypothesize and demonstrate that SDGIIM is capable of producing evaluations aligned with experts’ expectations of SDG impact intensity; the consistent analysis and rating of textual data sets that embody the SDGs with varying degrees of meaning and, ultimately, promote positive impact on the actual material conditions of the world. (shrink)

Experience from a three-year Home Office funded evaluation of a project intended to reduce school exclusions is used to explore methodological dilemmas raised by the current emphasis upon 'evidence-based' policy formation. The social construction of school exclusion rates poses problems of reliability and validity, especially when such rates are simultaneously being used for target setting. In principle, the concept of 'evidence-based' can refer to a wide variety of research questions and appropriate research methodologies. Despite this, moves towards interpreting 'evidence-based' as (...) predominantly measurement and outcomes oriented can be found both in government evaluation guidelines and in procedures for systematic reviews of research. Given the complexity of educational innovations, any neglect of research into the processes of change in naturalistic settings will not only lead to a restricted awareness of a project's impact but also to a failure to understand what certain apparent outcomes actually mean. (shrink)

The political environment has a significant impact on the sustainable development of enterprises. This manuscript aims to investigate the effect of policy uncertainty and official social capital on enterprises’ effective tax rate due to the change of officials. Based on the panel data from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database from 1998 to 2009, it is shown that the policy uncertainty caused by the change of local government officials significantly increases the ETR of enterprises. Meanwhile, municipal officials who have social ties (...) with provincial officials in their province also tend to raise the ETR of industrial enterprises, and this tendency is more evident when the officials take office. Further research shows that the effects vary in many aspects for policy uncertainty and social capital on the ETR of enterprises. The findings of this manuscript provide support for a deeper understanding of the change in local government fiscal policies and give suggestions to strengthen political environmental governance for the sustainable development of enterprises. (shrink)

An increasing number of financial services (FS) companies are adopting solutions driven by artificial intelligence (AI) to gain operational efficiencies, derive strategic insights, and improve customer engagement. However, the rate of adoption has been low, in part due to the apprehension around its complexity and self-learning capability, which makes auditability a challenge in a highly regulated industry. There is limited literature on how FS companies can implement the governance and controls specific to AI-driven solutions. AI auditing cannot be performed (...) in a vacuum; the risks are not confined to the algorithm itself, but rather permeates the entire organization. Using the risk of unfairness as an example, this paper will introduce the overarching governance strategy and control framework to address the practical challenges in mitigating risks AI introduces. With regulatory implications and industry use cases, this framework will enable leaders to innovate with confidence. (shrink)

A cell contains many copies of mitochondrial DNA. The distribution of a mitochondrial gene mutation in a cell culture is governed by the way in which the mtDNA molecules of a cell are replicated and partitioned between the two daughter cells during mitosis. Assuming that this partition process is random, we describe the evolution of the mitochondrial genetic state of a cell culture. The mutated mtDNA is ultimately segregated and the rate of the trend to segregation is relatively slow. It (...) is nevertheless greatly accelerated if the model takes into account the spatial mtDNA partition by the mitochondrial compartments. (shrink)

In recent years, the US and the EU have pursued markedly different agendas in the pursuit of board gender diversity. The EU has taken a more pro-active governmental approach of mandated quotas, whereas the US is relying largely on the endogenous mechanism of shareholder diversity proposals. Despite their obvious allure as a means of bringing about rapid change, evidence is mounting that board gender diversity quotas may yield various deleterious side effects; and quotas may not be as successful in their (...) core aim of promoting gender diversity as initial broad statistical measures indicate. In this paper we critique the expanding EU quota regime, and consider US shareholder proposals as an alternative change mechanism for improving gender diversity in corporate boards. As an alternative to quotas, diversity resolutions are often dismissed as ineffective because the vast majority fail to formally pass (with a failure rate close to 95%). However, on closer inspection, this ‘failure’ actually results in success. Contrary to the conventional ‘folk’ wisdom -- in the quest to promote gender diversity on corporate boards, the endogenous (US) mechanism of board diversity proposals has, to date, resulted in similar increases in gender diversity as the exogenous (EU) mechanism of government-mandated gender quotas. Furthermore, the former mechanism is more consistent with recent ‘third-wave’ feminist theory. We conclude with the policy recommendation that, rather than quotas, the EU should focus on removing the regulatory barriers that inhibit shareholder democracy. (shrink)

As the sustained and devastating extent of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic becomes apparent, a key focus of public scrutiny in the UK has centred on the novel legal and regulatory measures introduced in response to the virus. When those measures were first implemented in March 2020 by the UK Government, it was thought that human rights obligations would limit excesses of governmental action and that the public had more to fear from unwarranted intrusion into civil liberties. However, within the (...) first year of the pandemic’s devastation in the UK, a different picture has emerged: rather than through action, it is governmentalinactionthat has given rise to greater human rights concerns. The UK Government has been roundly criticized for its inadequate response, including missteps in decision-making, delayed implementation and poor enforcement of lockdown measures, abandonment of testing, shortages of critical resources and inadequate test and trace methods. In this article, we analyse the UK Government’s missteps and compare them with published international guidance; we also contrast the UK’s decisions with those taken by several other countries to understand how its actions and inactions have contributed to unfavourable outcomes. Using an analytical perspective that demonstrates how human rights are both a protection from the power of the state and a requirement that governmental powers are used to protect the lives, health and wellbeing of citizens, we argue that the UK Government’s failure to exercise their powers competently allowed the virus to spread without ensuring the country had the means to manage a high case load. This abject failure has led to one of the highest rates of deaths per capita worldwide. We offer several lessons that can be learnt from this unfortunate, but preventable, situation. (shrink)

In the mid-1990s, fairtrade-organic registration data showed that only 9 % of Oaxaca, Mexico’s organic coffee ‘farm operators’ were women; by 2013 the female farmer rate had increased to 42 %. Our research investigates the impact of this significant increase in women’s coffee association participation among 210 members of two coffee producer associations in Oaxaca, Mexico. We find that female coffee organization members report high levels of household decision-making power and they are more likely than their male counterparts to report (...) control over their coffee income. These significant advances in women’s agency within the household are offset by the fact that the women experience significant time poverty as they engage in coffee production while bearing a disproportionate share of domestic labor obligations. The women coffee producers view organizational labor as a third burden on their time, after their reproductive and productive labor. The time poverty they experience limits their ability to fully participate in coffee organizational governance and consequently there are few women leaders at all levels of the coffee producer businesses. This is problematic because it limits women’s ability to fully benefit from organizational membership: when women fully participate in governance they gain valuable business and leadership skills and producer associations with active female members may also be more likely to develop and maintain programs and policies that enhance gender equity. Our findings indicate that targeted agricultural development programs to improve gender equity among agricultural smallholders should involve creative ways to ease women’s labor burdens and reduce their time poverty in order to facilitate full organizational participation. The research findings fill a gap in existing studies of agricultural global value chains by demonstrating how the certified coffee GVC depends on women’s under and un-paid labor not only within the household but also within producer organizations. (shrink)

Off-label prescribing is an integral part of contemporary medicine. Many patients benefit when they receive drugs or devices under circumstances not specified on the label approved by the Food and Drug Administration. An off-label use may provide the best available intervention for a patient, as well as the standard of care for a particular health problem. In oncology, pediatrics, geriatrics, obstetrics, and other practice areas, patient care could not proceed without off-label prescribing. When scientific and medical evidence justify off-label uses, (...) physicians promote patients’ interests by prescribing products off label.Off-label prescribing can also harm patients, however. The potential for harm is greatest when an offlabel use lacks a solid evidentiary basis. A 2006 study examining prescribing practices for 169 commonly prescribed drugs found high rates of off-label use with little or no scientific support. Researchers examining off-label use in U.S. children’s hospitals concluded, “[W]e still have incomplete knowledge about the safety and efficacy of many medications commonly used to treat children across a range of drug classes and clinical diagnoses.”. (shrink)

Word recognition is the Petri dish of the cognitive sciences. The processes hypothesized to govern naming, identifying and evaluating words have shaped this field since its origin in the 1970s. Techniques to measure lexical processing are not just the back-bone of the typical experimental psychology laboratory, but are now routinely used by cognitive neuroscientists to study brain processing and increasingly by social and clinical psychologists (Eder, Hommel, and De Houwer 2007). Models developed to explain lexical processing have also aspired to (...) be statements about the nature of human cognition (e.g., connectionist models, Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, and Patterson 1996). Words were convenient objects to study for cognitive psychologists because they are welldefined and their nature as alphabetic strings was a good fit to analysis with the computer programming languages of the 1970s and 1980s which excelled at string manipulation. But are words actually the privileged unit of mental representation and processing that all of this scientific attention makes them out to be? Like a growing number of other language researchers, our answer is no (see, e.g., (Bybee and Hopper 2001; Wray 2002). We propose that the mental representations for lexical structures form a continuum, from word combinations which have fossilized into single units (nightclub) to those that both exist as independent units and yet have bonds, varying in tightness, with the words with which they frequently co-occur (Harris 1998). The first line of support for this view is the simple observation that fluent speakers easily recognize the familiarity and cohesive quality of word combinations in their language. Examples in English include common noun compounds (last year, brand new), verb phrases (cut down, get a hold of, faced with) and other multi-word expressions such as common sayings and references to cultural concepts (saved by the bell, speed of light; Jackendoff 1995).. (shrink)

How does a government arise from anarchy? In a classic article, Mancur Olson theorized that it could occur when a roving bandit decides to settle down. This stationary bandit comes to recognize an encompassing interest in its territory, improving its lot by providing governing and committing to stable rates of theft. The bandits highlighted by Olson are not individuals but rather groups organized to act collectively. I provide a club-theoretic analysis of bandits. I characterize the violence as a club good, (...) i.e., one that is non-rival but from which out-group members can be excluded. I elaborate on the changes in the club’s group interest and in-group that will likely accompany the roving-to-stationary transition. To illustrate the salient points of the analysis, I provide a case study of the Visigoths: their emergence as a roving confederacy in the late fourth century, their migration and subsequent settlement, and the establishment of the Visigothic Kingdom. (shrink)

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is increasingly popular (Giese, Lee, Melas, Nagy, & Nishikawa 2019), and is now percolating into sustainability textbooks and pedagogy. This is problematic because many faculty teaching sustainability do not have a background in finance, and thus find teaching ESG challenging. This paper develops pedagogical resources to teach the fundamentals of ESG investing, be that in a Foundations of Sustainable Management course or a Business Ethics course. We do this by developing four learning objectives: (...) (1) Understand the ESG basics, including why ESG investing is important to investors and, for faculty, outlining where it might be appropriately placed in an ethics or introduction to sustainability class, (2) Define ESG Investing and discuss how ESG investing strategies differ from regular investment strategies, (3) Identify the primary methods to choose ESG investments, the related ESG rating systems, and the primary proprietary investment options based on these screening rules, and (4) Identify ESG options available to investors that meet their risk preferences. (shrink)