107159 research outputs found
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Geoffrey M. Hodgson. The wealth of a nation institutional foundations of English capitalism. Princeton University Press, 2023. Pp. 304. Cloth $39.95.
No full textDoes experience matter? Understanding the mechanism of the volume-outcome relationship: learning-by-doing or economies of scale
No full textObjective: To evaluate the underlying mechanism of the volume-outcome relationship, namely learning-by-doing and scale economies in patients with sepsis. Design and study setting: Retrospective cohort study of adult patients with sepsis between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2016 in 231 intensive care units (ICUs) in the UK. Participants: The patient was the primary unit of analysis. Patient and ICU characteristics were included for risk adjustment. Demographic and clinical data were extracted from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) Case Mix Programme database. Study design: We used the lags of quarterly sepsis volume in the ICU as a measure of the learning-by-doing effect. Outcome measure: The outcome of hospital mortality after ICU admission for sepsis was assessed using a multilevel probit regression model of patients nested in ICUs over quarters. Data collection/extraction methods: Critically ill patients with sepsis were identified by the Sepsis-3 consensus criteria. Results: Our study identified a cohort of 273001 patients with sepsis admitted to 231 ICUs in the UK. Our study finds that in comparison with contemporaneous volume, lagged volume had a stronger association with acute hospital mortality. This implies that the dynamic learning-by-doing effect is more important than the static economies of scale effect. This finding was consistent across alternate specifications of learning-by-doing. Conclusions: The study provides evidence that the underlying mechanism for the volume-outcome relationship is learning-by-doing and not the static economies of scale. ICUs caring for patients with sepsis tend to improve by experience
Love, lies, and larceny: one hundred convicted case files of cybercriminals with eighty involving online romance fraud
No full textThis article examines 100 convicted case files of cybercriminals, 80 of which concern online romance fraud. While all were prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria, many involve multiple offenses, including crypto investment fraud and hacking. The study provides critical insights into offender profiles and the criminal justice system’s approach to cybercrime enforcement. Drawing on the Space Transition Theory (STT), the study highlights the transient and intermittent nature of criminal activities in cyberspace. The findings reveal that most offenders are young males aged 18–28, predominantly university undergraduates or graduates. Notably, 96% of offenders hail from southern Nigeria, and 80% of crimes involve romance fraud. While perceptions of leniency in cybercrime punishments persist, 96% of offenders acted as primary perpetrators, with 2% serving as mules or accomplices and another 2% adopting dual roles. By relying on actual case files of online offenders rather than online profiles, which are often fake, this study offers unique insights that can inform future research and support evidence-based strategies to address cybercrime in Nigeria and beyond
Multilevel latent class analysis: state-of-the-art methodologies and their implementation in the R package multilevLCA
No full textLatent class (LC) analysis is a model-based clustering approach for categorical data, with a wide range of applications in the social sciences and beyond. When the data have a hierarchical structure, the multilevel LC model can be used to account for higher-level dependencies between the units by means of a further categorical LC variable at the group level. The research interest of LC analysis typically lies in the relationship between the LCs and external covariates, or predictors. To estimate LC models with covariates, researchers can use the one-step approach, or the generally recommended stepwise estimators, which separate the estimation of the clustering model from the subsequent estimation of the regression model. The package multilevLCA has the most comprehensive set of model specifications and estimation approaches for this family of models in the open-source domain, estimating single- and multilevel LC models, with and without covariates, using the one-step and stepwise approaches
The increasing importance of changes in nuptiality: policy mismatch and fertility decline in low-fertility Asian societies
No full textDespite the strong relationship between marriage and childbearing in Asian societies, policies addressing “lowest-low” fertility have often prioritized parity progression within married couples while overlooking a concurrent and increasingly significant trend: the rising prevalence of delayed marriage and nonmarriage. Against this backdrop, we first discuss recent fertility trends and the role of marriage in declining fertility, then review policy efforts in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore, arguing that these pronatalist policies have been mistargeted. We subsequently examine the extent to which the decrease in fertility is attributable to changes in marital fertility versus shifts in nuptiality. Our decomposition analysis of fertility trends using data from the United Nations Population Division shows that while a decline in marital fertility played a dominant role during the initial stages of the fertility transition, nuptiality has been the primary driver of decreasing fertility rates in recent decades. These findings highlight the importance of the growing incidence of singlehood and the potential, albeit modest, increase in diverse family forms, both of which have received scant attention in policy discourse
Towards non-adversarial democracy: rethinking elections and representation in Africa
No full textThis article proposes a non-adversarial multiparty electoral system inspired by the indigenous Gada system in Ethiopia as a means of achieving a stable and sustainable democracy. The system emphasises cooperation, inclusivity, and consensus-building, incorporating elements of representative, deliberative, and participatory models. The article argues that this non-adversarial scheme can enhance the legitimacy of political institutions, facilitate effective policymaking, and lead to substantive policy outcomes that benefit citizens. By balancing the need for multiple parties with a non-adversarial political process, this model offers a viable alternative to current electoral systems and contributes to the discussion on the democratisation of Africa
Constituency juries: holding elected representatives accountable through sortition
No full textThis article proposes the creation of constituency juries to enhance accountability and check oligarchy in representative governments. Constituency juries would be made up of randomly selected citizens from an electoral constituency who exercise oversight over that constituency’s elected representative. Elected representatives would be required to give a regular account of their actions to the constituency jury, and the jury would have the power to sanction the representative. In addition to this general model of constituency juries, I offer a more specific institutional design that shows how the general model can be operationalized and realistically incorporated into existing representative governments. In contrast to lottocratic proposals that replace elections with sortition, constituency juries are a promising way to combine the two to address the oligarchic tendencies of elections in representative government
Occupations and retirement across countries
No full textWe study the role of occupations for individual and aggregate retirement behavior. First, we document large differences in individual retirement ages across occupations in U.S. data. We then show that retirement behavior among European workers is strongly correlated with U.S. occupational retirement ages, indicating an inherent association between occupations and retirement that is present across institutional settings. Finally, we find that occupational composition is an important predictor of aggregate retirement behavior across 45 countries. Our findings suggest that events affecting occupational structure, such as skill-biased technological change or international trade, can have consequences for aggregate retirement behavior and social security systems
Human dignity in digital futures: takeaways from a panel debate
No full textThis paper reports on a panel debate at the 32nd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) held in Paphos in Cyprus in 2024. As reflected in the conference theme: “People First: Constructing Digital Futures Together”, the debate centered on how to integrate human dignity as a guiding principle for research, education, and community practices in the Information Systems (IS) field. In particular, the panelists discussed the complex interplay between technological advances and human dignity manifested across various contexts from the urgency for IS scholars to investigate the often-unintended consequences of digital technology to the impact of algorithms in digital learning environments for students and the maintenance of respectful digital spaces for IS scholars. With a recognition of everyone’s inherent worth and contribution to society – the core of human dignity – this panel report is both timely and important for scholars in the IS field in their pursuit of constructing digital futures that put people first
