Polanyi’s ‘substantive approach’ to the economy in action? Conceptualising social enterprise as a public health ‘intervention’

For several decades now, critical public health researchers have highlighted the deleterious effects that pursuing neoliberal policies can have on the ‘causes of the causes’ of poor health and upon growing health inequalities. This paper argues that the conceptual tools of Karl Polanyi can help lend particular insight into this issue. The specific example that this paper focuses upon is the ‘social enterprise’: a form of organisation that combines both social and business objectives. The paper explores, conceptually, whether social enterprises may have the potential to act as one component of a neo-Polanyian countermovement: helping to re-embed the economy back into society, and offering greater recognition for a more comprehensive and socially imbued concept of health. Importantly, this potential is critically examined in the context of neoliberal hegemony, where challenges to the status quo have regularly been met with assimilation, co-option and/or repression.     

Using partial identification methods to estimate the effect of violence against women on their children’s health outcomes

A growing literature in economics seeks to estimate the costs of violence against women by examining, for example, its impact on the health outcomes of their children. However, it is difficult to assign a causal interpretation to these nonexperimental studies due to the presence of unobservable characteristics affecting violence and health outcomes simultaneously. The lack of credible instrumental variables applicable in several countries further limits our knowledge. I address this gap by using new partial identification methods to estimate the relative size of the unobservables needed to eliminate the estimated effects in nonexperimental studies. I also expand the external validity of the analysis by using data from five standardized nationally representative household surveys in Latin America. Consistent with previous studies, cross-sectional estimates show large negative associations between violence against women and an array of child health outcomes. However, when accounting for omitted variable bias, at best, two-thirds of the estimates remain robust and they are concentrated on the outcomes with the largest cross-sectional estimated impacts.     

Fraudster’s and victims’ profiles and loss predictors’ hierarchy in the mental healthcare industry in the US

Abstract

Background

Fraud- or theft-related crimes account for the highest number of crimes in the mental health industry in the US.     

New development: Fiscal reform in South Korea: looking back and moving forward

ABSTRACT

At first glance, it seems that South Korea’s three fiscal systems (mid-term expenditure framework, top-down budgeting, and performance management) function well. However, each fiscal system operates separately and they are inefficient because they follow past practices. This article explains what the problems are and how to overcome them.     

How much can we trust China’s investment statistics?

Abstract

Building upon recent research into the underestimation of China’s official final consumption expenditure, this paper investigates the quality of China’s investment data. We strictly follow the official method to estimate the annual gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) expenditure from 2004 to 2012, and the resulting figures are significantly different from the official statistics. This implies that the ‘total investment in fixed assets’ data, which are the primary source for the estimation of GFCF, grossly exaggerate actual investments, and that the official GFCF figures are not, strictly speaking, independently estimated, as they are purported to be. We deduce that the official gross capital formation figure is more or less a residual item obtained by subtracting final consumption and net exports from the official GDP figure that is calculated based on the production-cum-income approach. As a result, the underestimation of China’s consumption expenditure automatically translates into overestimation of investment expenditure. We conclude that China’s official consumption and investment statistics cannot be trusted as the basis for policy discussions and academic research.