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The impact of voluntary management earnings forecasts on executive compensation contracts
Get PDFThis study attempts to find a relationship between management earnings forecasts and executive compensation contracts. It focuses on three different elements of management earnings forecasts, namely: the type of forecast, the actual expectation of the forecast and the forecasting frequency. The three relations are analysed through both logistic and linear regressions using a sample of 90 U.S. listed companies between 2006 and 2012. From the analysis, three conclusions can be drawn. First, companies do not always align the measures of their forecasts with the compensation measures used in executive compensation contracts. Second, the target levels used in management earnings forecasts and compensation contracts sometimes differ significantly, depending on the type of measure. Finally, the forecasting frequency of a company does not influence the type of compensation measures used. In general, it appears that earnings forecasts hold some relation to executive compensation contracts. Future research can further investigate this relationship, for example by focusing on the causes of the results or through replicating the analysis
Healthcare Spending: The Role of Healthcare Institutions from an International Perspective
Get PDFHealthcare systems differ greatly across the world, however, it appears that the extent of public insurance (publicly/government funded healthcare) is the only institutional characteristic that plays a significant role in accounting for the large disparities in total healthcare spending. Other factors, such as whether healthcare services are provided by the private or public sector, play much less of a role, highlighting the important distinction between how services are provided and how those services are funded. A regression analysis is conducted utilising an existing categorisation of the predominately high-income countries of the OECD in 2009. It is found that more public insurance and less private insurance is associated with significantly lower spending after controlling for differences in income through GDP and healthcare quality/outcomes through life expectancy. This result is robust to the inclusion of additional controls for lifestyle factors and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over, as well as the inclusion or exclusion of the US that could otherwise be seen as some kind of outlier. A typical country relying largely on private provision and insurance, such as the Netherlands, Germany or the US, could reduce total healthcare spending by around a third by moving to a system with extensive public insurance whilst retaining extensive private provision of services, a situation typical of some countries such as Austria, Greece and Japan
The Dutch Royal Family in the spotlight. A framing analysis of newspapers de Volkskrant and Trouw on the quest for transparency regarding the Royal Family
Get PDFThis paper analyses how Dutch newspapers Trouw and de Volkskrant frame the issue of transparency regarding the Dutch Royal Family. Three mutually exclusive frames have been reconstructed, which were used by the media under scrutiny by means of a qualitative, inductive content analysis. The motives, which are included in these frames, may best be coined in the terms of progressive, conservative and pragmatic. The written press has, by means of this ‘framing’, pushed the transparency debate in various directions during the last fifteen years
Surveillance and sousveillance on Facebook: Between empowerment and disempowerment
Get PDFIt seems there is no end to the growth of social media. Facebook, in particular, enjoys its hegemonic position as the leading social networking site, with more than one and a half billion global monthly active users throughout 2015. 71 per cent of all adult Internet users in the United States have used Facebook in 2014, which constitutes 58 per cent of the entire U.S. adult population. The website has permeated many aspects of social, cultural, and economic life. It has equipped its users with new ways of online social interaction, governments with new means of communicating policies with the public opinion, and businesses and advertisers with a platform for reaching consumers faster and on a broader-than-ever scale. David Lyon, the leading scholar of international surveillance studies, observes: "Facebook has quickly become a basic means of communicating – of \u27connecting\u27, as Facebook itself rightly calls it – and is now a dimension of daily life for millions" (p. 35).The effect of social networking and social media on mass popular culture of the modern world is undoubtedly immense. What is less clear, however, is the normative value and nature of Facebook. From its appearance on the Internet, the website has been an object of criticism pointing to the modern paradigm of individuals\u27 lives being constantly exposed to the public gaze. The increasingly complex and decreasingly intelligible architecture of the globalising "technoscape" have created new means of surveillance. David Lyon (1994) has been at the forefront of this line of thinking, arguing together with Zygmunt Bauman that modernity brought about the rise of a new Panoptic "surveillance society". Lyon sees Facebook as an exemplary modern surveillance system, designed for the purpose of collecting data about its users and turning it into commercial profits. The revelations about the global surveillance of Facebook users by the U.S. National Security Agency, exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013, seem to be a case in point. The international uproar that followed inspired many to reflect critically on the nature of social networking sites and to question their safety
Politicisation of Science in the Process of Dealing with Manufactured Risk
Get PDFPoliticisation of Science in the Process of Dealing with Manufactured RiskAn Interdisciplinary Case StudyA key feature of modern society is the emergence of new characteristics of risks, which have been conceptualized by U. Beck as ‘manufactured risk’.1 Whereas in the past, risks principally consisted of natural hazards, which were limited in both time and space, manufactured risks are man-made, have a global effect, are potentially catastrophic, and can only be assessed speculatively. The global dimension of these risks has rendered apparent the latent divergence in the conceptions of risks that exist among different nations and regulatory regimes, thus resulting in tensions at and between national, regional, and international levels. One of the entities where these conflicts are most visible is the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) dispute settlement body, which has recently been faced with several cases relating to manufactured risk.2 In these situations, and partially due to the WTO’s need to legitimize its going beyond national sovereignty, science has gained paramount importance in providing for a neutral and objective international normative yardstick for decision-making.3 Indeed, such function of science is exemplified in the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), which indicates that, in order to leave to Member States their discretion to set the levels of protection, the WTO only ‘disciplines’ the existing risk assessments, thus ensuring that the risk regulations are appropriately based on science. In this respect, a clear-cut distinction is made between risk assessment, which provides for objectivity and authority, and risk management, which is expected to appropriately respond with policy decisions.4 The undisputed reliance on science, in case of manufactured risk, is problematic concerning two central aspects. Firstly, ‘risk’ is stil mainly conceptualised according to the traditional theory, which states that risk can be managed by rationally evaluating the probability of its occurrence and measuring it against the extent of the harm that might be caused by a disaster.5 However, due to the speculative characteristic of manufactured risk, no historical data exist regarding the probability, the form, or even the existence of these risks. As these aspects can only be evaluated retrospectively, a mere positivistic6 description of what manufactured risk consists of is drastically jeopardised. Secondly, the way science is being used as an ‘internationallyardstick’ fails to acknowledge and problematize the ways science may be politicised, thus potentially leading to a misuse of scientific knowledge when dealing with manufactured risk. Consequently, this paper will investigate some potential effects of the current use of science with regard to manufactured risk. To start with, the WTO’s approach towards science and its limiting definition of risk, appears not only incomplete vis-à-vis emerging forms of risk, but also ignores the practical inability of science to be used as a decisive tool in dispute settlement. Subsequently, the demeanour of displaying scientific knowledge as complete, unequivocal, and authoritative as well as disregarding the existence of various forms of uncertainty results in a de facto impediment of Member States’ freedom to “determine their own appropriate level of sanitary protection”.7 Therefore, this paper will empirically analyse how scientific knowledge is being politicised in the process of dealing with manufactured risks. For this purpose, the interdisciplinary analysis of a case concerning the selected genetically modified organism (GMO), Bt-176,8 will be presented. This specific GMO was banned in Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg, accepted by the European Communities (EC, now: European Union),9 and assessed in the WTO Dispute Settlement on the Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (EC-Biotech).10 On this basis, the authors will, in the first part, propose a conceptual framework significant in evaluating how the relevant authorities at the national, EU, and WTO levels approach scientific knowledge when dealing with manufactured risks. In the following section, the paper will analyse the various facets on which the scientific evidence presented by Member States and the EC agencies conflict. Finally, the way the WTO Panel ‘disciplined’ the risk assessments, according to applicable law, will be investigated. Based on the analysis of the EC- Biotech case, diverging manners by which science is being politicised will be identified. In particular, the paper will investigate how different types of uncertainty are being ignored or disregarded, thus ultimately leading to the limitation of available evidence on which Member States can base their safeguard measures. In conclusion, the argument substantiated in this paper is that, due to the characteristics of manufactured risk and the inherent politicisation of science, under no circumstances should science be used as the most important normative yardstick in the WTO decisionmaking process. Additionally, this paper claims that in order to appropriately deal with manufactured risk and its speculative characteristic, scientific risk assessment should not only attempt to positively assess the risk, but as well attribute a major importance to all identified forms of uncertainty
Regulating Innovation, Trade and Uncertain Risks - Full copy
No full textMaRBLe Research Papers Maastricht Research-Based Learning Project (MaRBLe) Faculty of Law and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Maastricht University, 201
Identifying key modulators of panic attacks in panic disorder: A translational model
Get PDFPanic disorder (PD) has a prevalence of 4% in the general population, but its pathophysiology remains elusive. This research focuses on identifying molecular and genetic modulators of unpredictable, recurrent panic attacks which characterize PD. Prior studies revealed that the serotonin transporter, 5-HTT, is involved in fear behavior and that genetic variations might affect panic-related behavior. In order to test these genetic variations on a molecular level a translational model consisting of humans and rodents was used. As follow-up of a human study, 40 male mice (background C57BL/6), wild-type and heterozygous 5-HTT knock-out, were exposed to either 9% CO2 or room air to experimentally provoke fearrelated behavior. Furthermore, the acid-sensing ion channel ASIC1a is hypothesized to be a linking factor between fear detection and fear response. It was tested whether this ASIC1a is expressed in serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus, main source of serotonin, the pivotal neurotransmitter in panic responses. Localization of the ASIC1a channel was determined by use of immunofluorescence. Analysis of the behavioral tests showed no significant difference between genotypes in both air and carbon dioxide condition. Carbon dioxide exposure however increased freezing time in both genotypes. ASIC1a has been indicated in the dorsal raphe and hippocampus in perfusion-fixated rat tissue, but could not yet be detected in the dorsal raphe of the fresh-frozen tissue of tested mice
Myasthenia gravis: a pathologic approach
Get PDFOur immune system protects us from all kinds of pathogens our body faces every day. However, the immune system can also initiate an immune response against our own proteins. This is called autoimmunity. Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a rare autoimmune disease in which patients show severe muscle weakness, due to antibody production against proteins of the neuromuscular junction, which is the connection between nerve and muscle. At this moment, three different forms of myasthenia gravis are identified. Muscle-specific tyrosine kinase (MuSK)-MG is a form of MG in which patients produce antibodies, predominantly immunoglobulin (Ig)G4, against MuSK. This paper is a summary of a B cell immortalization project, in which antibodies produced by MuSK-MG patients are investigated. The aim of this study was to sequence and generate antibodies produced by these patients in vitro to learn more about the pathological mechanism of MuSK-MG. Blood-derived B cells of MuSK-MG patients were immortalized by the Epstein Bar Virus and stimulated to grow and produce antibodies in culture. Genes of these antibodies were amplified and analyzed. These amplification products were cloned in vectors and will be transfected in a human embryonic kidney (HEK)-cell line. This study showed that the B cell immortalization method worked and that MuSK-MG patients predominantly produce IgM antibodies against MuSK. This is very striking as literature states that these patients predominantly produce IgG4 against MuSK. It is suggested that this high production of IgM is due to the absence of the heavy chain isotype switch from IgM to IgG. Moreover, as the pathologic mechanism of MuSK-MG is still unknown, IgM may play an important pathological role
How to Identify Customers of e- Services in VAT
Get PDFThe growth of e-commerce asks for adjustments in EU VAT. Through the internet, products can be supplied all over the world, without requiring the physical presence of the supplier in the state of consumption. To remain fiscal neutrality, as of 1 January 2015 all B2C supplies of e-services will be taxable at the customer’s location. To apply the correct VAT rate and to assign the liability of VAT, suppliers must subsequently determine the status of the customer, his capacity and the location to which the e-service is provided. Especially in B2C ecommerce it may be difficult for suppliers to identify their customer. To stimulate customers to provide all relevant information and reduce their incentives to manipulate, suppliers are effectively required to implement fast and simple ordering systems and impose a universal pricing strategy. This will be the only way for suppliers to get in compliance with the new legislation.