Protecting future rights for future citizens: children’s property rights in fragile environments

Abstract

The property rights of children is an understudied area that straddles the development/humanitarian divide. Access to assets is important to the livelihood choices and economic well-being of adults. Yet, adults’ ability to claim property can be significantly impaired by humanitarian emergencies that occurred in their youth. We typically do not think of children as economic actors because of their age; their property rights are future rights not yet realized. This paper addresses the future rights to property held by children and examines how fragile environments, characterized by conflict, displacement and disease, can undermine their ability to claim those rights when they become adults, thus depriving them of assets. We identify two types of responses that can begin to address this problem: (1) legal changes to protect children’s assets when guardianship is lost; and (2) actions that can be taken by humanitarian organizations to identify children’s assets and protect them through conflict and displacement. This is a particularly salient topic at the current time when the numbers of displaced people are higher than any time previously recorded, and half of the displaced are children.     

Marketing antecedents of industrial brand equity: An empirical investigation in specialty chemicals

Industrial branding has emerged as an important issue, allowing firms to gain substantial competitive advantage, especially in markets where product commoditization and electronic procurement are on the increase. This article proposes, and empirically validates, a theoretically structured approach to measure brand equity, its antecedents and its consequences for industrial products. The model distinguishes between product and corporate brand equity, uses buyer perceived performance on the dimensions of the marketing mix as antecedents of brand equity, and relates them to re-purchase and loyalty intentions.     

From Cardinal to Ordinal Utility Theory

A bstract .   This paper examines the transition from cardinal to ordinal utility. We begin with the egalitarian utilitarianism of J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, in which everyone was supposed to count as one. That is their phrase to explain how the happiness of existing people was to be maximized. We compare Spencer's goal with Darwin's goal of the "general good," in which the number of perfect people was to be maximized. Spencer's goal was egalitarian, while Darwin's entailed biological perfection or hierarchy. We consider Edgeworth's hedonic calculus, in which the notion of hierarchy enters economics. For Edgeworth, agents have differential capacities for happiness. Throughout, we consider normative aspects of Darwin's work, in particular Darwin's challenge to the early utilitarianism of Mill and Spencer. We suggest that the Paretian principle returns utilitarianism to its egalitarian roots.     

Bricks and Behavior: The Repair and Maintenance Costs of Housing for Persons with Mental Illness

Comprehensive data on 153 properties offering independent living for persons with mental illness are used to examine the effects on repair and maintenance (RM) costs of building quality, neighborhood quality, building size, proportion of tenants with mental illness, and management experience with mentally ill tenants. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the proportion of mentally ill tenants in a building and its RM costs, which suggests favorable behavioral effects on mentally ill tenants of living in the same building with others who are mentally ill. We also find amenity features are associated with higher RM costs in properties where more tenants are mentally ill.     

Integrating Ethics All the Way Through: The Issue of Moral Agency Reconsidered

Integrating “ethics all the way through” an organization suggests that the issue of moral agency and the corporation be reconsidered. Is the corporation a moral agent in some sense or is it no more than the people who are a part of the organization? Views which stress the role of the individual lose sight of the whole corporate entity, and views which think of the corporation as a collective lose sight of the individual. A view which rejects both these alternatives sees the corporation as a type of community where there is a dynamic tension between the corporation as a whole and the individuals who are part of the organization. This view has implications relative to the focus of efforts to integrate ethics throughout an organization.     

Why Subsidise Private Health Insurance?

What are the economic rationales for the public subsidy of private health insurance? Inducing more people to purchase private cover has the potential to create a positive fiscal externality, as it frees up the limited public beds and other public resources for people who cannot afford private health insurance. Investigating this quantitatively, based on short‐run demand estimates, we find that the subsidy cannot be justified on the basis of this externality effect alone. We estimate that the optimal subsidy is actually negative, that is, a tax on private health insurance premiums. On the other hand, the externality does finance some of the costs. We then consider a long‐run dynamic version, consistent with the government's stated rationales for the reforms. In this context, the subsidy might be justified, or at least largely offset, by the fiscal externality. We then discuss other rationales for a subsidy and implementation issues.     

Differentiating Legal Issues by Business Type

Developing legal strategies is a fundamental part of business formation and strategic operation. The ability to incorporate legal planning into the business planning process allows entrepreneurs to strategically plan their operations to minimize risks arising from legal and regulatory regimes and better protect the assets of the business and entrepreneur. Research regarding the legal issues encountered in nascent business ventures is just beginning. Conducting a content analysis of 292 legal information letters, prepared in a university-based legal clinic for new ventures, legal issues and business type were identified. An analysis of the data indicated that: (1) certain legal issues are relevant to all new ventures, (2) certain legal issues are relevant to specific types of new ventures, and (3) the relevancy of individual legal issues will vary depending on the category of business.     

Bringing Ethical Investment to Account

As the ethical investment industry in Australia matures there is a need for greater scrutiny and understanding of the potential investor's personal beliefs, the investment products on offer and the processes by which the investment universe is determined. The recent introduction of regulation requiring additional information in product disclosure statements is a step in the right direction. However, further disclosure by funds and public exposure is necessary to create a transparent and accountable investment industry.     

The Business Responsibility for Wealth Distribution in a Globalized Political-Economy: Merging Moral Economics and Catholic Social Teaching

If it is accepted that the real marketplace does not necessarily distribute wealth in the manner that the ideal market would have done, and that societal institutions have an obligation to bring the real and ideal market distributions into accord, then it can be argued that economic actors have a responsibility to consider the effects of their activities on the distribution of wealth in society. This paper asserts that businesses have a responsibility to consider the wealth distribution effects of their wealth-creating decisions. We use arguments from moral economics and Catholic social teaching to support this assertion, deriving decision principles that we apply to the Starbucks fair trade coffee case.