107159 research outputs found
Sort by
Optimal trade policy with international technology diffusion
We study optimal dynamic trade policies in an Eaton–Kortum model with technology diffusion through trade. Trade affects technology by determining the distribution from which potential producers draw their insights. Our theory shows that optimal policies capture dynamic motives for a country to alter global technology. These policies take into account selection effects and country endowments that affect the degree and quality of diffusion. We provide explicit formulas showing that a country should subsidize imports that raise domestic learning quality and reduce export taxes when higher foreign productivity benefits the home country and increased exports improve foreign learning. We quantify these dynamic policies and their welfare implications using cross-country data
Loneliness as a risk factor for time to care home entry for older adults receiving community care
Background and Objectives: International efforts to contain long-term care costs have prioritized personal care. However, reductions in services aimed at addressing loneliness or promoting social participation may affect demand for long-term care facilities. Research on the impact of loneliness on entry to residential or nursing care is based on survey data, which under-represents those with highest needs. Administrative records include such individuals and, unlike surveys, contain continuous data on service receipt, enabling accurate modeling of time to care home entry. Research Design and Methods: We use administrative data for 1 101 individuals receiving care in a London local authority. We extract loneliness from free text notes using a large language model and model its impact on care home entry 5 years after assessment, controlling for needs and demographics. We use logistic regression and a competing risks survival model to measure the time until care home entry. Results: The odds ratio for care home entry associated with loneliness is 1.45 with logistic regression (95% CI 1.04–2.01). The hazard ratio is 1.32 (95% CI 1.01–1.72) with a cause-specific model, and 1.39 (95% CI 1.08–1.79) using the Fine and Gray method. Among those most likely to enter a care home, the median time to entry is 9 months (95% CI 228–328 days) earlier for those who are lonely. Discussion and Implications: The hazard ratio of loneliness on care home entry is around the magnitude associated with gender, ethnicity, or living alone. However, loneliness is modifiable. Reductions to services for social participation, such as day centers, are likely to cause an increase in loneliness. We demonstrate that for those with the highest needs, loneliness is a significant risk factor for time until care home entry. Policymakers seeking to delay care home entry should consider the impact of services for loneliness
Public company auditing around the securities exchange act: historical lessons for ESG assurance
We describe the development of public company auditing in the U.S. in the early 20th century to gain perspective on current developments in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assurance. Using a broad sample of historical annual reports spanning four decades, we document three facts: first, the spread of public company auditing occurred steadily over the span of several decades. Second, audit services were initially heterogeneous but became standardized through the audit profession’s efforts and interactions with private and public actors. Third, the role of regulation in those early developments was seemingly limited to codifying existing practices, as the first federal audit regulation was introduced only late in the development of the profession and did not significantly impact capital markets. Our historical evidence helps us understand how we arrived at today’s widely accepted and highly regulated financial audits. It uncovers parallels to and offers lessons for current developments in ESG assurance
An unconsidered leave? Inequality aversion and the Brexit referendum
This paper examines a behavioural explanation for the Brexit referendum result, namely the role of an individual’s inequality aversion (IA). We study whether the referendum result was an “unconsidered Leave” out of people’s low aversion to inequality. We use a representative sample of the UK population fielded in 2017, and analyse the extent to which lottery-based individual IA estimates predict their Brexit vote. We consider alternative potential drivers of IA in both income and health domains; these include risk aversion, alongside socio-economic and demographic characteristics. A greater aversion to income inequality predicts a lower probability of voting for Leave, even when controlling for risk aversion and other drivers of the Brexit vote. However, this effect is only true among men, for whom an increase in income IA by one standard deviation decreases their likelihood of voting for leaving the EU by 5 percentage points which would have reduced the probability of a leave vote, resulting in an overall remain majority in our sample. However, the effect of health inequality aversion is not significantly different from zero
Loyalty and allegiance in Baltic German political thought after the First World War
This article sheds light on the political thought of prominent authors belonging to Baltic German aristocratic families, examining their responses to the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the rise of the Third Reich. Focusing on the writings of authors such as the international lawyer Mikhail von Taube and the philosopher Hermann Keyserling, it examines the peculiar combination of uprootedness and cosmopolitanism which characterized the political thought of these unmoored elites. Lacking a definite attachment to specific post-imperial successor states, these authors demonstrate a recursive loyalty to their own family history. An elite group among the diverse sets of people and nationalities fleeing the Russian empire as it descended into revolution and civil war between 1917 and 1922, including Jews, people from the Caucasus, Poles, and many other nationalities, the Baltic German nobility stood out as representatives of an ethnic and religious minority whose ancestors had settled on the Baltic littoral long before the Russian empire or other states in the region had emerged. The article contributes to a new approach to the intellectual history of refugees from a global perspective, which emphasizes the importance of language, faith, nationality, and social class as factors shaping ideas about political attachment among displaced intellectuals
Testing the interrelationship between area deprivation and ethnic disparities in sentencing
In the examination of sentencing disparities, hypotheses related to social class have been relatively overlooked compared to explanations centered on offenders' ethnicity. This oversight is regrettable as both factors often intertwine. In this study, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects between offenders' residential area deprivation and their ethnic background using administrative data encompassing all offences processed through the England and Wales Crown Court. Our findings reveal the following: (i) substantial ethnic disparities among drug offenders, but mostly non‐existent across other offence categories; (ii) area deprivation does not explain away the observed ethnic disparities, but pronounced area disparities are found for breach and assault offenses, wherein offenders living in deprived areas are penalized compared to their more affluent counterparts; and (iii) ethnicity and area deprivation interact, but only for breach offenses
On the ineffable unity of morality and politics in Kant
Unable to overlook Agamben’s gloss of Kant’s moral philosophy as a vector of ontological delirium, the article scrutinises Kant’s choice of the well-known expression ‘categorical imperative’ as the prescriptive cornerstone of moral praxis. The article’s central claim is that the linguistic formulation of the categorical imperative in such terms on Kant’s part is not determined by pleonastic redundancy or overabundant formality. It depends on Kant’s well-aware need to voice and get logically rid of, as best as possible, within the available language in the wake of the philosophical tradition, an ontological conundrum whose evidence can already be traced back to Socrates’s trial. The categorical imperative attempts to convey the results of Kant’s inquiry of human ontology linguistically, requiring a hendiadys to express the somewhat ineffable – since counterintuitive for us as finite beings – equivalence between human freedom and morality. By engaging with Agamben’s critique, the article not only refutes it by referencing other scholars like Rawls, Korsgaard, Ferraris, and Habermas, but also sheds new light on Kant’s moral philosophy regarding the intrinsic morality of human beings whose adoption of the universal moral law would rationally be natural expression and necessity. This interrogates the Kantian scholarship, which, despite its best intentions, may not have yet taken due account of such a record which, we argue, suggests an inseparability between political and moral philosophy whereof contemporary political theory has probably not yet fully grasped its significance, at least in a strictly Kantian sense
Co-developing program theories for best fit social innovations in long-term care: lessons from a cross European implementation project
Context: The need for socially innovative care models is crucial in addressing the challenges posed by ageing populations. Social innovations developed in other settings often require adaptation to ensure they are the best fit for a new setting. Perspective: We propose that participatory Theory of Change workshops can strengthen the development and adaptation of best-fit social innovations in long-term care by engaging multiple stakeholders to develop a program theory which describes how a complex programme or policy is hypothesised to work in a given context. We use an example from InCARE, a European Union funded project from 2020 to 2023, which aimed to develop and use participatory processes to design and implement social innovations for long-term care in Spain, Austria and North Macedonia. Implications: Theory of Change can work to develop a common vision with stakeholders, identify and adapt innovative ideas, engage early and meaningfully with stakeholders and partner with stakeholders who can support sustainability as well as outline the challenges and limitations inherent in the Theory of Change approach
Story tech: power, storytelling, and social change advocacy
Personal stories have the power to stir the heart, compel us to act, and spark social change. While advocacy organizations have long used storytelling in campaigns, the role technology plays has increased. Today, invitations to "share your story" are widespread on advocacy organizations and political campaign websites, calls to action, and social media pages. But what happens after one clicks "share"? And how does this affect which voices we hear-and which we don't-in public discourse? Story Tech explores the increasingly influential impact of technologies-such as databases, algorithms, and digital story banks-that are usually invisible to the public. It shows that hidden "story tech" enables political organizations to treat stories as data that can be queried for storylines and used to intervene in news and information cycles in real time. In particular, the authors review successful story-centered campaigns that helped change dominant narratives on disability rights, marriage equality, and essential workers' rights in the United States and Australia. They compare the use of storytelling advocacy across different types of organizations including volunteer grassroots groups, large national advocacy coalitions, and trade unions, and examine how trends differ for storytellers, organizers, and their technology partners. As political stories shift to being "on demand," they reshape power relationships in key public debates in ways that produce moments of tension as well as positive narrative change. Story Tech examines these trends and illustrates how storytelling success can-and should-be achieved in conjunction with personal dignity, privacy, and empowerment for storytellers and their communities, particularly marginalized ones
Marta Lorimer "I'm not sure there is a single country in Europe that is resistant to the rise of the far right"
In an interview with LSE’s Joanna Bale, Marta Lorimer discusses the rise of the radical right, how Keir Starmer should respond to Reform UK and why there’s still space to engage for those worried about the direction of politics