Are people in the SADC region willing to pay more tax to fund public healthcare?

ABSTRACT

For Africa to develop and achieve sustainable development, African governments have to prioritise spending on public health. However, the current spending data shows that health spending is a continuing struggle for African countries. Many researchers have the view that African governments have to collect more tax to spend enough on public healthcare. The question here is what extent people are willing to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare? Employing a multilevel regression model on Afrobarometer survey data, this paper examined to what extent individual and country level factors influence people’s willingness to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare in 12 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states. This study found that peoples’ trust in their government is an important determinant of willingness to pay more tax, while factors such as the country’s quality of democracy, economic condition, and current per capita health expenditure have no influence.     

Managerial mindset as the mechanism of the country-of-origin effect: evidence from Chinese multinational enterprises’ approach to employer associations

The country-of-origin effect (COE) on employment practices in multinational enterprises (MNEs) has become an important area of international human resource management research. However, research on the mechanisms of the COE, a fundamental and critical aspect of the country-of-origin phenomenon, is scant. This study seeks to empirically explore the mechanisms through which country-of-origin influences Chinese MNEs’ approach to host-country employer associations. Analysis of qualitative data from 13 Chinese MNEs revealed that country of origin affected the approach of Chinese MNEs to host-country employer associations in the form of transfer of managerial norms. It also revealed that it was the mindset of those home-country nationals who were key decision-makers at subsidiaries that enabled the COE in Chinese MNEs. This paper highlights the importance for future studies of international strategic human resources management to pay attention to micro-foundations of cross-border practice transfer and to incorporate analyses of managerial cognition in the investigation of MNEs’ management practices.     

Cleanliness and consumption: exploring material and social structuring of domestic cleaning practices

In line with increasing international trends of energy efficient devices on the market and in households, domestic consumption of water and energy should be decreasing. However in Sweden, domestic per capita water consumption is not decreasing rapidly and energy consumption is actually increasing. This suggests that physical contexts are not the only factor shaping resource demand. People are also influenced by collective conventions; what we think is normal has a significant say in what we do, and the resources we consume in the course of everyday life. This paper explores the way context shapes what people do from both a material infrastructures and social infrastructures perspective, using cleanliness in Sweden as a case study. First, material infrastructures in Sweden are mapped, including device ownership, water, energy and time consumed related to cleanliness. Second, qualitative interviews with Swedish people aim to show the social structuring of cleanliness. Understanding the interplay between physical and social structures has potential implications for decreasing resource intensity in everyday life.     

Major bleeding risk and healthcare economic outcomes of non-valvular atrial fibrillation patients newly-initiated with oral anticoagulant therapy in the real-world setting

Aims: This study compared the risk for major bleeding (MB) and healthcare economic outcomes of patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) after initiating treatment with apixaban vs rivaroxaban, dabigatran, or warfarin.

Methods: NVAF patients who initiated apixaban, rivaroxaban, dabigatran, or warfarin were identified from the IMS Pharmetrics Plus database (January 1, 2013–September 30, 2015). Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to balance differences in patient characteristics between study cohorts: patients treated with apixaban vs rivaroxaban, apixaban vs dabigatran, and apixaban vs warfarin. Risk of hospitalization and healthcare costs (all-cause and MB-related) were compared between matched cohorts during the follow-up.

Results: During the follow-up, risks for all-cause (hazard ratio [HR]?=?1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI]?=?1.2–1.7) and MB-related (HR?=?1.57, 95% CI?=?1.0–2.4) hospitalizations were significantly greater for patients treated with rivaroxaban vs apixaban. Adjusted total all-cause healthcare costs were significantly lower for patients treated with apixaban vs rivaroxaban ($3,950 vs $4,333 per patient per month [PPPM], p?=?.002) and MB-related medical costs were not statistically significantly different ($100 vs $233 PPPM, p?=?.096). Risk for all-cause hospitalization (HR?=?1.98, 95% CI?=?1.6–2.4) was significantly greater for patients treated with dabigatran vs apixaban, although total all-cause healthcare costs were not statistically different. Risks for all-cause (HR?=?2.22, 95% CI?=?1.9–2.5) and MB-related (HR?=?2.05, 95% CI?=?1.4–3.0) hospitalizations were significantly greater for patients treated with warfarin vs apixaban. Total all-cause healthcare costs ($3,919 vs $4,177 PPPM, p?=?.025) and MB-related medical costs ($96 vs $212 PPPM, p?=?.026) were significantly lower for patients treated with apixaban vs warfarin.

Limitations: This retrospective database analysis does not establish causation.

Conclusions: In the real-world setting, compared with rivaroxaban and warfarin, apixaban is associated with reduced risk of hospitalization and lower healthcare costs. Compared with dabigatran, apixaban is associated with lower risk of hospitalizations.     

Managerial Sharing,Mutual Fund Connections,and Performance

In this study, we examine the effect of mutual fund connections, through managerial sharing, on performance and stock holding commonalities. Our analysis of return correlations and portfolio holdings indicates that more interconnected funds tend to buy and sell similar stocks, hence increasing the similarity of portfolio holdings and undermining the distinctiveness of their investment strategy. Our results also indicate that highly connected funds significantly underperform weakly connected funds by about 1.4% on a yearly risk‐adjusted basis. We show that fund family performance is unaffected by the intensity of fund connections, and that greater fund connections could significantly enhance family‐level profit margins.     

Incorporating choice dynamics in models of consumer behavior

This paper presents a framework for organizing and discussing factors influencing consumer choice dynamics, how these factors may be incorporated into models of buyer behavior and problems that may arise in estimating such models. The paper identifies research issues and delineates possible approaches. Proceedings of Session on Choice Dynamics at the Banff Symposium on Consumer Decision-Making and Choice Behavior. All authors share equally in content and remaining errors.     

Does the “management approach” contribute to segment reporting transparency?

Segment reporting creates an opportunity for companies to add value to the information they disseminate about their industry and geographic operations. This article examines the “management approach” to segment reporting from a user perspective that should be of great interest to corporate financial executives. The management approach to segment reporting requires companies to report segment financial information consistent with the way they manage their businesses. We conclude that, despite more segment data being reported, the potential of the new management approach to significantly benefit users is compromised by uneven compliance among reporting companies. The complicity of external auditors in compliance shortcomings should concern all stakeholders in the financial reporting process. Noting two high-profile examples of accounting fraud, we comment on how the management approach sheds light on Enron's operations, while WorldCom concealed important segment information due to probable auditor malfeasance.     

Testing the bases of ethical decision-making: a study of the New Zealand auditing profession

This paper reports on a survey of auditors in New Zealand which investigates the nature of the moral judgements they make on a series of problems with ethical dimensions. The framework adopted for this purpose is developed from earlier work which identifies a range of ethical principles which may be involved in business ethical decision-making. Auditors responded to a questionnaire which posed, firstly, several questions about the context of their ethical decision-making, and secondly, a series of vignettes elaborating problematical dilemmas which required the selection of one of four possible responses. Data was analysed to determine whether or not it confirmed previous findings in suggesting a predominant ethical orientation for auditors. The results were correlated with demographic variables in order to determine whether or not age, gender, position in firm and size of employee firm were significantly correlated to ethical response. The survey results, on the whole, confirmed the ethical orientation suggested by previous findings, but there were some unexpected results in three out of the ten vignettes examined. Although some correlations were found between the demographic variables and subject responses, the evidence of this survey does not strongly suggest a consistent significant correlation.