Essential health care: affordable for all?

Access to affordable health care has become a national crisis. The uninsured have many faces and many reasons for being uninsured. The nation cannot afford to sustain this broken system; not in terms of resources, nor in terms of the deteriorating health of the public. Universal coverage could offer a promising opportunity to begin to ameliorate the unsustainable use of expensive illness care now substituting for effective low-cost prevention and early detection. A proposal for essential health care coverage, a balance between cost and choice to maximize use of beneficial care, is presented.     

Discounting telephone service: An examination of participation in the Lifeline Assistance Program using panel data

We examine the Lifeline Assistance Program to consider reasons people forgo a program providing financial benefits. Using panel data we employ a feasible generalized least squares estimation in which the dependent variable is the logit of the Lifeline participation rate. Our unique database incorporates characteristics of the eligible rather than the general population. We find incumbent telecommunications providers’ enrollment efforts are statistically significant, and that home ownership and female head of household are associated with greater participation; being elderly and less educated are associated with less participation. Additionally, we find that an increase in the local phone rate is associated with increased participation. Our findings are important for regulatory policy surrounding the Lifeline program and universal service programs generally.     

The Social Pedagogy of Wall Street: Stock Trading as Political Activism?

In this paper, it is argued that the connectivity of the networked market permits market participants to perceive causal relationships between consumer behaviour and its effects on others. The thesis is put forward that the globally networked markets of the information age give birth to new cognitive structures that underlie consumers’ novel sense of responsibility, aid the re-orientation of consumers’ self-interest, and inculcate in consumers what historian Thomas Haskell calls humanitarian sensibility. Drawing from interviews with individual online investors, a model of the market is presented that posits the market as a source of social consciousness and moral decision-making. Furthermore, it is illustrated that individual online investors often incorporate such sensibilities into their consumer decision-making. Based on these results, the authors propose a corrective to the current trend among economists, social scientists and consumer researchers to conceive of the market as a threat to consumer autonomy, social and moral responsibility and an enlightened citizenry. Instead, it is asserted that the market has many faces, one of which, specifically the globally networked market, provides possibilities to recognize and perform consumption as a critical, moral and socially conscious political act.     

Can social awareness be increased through business school curricula?

The study was prompted by (a) Frederick and Vogel's debate concerning future research in “business and society”, (b) such recently reported managerial excesses as golden parachutes, “greenmail”, and fraud, (c) the increasing emphasis on coursework in the area. It appears that there is a need to assess how students, our future business leaders, perceive social issues and if a “business and society” course can help them define and understand the importance of these issues. Three questions provided the focal point: (1) Which issues do students perceive as most important before and after completing the course? (2) How much importance do students place on issues? (3) Does completing a “business and society” course make a significant difference in how students perceive the importance of the issues presented? Students appeared to have already clearly defined priorities before entering the course as there was very little post-course reordering of priorities. However, they did display an increased perception of the importance of social issues. The study also indicated that a “business and society” course can contribute to an increased student awareness of the importance of social issues. Therefore, it was concluded that a “business and society” course can help students define and evaluate the importance of social issues.