The possibilities for global inequality and poverty reduction using revenues from global carbon pricing

Global carbon pricing can yield revenues which are large enough to create significant global pro-poor redistributive opportunities. We analyze alternative multidecade growth trajectories from 2015 to 2105 for major global economies with carbon tax rates designed to stabilize emissions in the presence of both continued country growth and autonomous energy use efficiency improvement. In our central case analysis, revenues from globally internalizing carbon pricing rise to 8 % and then fall to 6 % of gross world product. High growth in India and China reduces global inequality and poverty strongly over time, but important incremental redistributive effects can be achieved using global carbon pricing revenues. Taking into account both between-country effects and previous literature estimates of within-country effects, a global carbon tax alone tends to be regressive in its global incidence. However, if its revenues are redistributed globally via equal per capita transfers, in our central case the Gini coefficient for world income falls by about 3 % and the share of the bottom decile rises by 81 % on average from 2015 to 2105. The population living in poverty falls by 16 % in 2015. Going further, global poverty could be eliminated entirely by 2015 according to our calculations if one third of global carbon tax revenues were redistributed directly to the poorest individuals.     

Effectively Maintaining Inequality in Toronto: Predicting Student Destinations in Ontario Universities

L'accès aux universités prestigieuses, les mieux classées et dotées de ressources, quoique peu étudié, représente une dimension additionnelle des inégalités en éducation au Canada. La théorie de l'inégalité maintenue efficacement (IME) soutient que les groupes favorisés vont dominer l'accès aux institutions les mieux classées peu importe le palier scolaire. Cet article teste cette hypothèse en utilisant les données uniques de milliers d’élèves du Conseil Scolaire Public de Toronto (TDSB) qui ont été suivis à partir de la neuvième année jusqu’à leur entrée dans un établissement postsecondaire. Ces données ont ensuite été associées aux données de classement des universités, de leur revenu, de leurs dépenses et de leurs fonds de dotation. Une série de modèles statistiques à niveaux multiples indique que l'entrée dans la hiérarchie universitaire ontarienne tend à refléter les inégalités dans l'accès général aux universités. Les femmes, les étudiants d'origine asiatique, et les étudiants issus des quartiers ayant des statuts socio‐économiques élevés sont plus susceptibles d'entrer dans les universités les mieux classées et dotées de ressources; tandis que les étudiants qui s'identifient comme Noirs et hommes, sont moins susceptibles d'entrer dans ces institutions. Les avantages du statut socio‐économique élevé et de l'origine asiatique sont seulement partiellement expliqués par les variables académiques comme variables médiatrices. Ceci suggère que le statut culturel joue un rôle dans l’élaboration du choix universitaire, alors que le sexe ainsi que les autres inégalités raciales sont dus en grande partie aux processus du parcours académique. Access to highly ranked, prestigious, and well‐resourced universities represents an additional yet understudied dimension of educational inequality in Canada. The theory of effectively maintained inequality contends that advantaged groups will dominate access to the best‐positioned institutions within any credential tier. This paper tests this hypothesis using unique data on thousands of Toronto District School Board students that were tracked from Grade 9 to their entry in Ontario postsecondary institutions, and then linked to data on university rankings, incomes, expenditures, and endowments. A series of multilevel models shows that entry into Ontario's university hierarchy tends to mirror inequalities in general access to universities. Female, Asian‐origin, and students from higher socioeconomic neighborhoods are more likely to enter higher ranked and better resourced institutions, while students who self‐identify as black and male are less likely to enter such institutions. High socioeconomic status and Asian‐origin advantages are mediated only partly by academic variables, suggesting that status cultures play a role in shaping their university choices, while gender and other racial inequalities emerge largely through academic processes.     

The impact of a child protection investigation: a personal reflective account

Researchers who undertake parental perception studies agree that the views of the parents can offer valuable insights in relation to child protection work. Respondents to such studies and others who have shared their experiences of child protection investigations are usually mothers. Taken together, this body of work sheds light on some very private, emotive and often painful experiences of child protection intervention and its impact. This article lends my voice to this literature and gives further insight into the ways a mother can experience a child protection investigation. Drawing upon one incident – a swelling on a baby's head – this article draws attention to my feelings and emotions as the baby's mother. Despite a co‐operative social worker–client relationship and case closure, my analysis draws attention to issues concerning power imbalances and the concept of ‘secondary victimization’ to explain the awfulness of my experience and my convoluted emotional disquiet. The article proposes that more attention is directed to the negative feelings and emotions experienced during the investigative process through further research.     

Paradoxes of Online Investing: Testing the Influence of Technology on User Expectancies*

At an increasing rate, individual investors are taking personal control over their financial destinies by investing their money online. Compared to offline do‐it‐yourself approaches, evidence suggests that investors exhibit lofty expectations and perform significantly worse after going online. However, little is understood about the mechanisms fueling expectancies, the role technologies play in their formation, or how technologies shape investment decisions. Therefore, this article explores the paradoxical nature of online investing technologies, which can give rise to a heightened state of conviction in one's capability to invest successfully. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, the concepts of encapsulation and combination are introduced to develop a research model describing how functional and technical self‐efficacy judgments independently and collectively shape and influence outcome expectancies. The results suggest that perceptions about what one can accomplish through online investing technologies can lead investors to exaggerate their capabilities, which, in turn, produces elevated expectancies of financial payoffs and nonmonetary rewards. These findings carry important implications. In tasks requiring both computing and functional skills, the principals of encapsulation and combination highlight the importance of comprehensively capturing self‐efficacy beliefs across skill domain boundaries. Moreover, online investing represents a paradoxical case that challenges the traditional assumption that fostering a robust sense of efficacy represents a purely noble enterprise. In fact, strong self‐efficacy beliefs can prove counterproductive, leading to severe, irreversible, and unintended consequences. Going forward, these discoveries provide a solid foundation to enhance systems designs and facilitate a deeper understanding of user psychology.     

Family Health History Tools as Communication Resources: Perspectives from Caucasian,Hispanic, and Pacific Islander Families

Many tools facilitate gathering family health history (FHH) information. Public health initiatives have focused on improving FHH communication. Research indicates that tools remain largely unused in non-clinical settings and people tend to refrain from engaging in FHH communication. Research also indicates that cultural and family relationship factors influence FHH communication and tool use. This study investigated FHH tools as resources for FHH communication within Caucasian, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander families. Interviews with 10 family dyads from each racial/ethnic group included opportunities for participants to evaluate two FHH tools. Using structurating activity theory, the qualitative analysis revealed that participants viewed the tools as a structure for FHH information, a guide for how to communicate about FHH, and a source for stories about family health. Results are discussed in terms of how family system elements and social structures shape perceptions and use of FHH tools. Conclusions include implications for research and practice.     

Health Staff Responses to Domestic and Family Violence: The Case for Training to Build Confidence and Skills

ABSTRACT

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a serious, worldwide public health concern and the literature suggests that women who have experienced violence identify health care providers as the professionals they would most trust with disclosure of abuse. Social work is well positioned to respond to women presenting in hospitals after experiencing DFV and in advocating for systems and policy initiatives to support health staff in becoming adequately trained and supported to detect and respond appropriately. This paper reports on research that surveyed health staff in two hospitals in Queensland, Australia, to identify what DFV training they had received, whether this training increased their knowledge, skills and confidence to address DFV and what services they would access to support women presenting with DFV. The results showed that the respondents were an experienced staff group who had worked in the health sector for 10–20 years but despite having access to State-based training, the majority of them had not completed any in-house training and only 12% had received face-to-face training, and when they did undertake training, it was usually only a two-hour session. Seventy-five per cent of respondents would refer to their hospital-based social worker and 40% would make referrals to other support services, primarily social work.

IMPLICATIONS

• Hospitals need to prioritise, commit to, and resource appropriate and regular training to better equip health staff to identify and respond to DFV.

• Training needs to build the knowledge and skills of staff members to address their confidence to intervene and offer support.

• Social work can provide an important role in advocating and developing training and procedures to sustain health staff members’ capacity to respond appropriately to DFV.

     

Detecting bliss synergy in in vivo combination studies with a tumor kinetic model

Linear models are generally reliable methods for analyzing tumor growth in vivo, with drug effectiveness being represented by the steepness of the regression slope. With immunotherapy, however, not all tumor growth follows a linear pattern, even after log transformation. Tumor kinetics models are mechanistic models that describe tumor proliferation and tumor killing macroscopically, through a set of differential equations. In drug combination studies, although an additional drug‐drug interaction term can be added to such models, however, the drug interactions suggested by tumor kinetics models cannot be translated directly into synergistic effects. We have developed a novel statistical approach that simultaneously models tumor growth in control, monotherapy, and combination therapy groups. This approach makes it possible to test for synergistic effects directly and to compare such effects among different studies.     

Person‐centredness in the community care of older people: A literature‐based concept synthesis

‘Person‐centredness’ is a ubiquitous term, employed in modern care services to signify policies and practices that attend to the uniqueness of each individual user. Despite being highly regarded in older adult community care services, there is much ambiguity over its precise meaning. Existing reviews of person‐centredness and its attributes have tended to focus on the medico‐nursing literature, neglecting other interpretations, such as those relevant to community social care. A new literature‐based concept synthesis reported here identified 12 common attributes within the broad themes of ‘understanding the person’, ‘engagement in decision‐making’ and ‘promoting the care relationship’. The review also contrasts how these attributes are applied across different interpretations of person‐centredness. The article argues that not all attributes necessarily pull in the same direction, and that older adults may require them to be delivered in different ways than they are to younger people. Thus, a ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ approach should be discouraged in community care. Key Practitioner Message: ? ‘Person‐centredness’ is open to multiple interpretations, causing difficulties for services trying to gauge performance and quality; ? Three themes are central to person‐centred services: ‘understanding the person’, ‘engagement in decision‐making’ and ‘promoting the care relationship’; ? A ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ approach to applying person‐centredness is to be discouraged.