Who benefits from partial tax coordination?

In this paper, we investigate whether partial tax coordination is beneficial to countries within and outside a tax union, in which countries are supposed to compete in taxes and infrastructure. Our results demonstrate that a subgroup of countries agreeing on a common tax rate can harm both member and nonmember states. This is in contrast to the classical findings that partial tax harmonisation is Pareto improving. When a minimum tax rate is imposed within a tax union, we demonstrate that it does not necessarily improve the welfare of the member countries. Moreover, both the high‐tax and low‐tax countries can be worse off. This conclusion is at odds with the classical result that a high‐tax country benefits from the imposition of a lower tax bound.     

Bitcoin price and its marginal cost of production: support for a fundamental value

This study back-tests a marginal cost of production model proposed to value the digital currency Bitcoin. Results from both conventional regression and vector autoregression (VAR) models show that the marginal cost of production plays an important role in explaining Bitcoin prices, challenging recent allegations that Bitcoins are essentially worthless. Even with markets pricing Bitcoin in the thousands of dollars each, the valuation model seems robust. The data show that a price bubble that began in the Fall of 2017 resolved itself in early 2018, converging with the marginal cost model. This suggests that while bubbles may appear in the Bitcoin market, prices will tend to this bound and not collapse to zero.     

The acerbity of the social: how to include the social in governmental risk assessments

This paper addresses the expansion of risk practices through a case study of a government led project in Sweden purposed to develop a method to include social events in mandatory risk practices. Social heterogeneity was to be transformed into straightforward causality in order to turn the social into a manageable object. In this regard, the project was quite successful. By inviting social scientists into the process, otherwise often marginalized within risk practice, causality and quantifiable risk factors could be established and the model became a rigorous and legitimate scientific model. Although experts were granted significant autonomy and became experts far beyond their own area of expertise, the success of the model lies rather in allowing experts authority within confined boundaries. Grand narratives and critical perspectives are disregarded as too abstract and if social scientists are to infuse aspects of social critique they must adapt to these circumstances: they must become instrumentalists.     

(In)equality and the South African Constitution

ABSTRACT

Does the South African Constitution constrain or empower government, courts and citizens in addressing systemic social and economic inequalities? This article argues that the Constitution is explicitly ‘transformative’, but is an enabling document, providing ‘scaffolding’ for political and legal activities. It is government, strong institutions and civil society that are ultimately responsible for securing its equality aspirations. Here the Constitution admits of different understandings of equality and different economic and social policy choices. This article identifies these contested meanings of equality and suggests that a liberal egalitarian/social democratic version is dominant in policy choices and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. It illustrates this with reference to the Court’s jurisprudence on equality, and suggests that more radical and transformative interpretations remain possible. However, it concludes that we cannot escape politics, the need for good policy choices and effective implementation and enforcement.     

The Moderating Effects of Status-Consumption Motive and Age in the Relationship between CSR Advertising Appeal Type and Purchase Intentions

The primary purpose of this study was to examine factors that influence the effectiveness of benefit appeal types (i.e., help-other vs. help-self) in Corporate Social Responsibility advertising. To that end, we designed and administered a between-subjects experiment where participants viewed one of the two CSR advertisements crafted with help-self and help-other benefit appeals. Results provided evidence supporting the moderating effects of status-consumption motives and age on purchasing intentions. Additional analysis suggested consumers younger than 48 years old were more likely to be persuaded by a help-other ad appeal when they didn't have strong desires for status consumption. Results were discussed in light of the self-concept theory and value-expressive framework in CSR advertising.     

Khat-chewing in liminal leisure spaces: British-Somali youth on the margins

Khat-chewing, a controversial leisure activity within the Somali diaspora in Britain, has received little attention within the academic field of Leisure Studies. This paper reports on ethnographic research to provide insights into the unique locations where young British-Somali men chew khat, exposing the liminal qualities of such localities. The paper begins with an overview of the contentious position khat-chewing occupies within Somali communities in Britain, highlighting reasons why young British-Somali men hide their association with the leisure practice. The discussion that follows considers how young male khat users conceptualise spatial environments, exposing how these locations temporarily produce a dual sense of privacy and sociality. The ambiences of such temporary leisure spaces remain open to the prospect of discovery, resulting in the use of discretionary tactics to maintain a sense of secrecy. In this context, we discuss how khat-chewing offers a sense of cultural identity and belongingness while also marking young British-Somali men as outsiders – even within their own communities.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Cost comparison of continued anticoagulation with rivaroxaban versus placebo based on the 1-year EINSTEIN-Extension trial efficacy and safety results

Aims: The EINSTEIN-Extension trial (EINSTEIN-EXT) found that continued treatment with rivaroxaban for an additional 6 or 12 months (vs placebo) after 6–12 months of initial anticoagulation significantly reduced the risk of recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) with a small non-significant increased risk of major bleeding (none fatal or in critical site). This study aimed to compare total healthcare cost between rivaroxaban and placebo, based on the EINSTEIN-EXT event rates.

Methods: Total healthcare cost was calculated as the sum of treatment and clinical event costs from a US managed care perspective. Treatment duration and event rates were obtained from the EINSTEIN-EXT study. Adjustment on treatment duration was made by assuming a 10% non-adherence rate. Drug costs were based on wholesale acquisition costs. Cost estimates for clinical events (i.e. recurrent deep vein thrombosis [DVT], recurrent pulmonary embolism, major bleeding, clinically relevant non-major bleeding) were determined from the literature. Results were examined over a ±20% range of each cost component and over 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of event rate differences in deterministic (one-way) and probabilistic sensitivity analyses (PSA).

Results: Total healthcare cost was $1,454 lower for rivaroxaban-treated (vs placebo-treated) patients in the base-case, with a lower clinical event cost fully offsetting drug cost. The cost savings of recurrent DVT alone (–$3,102) was greater than drug cost ($2,723). Total healthcare cost remained lower for rivaroxaban in the majority (73%) of PSA (cost difference [95% CI]?=?–$1,454 [–$2,396, $1,231]).

Limitations: This study was conducted over the 1-year observation period of the EINSTEIN-EXT trial, which limited “real-world” applicability and examination of long-term economic impact. Assumptions on drug and clinical event costs were US-based and, thus, not applicable to other healthcare systems.

Conclusions: Total healthcare costs were estimated to be lower for patients continuing rivaroxaban therapy compared to those receiving placebo in VTE patients who had completed 6–12 months of VTE treatment.     

Pharmaceutical cost‐sharing systems and savings for healthcare systems from parallel trade

This paper studies the consequences of parallel trade in a two‐country model. It compares a coinsurance scheme (consumers pay a percentage of the drug price) and an indemnity insurance scheme (reimbursement is independent of the drug price) with respect to changes in copayments and public health expenditure. In the destination country, copayments for patients decrease to a larger extent under indemnity insurance, whereas reductions in public health expenditure occur only under coinsurance. In the source country, copayments increase less under coinsurance, whereas health expenditure is reduced more under indemnity insurance. In both countries, total expenditure under parallel trade is lower.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.