Equity Demand Research Articles

Educational equity in England: the shortcomings of the UK Government’s COVID-19 response

The UK Government sought to respond to lockdowns and lost learning during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in multiple ways, including replacing cancelled examinations and compensating for lost learning through a National Tutoring Programme. In the case of the former, the system failed to realise the demands of equity by privileging wealthier students and beating a path back to a flawed ‘normality.’ In the case of the latter, while the idea of providing targeted, high quality small group and one on one tutoring to the most in-need students was well-conceived, implementation was a failure - particularly following its contracting out to a large outsourcing company. These two cases demonstrate that English education policy is adherent to a neoliberal conception of education equity, and that attempts to address inequalities are constrained, backfire, or both.

CEO Activism and Firm Value

We investigate the increasingly common practice of chief executive officers (CEOs) taking public stances on social and political issues (CEO activism). We find that CEO activism stems from a CEO’s personal ideology and its alignment with investor, employee, and customer ideologies. We show that CEO activism results in positive market reactions. Furthermore, firms with CEO activism realize increased shareholdings from investors with a greater liberal leaning, who rebalance their portfolios toward these firms. Our results suggest that investors’ socio-political preferences are an important channel through which CEO activism affects equity demand and stock prices. Notably, CEOs are less likely to be fired when their activist stances generate positive market responses. This paper was accepted by Victoria Ivashina, finance. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4971 .

Mitigating inequity: ethically prioritizing patients for CAR T-cell therapy

AbstractManufacturing capacity and institutional infrastructure to deliver chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR-T) are pressured to keep pace with the growing number of approved products and expanding eligible patient population for this potentially life-saving therapy. Consequently, many cell therapy programs must make difficult decisions about which patient should get the next available treatment slot. This situation requires an ethical framework to ensure fair and equitable decision-making. In this perspective, we discuss the application of Accountability for Reasonableness (A4R), a priority-setting framework grounded in procedural justice, to the problem of limited CAR-T slots at our institution. We formed a multidisciplinary working group spanning several hematological malignancies. Through multiple rounds of partner engagement, we used A4R guiding principles to identify 4 main criteria to prioritize patients for CAR-T: medical benefit, safety/risk of complications, psychosocial factors, and medical urgency. Associated measures/tools and an implementation process were developed. We discuss further how ethical principles of fairness and equity demand a consistent approach within health systems that does not disadvantage medically underserved or underrepresented populations and supports overcoming barriers to care. In our commitment to transparency and collaboration, we make our tools available to others, ideally to be used to engage in their own A4R process, adapting the tools to their unique environments. Our hope is that our preliminary work will support the advancement of further study in this area globally, aiming for justice in resource allocation for all potential CAR-T candidates, wherever they may seek care.

Educational equity in England: the shortcomings of the UK Government’s COVID-19 response

The UK Government sought to respond to lockdowns and lost learning during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in multiple ways, including replacing cancelled examinations and compensating for lost learning through a National Tutoring Programme. In the case of the former, the system failed to realise the demands of equity by privileging wealthier students and beating a path back to a flawed ‘normality.’ In the case of the latter, while the idea of providing targeted, high quality small group and one on one tutoring to the most in-need students was well-conceived, implementation was a failure - particularly following its contracting out to a large outsourcing company. These two cases demonstrate that English education policy is adherent to a neoliberal conception of education equity, and that attempts to address inequalities are constrained, backfire, or both.

The Impact of New Media on Female Rights and Protection of Gender Equity in the Workplace

The advent of the new media era has provided a platform for demands of gender equity to be voiced. The article focuses on new media and gender equity in the workplace, citing the unequal treatment experienced by female workers of different age groups and providing a summary analysis. In this paper, research methods such as fieldwork and questionnaires were used to collect the problems encountered by women in the workplace and analyze them accordingly to provide strategies and possible solutions. The result shows that with the advent of the new media era, long-standing discriminatory issues will be tackled one by one. The new mainstream media has enriched the image of women in the new era; the interactive experience between users has spread the demands of working women more widely; the media literacy of women in the media era has improved their working performance; and the public opinion mechanism has made womens voices louder and more persistent, all of which make it possible to achieve gender equality in the workplace.

Addressing the rise of inequalities: How relevant is Rawls's critique of welfare state capitalism?

Addressing the rise of inequalities: How relevant is Rawls's critique of welfare state capitalism?

Compulsory Citizenship Behavior and Deviant Behavior: A Mediated Moderation Model

This study examined how and when compulsory citizenship behaviors (CCB) lead to employees’ workplace deviant behavior (WDB) through psychological entitlement. In addition, this study integrates moral licensing and equity demand perspectives to further understand the psychological entitlement raising process. More specifically, this study verifies the moderating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) on the relationship between CCB and WDB and see if the strong supervisor-subordinate relationship facilitates CCB-workers to increase their entitlement and enhance their willingness to engage in WDB. Based on a sample of 299 elementary school teachers, the results provided supports for the hypotheses. This study found that CCB was directly positive related to WDB. Psychological entitlement was been verified the mediator role of the relationship between CCB and WDB. Moreover, the results also indicated that LMX moderated the mediating effect of psychological entitlement on the relationship between CCB and WDB such that the effect is stronger when LMX is high than when it is low. The effect of CCB on WDB found in this research supports the anticipation that CCB may bring about WDB. Furthermore, by confirming the mediating role of psychological entitlement in the linkage between CCB and WDB, such a finding substantially widens the scope of subordinate behavioral outcomes caused by CCB to include an important but neglected aspect of psychological mechanism, and thus is helpful for us to gain a more complete picture of the negative consequences of CCB. By applying moral licensing theory and focusing on a negative psychological configuration, this research also highlights the self-value inflation and vindictive mentality for explaining the transition process of CCB to WDB. By empirically testing LMX as one moderated mediating mechanism that underlies the influence of CCB on WDB, this research establishes an important theoretical perspective for explaining why high LMX employees are more likely to exhibit WDB, thereby contributing to understanding the “black box” of the transforming processes from CCB to WDB.

How does private firm disclosure affect demand for public firm equity? Evidence from the global equity market

We investigate the relationship between private firms' disclosures and the demand for the equity of their publicly traded peers. Using data on the global movement of portfolio investments in public equity, we find that a 10% increase in private firm disclosure transparency – proxied by the number of disclosed private firms' financial statement line items – reduces global investors’ demand for public equity by 4.3% or $358 million per investee country-industry. These findings are consistent with private firm disclosures generating negative pecuniary externalities – global investors reallocate their capital away from public firms to more transparent private firms – and less consistent with these disclosures creating positive information externalities that would benefit public firms. Consistent with this interpretation, we find that the reduction in demand for public equity is offset by a comparable increase in capital allocation to more transparent private firms. Using a simulated instruments approach and the staggered implementations of electronic business registers in investee countries in Europe as plausibly exogenous shocks to private firm transparency, we conclude that the negative relationship between private firm disclosures and public equity demand is likely causal.

Does the elderly’s private pension ownership intensify aggregate equity demand? Empirical evidence in the US

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate how the old generation income structure affects aggregate equity purchases, using Flows of Funds Accounts and Survey of Consumer Finances. Our results suggest that the risk aversion that increases with age could be modified to incorporate the old’s pension ownership. In particular, private pension income to elder households are related to increased aggregate equity purchases, even considering other pension and all other income. In this sense, private pensions are a ‘stepping-stone’ to increased equity investment in US households.

Value from health data: European opportunity to catalyse progress in digital health

Value from health data: European opportunity to catalyse progress in digital health

How Does Private Firm Disclosure Affect Demand for Public Firm Equity? Evidence from the Global Equity Market

We investigate the relationship between private firms’ disclosures and the demand for the equity of their publicly traded peers. Using data on the global movement of public equity, we find that a one standard deviation increase in private firm disclosure transparency – proxied by the number of disclosed private firms’ financial statement line items — reduces global investors’ demand for public equity by 13% to 16% or by $206 million to $253 million in dollar terms. These findings are consistent with private firm disclosures generating negative pecuniary externalities – global investors reallocate their capital away from public firms to more transparent private firms — and less consistent with these disclosures creating positive information externalities that would benefit public firms. Consistent with this interpretation, we find that the reduction in demand for public equity is offset by a comparable increase in capital allocation to more transparent private firms. Using staggered openings of the Bureau van Dijk database offices in each investee country as a plausibly exogenous shock to private firm disclosures, we conclude that the negative relationship between private firm disclosures and public equity demand is likely causal.

How Does Private Firm Disclosure Affect Demand for Public Firm Equity? Evidence from the Global Equity Market

We investigate the relationship between private firms’ disclosures and the demand for the equity of their publicly traded peers. Using data on the global movement of public equity, we find that a one standard deviation increase in private firm disclosure transparency – proxied by the number of disclosed private firms’ financial statement line items – reduces global investors’ demand for public equity by 11% to 12% or $174 million to $190 million in dollar terms. These findings are consistent with private firm disclosures generating negative pecuniary externalities – global investors reallocate their capital away from public firms to more transparent private firms – and less consistent with these disclosures creating positive information externalities that would benefit public firms. Consistent with this interpretation, we find that the reduction in demand for public equity is offset by a comparable increase in capital allocation to more transparent private firms. Using staggered openings of the Bureau van Dijk database offices and implementation of electronic business registers in investee countries as plausibly exogenous shocks to private firm transparency, we conclude that the negative relationship between private firm disclosures and public equity demand is likely causal.

Contrasting the information demands of equity- and debt-holders: Evidence from pension liabilities

In the setting of defined-benefit pension liabilities, we hypothesize that equity and debt investors value these liabilities differently. As expected, we find that investors' valuations of equity more closely align with a going concern perspective that emphasizes the long-term funding needs of pension plans. In contrast, as expected, we find that investors' pricing of short-term and unsecured debt more closely aligns with a settlement perspective that emphasizes pension termination costs. For both equity and debt securities, the settlement (going concern) perspective dominates for short-duration (long-duration) pensions. Overall, our evidence suggests that equity and debt investors perceive complex liabilities in predictably different ways that are consistent with their differing information demands, which in turn vary with the characteristics of the obligation.

Analyzing the Impact of Corporate Stock Buybacks in China and the US Equity Markets

This paper contributes to the comparative analysing the impact of corporate stock buybacks in China and the US equity markets. The reason to compare two equity markets with buybacks - in the US equity market, the largest source of the US equity demand has consistently been buybacks. However, in the China equity market, China's A-share market conducted a surging number of buybacks that began in 2018, it believes showed corporations' strong intention of bottom fishing and would support stock value. Based on that, this paper analyses the motivation and status analysis of buybacks in China and the US equity markets. Further, according to the financial assessment of two big corporate buybacks in China and the US equity markets as case studies. Therefore, demand for buybacks in the equity market still large, it suggests confidence in a corporation's performance buybacks is one way for corporations to reward shareholders and rejuvenate bull market.

Contrasting the Information Demands of Equity- and Debt-Holders: Evidence From Pension Liabilities

Contrasting the Information Demands of Equity- and Debt-Holders: Evidence From Pension Liabilities

From Each According to His Ability: An Analysis of Endowment Taxation and Potential Earnings

This Article has two primary aims. The first is to provide an in-depth survey of recent legal academic literature on endowment (or ability) taxation, which is a tax on a person’s maximum potential earnings over a given period. This scheme of taxation, which has for some time enjoyed favor as an ideal among economists, has recently gained significant support from tax law scholars as well. The second aim is to demonstrate that a seemingly elegant justification for the endowment tax, which attempts to reconcile the demands of equity and liberty within a certain luck egalitarian framework — Ronald Dworkin’s “equality of resources” — is not ultimately successful. Thus, the firm ness of the endowment tax’s normative foundations remains far from settled.

Endowment Taxation and Equality of Resources

This Article has two primary aims. The first is to provide an in-depth survey of recent legal academic literature on endowment (or ability) taxation, which is a tax on a person’s maximum potential earnings over a given period. This scheme of taxation, which has for some time enjoyed favor as an ideal among economists, has recently gained significant support from tax law scholars as well. The second aim is to demonstrate that a seemingly elegant justification for the endowment tax, which attempts to reconcile the demands of equity and liberty within a certain luck egalitarian framework—Ronald Dworkin’s “equality of resources”—is not ultimately successful. Thus, the firmness of the endowment tax’s normative foundations remains far fromsettled.

Simplicity Creates Inequity: Implications for Fairness, Stereotypes, and Interpretability

Algorithms are increasingly used to aid, or in some cases supplant, human decision-making, particularly for decisions that hinge on predictions. As a result, two additional features in addition to prediction quality have generated interest: (i) to facilitate human interaction and understanding with these algorithms, we desire prediction functions that are in some fashion simple or interpretable; and (ii) because they influence consequential decisions, we also want them to produce equitable allocations. We develop a formal model to explore the relationship between the demands of simplicity and equity. Although the two concepts appear to be motivated by qualitatively distinct goals, we show a fundamental inconsistency between them. Specifically, we formalize a general framework for producing simple prediction functions, and in this framework we establish two basic results. First, every simple prediction function is strictly improvable: there exists a more complex prediction function that is both strictly more efficient and also strictly more equitable. Put another way, using a simple prediction function both reduces utility for disadvantaged groups and reduces overall welfare relative to other options. Second, we show that simple prediction functions necessarily create incentives to use information about individuals' membership in a disadvantaged group—incentives that weren't present before simplification, and that work against these individuals. Thus, simplicity transforms disadvantage into bias against the disadvantaged group. Our results are not only about algorithms but about any process that produces simple models, and as such they connect to the psychology of stereotypes and to an earlier economics literature on statistical discrimination.

Does Perceived Information in Short Sales Cause Institutional Herding?

The institutional herding literature demonstrates, that institutional long equity demand in period t is dependent on their long equity demand in period t-1. We, test if institutions’ long positions also rely on perceived information contained in the trades of sophisticated arbitrageurs in the form of short interest. We test two hypotheses. First, institutions perceive changes in short interest as predicting future returns. In this case subsequent institutional demand should be negatively related to changes in short interest. Second, institutions perceive short interest as correcting mispricing. In this case short-sale constrained institutions, underweight securities until short interest increases, they view prices as corrected, and subsequently purchase the security. We find that institutional demand is positively related to past changes in short interest, supporting the perceived price correction hypothesis.

Socio-economic inequalities in health and health service use among older adults in India: results from the WHO Study on Global AGEing and adult health survey

ObjectiveThe objectives of this study were to measure socio-economic inequalities in self-reported health (SRH) and healthcare visits and to identify factors contributing to health inequalities among older people aged 50-plus years. Study designThis study is based on a population-based, cross-sectional survey. MethodsWe accessed data of 7150 older adults from the World Health Organization's Study on Global AGEing and adult health Indian survey. We used multivariate logistic regression to assess the correlates of poor SRH. We estimated the concentration index to measure socio-economic inequalities in SRH and healthcare visits. Regression-based decomposition analysis was employed to explore the correlates contributing to poor SRH inequality. ResultsAbout 19% (95% CI: 18%, 20%) reported poor health (n = 1368) and these individuals were significantly less wealthy. In total, 5134 (71.8%) participants made at least one health service visit. Increasing age, female gender, low social caste, rural residence, multimorbidity, absence of pension support, and health insurance were significant correlates of poor SRH. The standardized concentration index of poor SRH –0.122 (95% CI: –0.102; –0.141) and healthcare visits 0.364 (95% CI: 0.324, 0.403) indicated pro-poor and pro-rich inequality, respectively. Economic status (62.3%), pension support (11.5%), health insurance coverage (11.5%), social caste (10.7%) and place of residence (4.1%) were important contributors to inequalities in poor health. ConclusionSocio-economic disparities in health and health care are major concerns in India. Achievement of health equity demand strategies beyond health policies, to include pro-poor, social welfare policies among older Indians.