Money Talks Research Articles

Strange bedfellows

This article addresses important, neglected questions of legal craft in relation to rights challenges to legislation, especially equality claims. It considers the perspective from which to assess multiple parts of a complex scheme in a challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Is the challenge best framed against the scheme as a whole – all or nothing – or against the separate parts? The framing or perspective can have serious implications for the outcome. Furthermore, a private litigant, motivated by self-interest in her individual circumstances, may frame the challenge in a way that does not advance a larger group’s interests or even harms them. To study these matters, the article focuses on Quebec (Attorney General) v A, which upheld the exclusion of unmarried couples from provincial marriage law. Adding to the existing concerns about the prominence of corporate litigants and the class biases of judges, that appeal exemplifies another type of rights case in which money talks.

If money talks, what does it say?: corruption and business financing of political parties

Why do businesses contribute to political parties? Is money a universal language? Do business contributions to political parties convey different messages in different countries? This book answers these questions based on intensive case studies of Australia, Canada, and Germany, as well as data from other countries. Business money does talk politics. In liberal Australia and Canada, the competitive short-term focus of firms generated substantial demand for private goods that could help firms develop an advantage over their rivals. Thus, business financing of parties conveyed a pragmatic message: in exchange for small but certain financial benefits, contributing businesses expect, as a reciprocation, to receive special consideration of their lobbying efforts. Australia's left-right party system created an awareness of policy risk, which motivated ideological payments, but there was no ideological bias in business financing of politics in centrist Canada. In Germany's co-ordinated economy, the most important policies for firms tend to be the public goods defined, championed, and delivered by their business associations. In this context, the pragmatic motivation for contributions to political parties is weak. The combination of consensual political institutions and constrained parties means there is a very low risk of major policy change from election to election. So, there is also little interest in ideological financing of political parties. If money talks, what does it say? places business financing of political parties in the context of debates about political corruption and offers advice on political reform. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

Money talks: neural substrate of modulation of fairness by monetary incentives.

A unique feature of the human species is compliance with social norms, e.g., fairness, even though this normative decision means curbing self-interest. However, sometimes people prefer to pursue wealth at the expense of moral goodness. Specifically, deviations from a fairness-related normative choice have been observed in the presence of a high monetary incentive. The neural mechanism underlying this deviation from the fairness-related normative choice has yet to be determined. In order to address this issue, using functional magnetic resonance imaging we employed an ultimatum game (UG) paradigm in which fairness and a proposed monetary amount were orthogonally varied. We found evidence for a significant modulation by the proposed amount on fairness in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the bilateral insular cortices. Additionally, the insular subregions showed dissociable modulation patterns. Inter-individual differences in the modulation effects in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) accounted for inter-individual differences in the behavioral modulation effect as measured by the rejection rate, supporting the concept that the PFC plays a critical role in making fairness-related normative decisions in a social interaction condition. Our findings provide neural evidence for the modulation of fairness by monetary incentives as well as accounting for inter-individual differences.

Does money talk? — The effect of a monetary attribute on the marginal values in a choice experiment

When designing choice experiments for nonmarket valuation the role of the price attribute is of major importance. In the energy sector the uncertainty of future direction of changes in prices makes it difficult to include an adequate price vector in the design. We separately investigate the implication of using price vectors with increases and decreases in tariffs from current levels, on marginal value estimate from choice experiment data developed using prospect theory. In addition, we also analyse the effect of excluding the price vector on these marginal values. By and large, our results support the neoclassical theory as we find that the means of the conditional estimates of the marginal values of attributes are unaffected by the direction of the price change and from exclusion of the price attribute. However, the distributions show a larger spread of values when the choice experiment implies a tariff decrease, which may have policy implications.

Money Talks … to Online Opinion Leaders

This study investigated the effectiveness of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations for consumers' online social-network referrals, specifically across “opinion leaders” and “non–opinion leaders.” The authors utilized a unique dataset that matched a survey with an online field experiment. The empirical results indicated “money talks”—that is, online referral rates were higher when extrinsic rewards were conferred. Notably, the effect of an extrinsic reward was significantly stronger among opinion leaders. In this paper, the authors highlight the significance of reputational concerns and referral motivations in this context. Opinion leaders may have developed a reputation of intrinsically motivated referrals across their social networks, shielding them from potential loss of social capital associated with extrinsic rewards.

It’s the Thought That Counts

It’s the Thought That Counts

Financial impact of health care-associated infections: When money talks.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, health spending in Canada was projected to reach $211 billion in 2013 (versus $207 billion in 2012), corresponding to $5,988 per per-son (1). Overall, this represents 11.2% of Canada’s gross domestic product. Approximately 60% of total health spending is directed to hospitals (30%), drugs (16%) and physicians (15%). Although it is difficult to estimate, the proportion of this spending attributed to the management of nosocomial infections, overuse and/or misuse of antimicrobials, and infections due to multidrug-resistant bacteria is significant. Despite the availability of efficient strategies targeting each of these aspects, large-scale progress has not been demonstrated.

Money Talks - Paying Physicians for Performance

Pay‐for‐performance has been enjoying a growing popularity among healthcare policy makers. It attempts to tie physician payment to quality of care. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we investigate the effect of pay‐for-performance on physician provision behavior and patient benefit. For that purpose, we compare two payment systems, a traditional fee‐for‐service payment system and a hybrid payment system that blends fee‐for‐service and pay‐for‐performance incentives. Physicians are found to respond to pay‐for‐performance incentives. Approximately 89 percent of the participants qualify for a pay‐for‐performance bonus payment in the experiment. The physicians’ relative share of optimal treatment decisions is significantly larger under the hybrid payment system than under fee‐for‐service. A patient treated under the hybrid payment system is significantly more likely to receive optimal treatment than a fee‐for‐service patient of matching type and illness. Pay‐for‐performance in many cases alleviates over‐ and under‐provision behavior relative to fee‐for‐service. We observe unethical treatment behavior (i.e., the provision of medical services with no benefit to the patient), irrespective of the payment system.

When money talks

COMMENTARY ON: Epstein R. Overdose: how excessive government regulation stifles pharmaceutical innovation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Stossel TP. Has the hunt for conflicts of interest gone too far? Brit Med J 2008;336:476. Weaver WD. President's page: disclosures, transparency, and firewalls protect integrity. Am Coll Cardiol 2008;52:964–5.

The Case for Biomed Involvement in Purchasing

Money talks. There is no better way for a biomedical engineering or healthcare technology management (HTM) to get the attention of the supply chain or materials management department—which is run by financially focused individuals—than to prove you can save them money. Many hospitals use Quint Studer’s management principles, which are driven by basic pillars that can be adopted and customized. They usually include: people, quality, service, and financial. Studer teaches that if you attract and retain the best people, and hardwire a culture of quality and service, then positive financial results will follow. However, I have found that describing the intangible effects of selecting better products and therefore increasing physician satisfaction, seems to result in a mild reaction from chief financial officers (CFOs), as compared to telling them that you saved $150,000 by reallocating underutilized systems. Since CFOs are almost always the lead on procurement processes, they are the ones to focus on, even if your primary motivator is one of the other pillars.

Guest editorial: Money talks: understanding the value of talking therapies and other nursing services

The ongoing economic crisis in Europe and the tough global economic conditions pose a number of challenges for healthcare generally, and mental healthcare specifically. On the one hand, a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2011) acknowledged that the economic crisis is expected to produce secondary mental health effects. Given that mental health problems are related to poverty, deprivation, inequality and other socioeconomic determinants of health, it is logical to posit that the current and foreseeable economic conditions pose considerable risks to the mental wellbeing of populations. Under such circumstances demand for services, including talking therapies, is likely to grow. On the other hand, the economic turbulence has triggered off harsh austerity measures in a number of European countries characterised by severe cuts in public spending, and the rolling back of service and welfare provision. In the UK, for example, the National Health Service (NHS) has to achieve efficiency savings of 20 billion by 2015, and there is emerging evidence that services and workforce numbers are already being cut. Commissioners and providers of healthcare services are working within a demanding financial landscape, where they are required to make significant cost savings while protecting outcomes for service users and maintaining a high quality workforce. While this is undoubtedly a challenging time, it is also a real opportunity to do things differently – and better – by clarifying how scarce resources may be deployed to generate better impact and value. For example, the potential contribution of clinicians to efficiency targets through innovations in practice has been calculated at 9 billion per year in the UK (Gainsbury, 2009). At the same time, there is a growing body of evidence relating to the cost effectiveness of different types of nursing and other healthcare services. In relation to the role of interventions that may help offset some of the adverse consequences of the economic

“Money talks, bullshit walks” interrogating notions of consumption and survival sex among young women engaging in transactional sex in post-apartheid South Africa: a qualitative enquiry

BackgroundTransactional sex is believed to be a significant driver of the HIV epidemic among young women in South Africa. This sexual risk behaviour is commonly associated with age mixing, concurrency and unsafe sex. It is often described as a survival- or consumption-driven behaviour. South Africa’s history of political oppression as well as the globalization-related economic policies adopted post-apartheid, are suggested as the underlying contexts within which high risk behaviours occur among Black populations. What remains unclear is how these factors combine to affect the particular ways in which transactional sex is used to negotiate life among young Black women in the country.In this paper we explore the drivers of transactional sex among young women aged 16–24, who reside in a peri-urban community in South Africa. We also interrogate prevailing constructions of the risk behaviour in the context of modernity, widespread availability of commodities, and wealth inequalities in the country.MethodsData were collected through 5 focus group discussions and 6 individual interviews amongst young women, men, and community members of various age groups in a township in the Western Cape, South Africa.FindingsYoung women engaged in transactional sex to meet various needs: some related to survival and others to consumption. In this poverty-stricken community, factors that created a high demand for transactional sex among young women included the pursuit of fashionable images, popular culture, the increased availability of commodities, widespread use of global technologies, poverty and wealth inequalities. Transactional sex encounters were characterized by sexual risk, a casual attitude towards HIV, and male dominance. However, the risk behaviour also allowed women opportunities to adopt new social roles as benefactors in sexual relationships with younger men.ConclusionTransactional sex allows poor, young women to access what young people in many parts of the world also prioritize: fashionable clothing and opportunities for inclusion in popular youth culture. In the context of high HIV prevalence in South Africa, strategies are needed that present young women with safer economic gateways to create and consume alternative symbols of modernity and social inclusion.

Money Talks: The role of communication in monetarizing knowledge value

Knowledge is increasingly accepted as a source of value creation and a differentiator between firms. Building on the perspective of knowledge as a flow, and postulating that value is based on knowledge use rather than knowledge possession, this paper address the research question: How can we express knowledge in such a way that it can be monetized and opened up for specific managerial interventions? Extant literature on organizational communication roles emphasizes the role of boundary spanners in search and combination of experience and tacit knowledge. We merge these insights on the roles of individuals with empirical observations of communication enhancing regimes at the organizational level. The paper proposes that the boundary-spanning roles fulfilled by individuals or by organizational arenas in bringing together diverse knowledge, provide the focal point for such monetization efforts. The contribution of this paper is seven propositions for future research on how management accounting and control s...

What We Know About Social Media

An introduction is presented to articles published in this issue including The Power of Social Television: Can Social Media Build Viewer Engagement? A New Approach to Brain Imaging of Viewer Immersion, Money Talks...To Online Opinion Leaders: What Motivates Opinion Leaders to Make Social-Network Referrals? and Who 'Likes' You and Why? A Typology of Facebook Fans.

Big Dollar, Little Democracy

Money talks. It is also a conversation stopper. Almost any discussion among progressives of what is really needed to solve the nation's multiple crises typically ends in despair when someone says, "But they will not accept that," they being the corporate rich and powerful, what a Texas friend of mine used to call Big Dollar.

Book Review: Money Talks: In Therapy, Society, and Life

Book Review: Money Talks: In Therapy, Society, and Life

Money talks

We study credible information transmission by a benevolent short-lived central bank. When externalities create a wedge between private and social welfare, the central bank has an incentive to misreport its information. Information transmission through monetary policy creates a distortion, thus, lending credibility.

Money talks: the language of the Rochester School

PurposeSince the late 1970s, research in accounting has been colonized by positive accounting theory (PAT) despite strong claims that it is fundamentally flawed in terms of epistemology and methodology. This paper aims to offer new insights to PAT by critically examining its basic tenets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper subjects the language of the Rochester School to a deconstruction that is a transformational reading. This uncovers rhetorical operations and unveils hidden associations with other texts and ideas.FindingsA new interpretation of the Rochester School discourse is provided. To afford scientific credibility to deregulation within the accounting field, Watts and Zimmerman used supplements and missing links to enhance the authority of PAT. They placed supplements inside their texts to provide a misleading image of PAT. These supplements rest on von Hayek's long‐term shaping blueprint to defeat apostles of the welfare state. Yet, to set PAT apart from normative theories that Watts and Zimmerman claimed were contaminated by value judgments, they made no reference in their text to the tight links between the Rochester School and the libertarian project initiated by von Hayek.Research limitations/implicationsAny reading of PAT cannot present the infinite play of meaning that is possible within a text. Deconstruction involves a commitment to on‐going, eternal questioning.Originality/valueThe paper provides evidence of the relation between PAT and the neoliberal (libertarian) project of von Hayek. PAT is viewed as part of the institutional infrastructure and ideological apparatus that legitimates the hegemony of markets.

Money Talks: The Impact of Citizens United on State Elections

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions are unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds (Citizens United v. FEC, 2010). In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the decision gave an electoral boost to Republicans, at the expense of Democrats. The 50 states provide an ideal testing ground for this hypothesis. The ruling only affected a subset of states since the majority of states already had no restrictions on independent expenditures, allowing us to obtain difference-in-differences estimates of the short term effects of the ruling on electoral advantage. We find that Citizens United had a positive and statistically significant effect of approximately seven percentage points on the probability of Republicans winning in state congressional elections.

Daddy’s Rabbit Stew

Daddy’s Rabbit Stew Alyss Dixson (bio) I sit on your lap as you unzip a rabbit from its skin Your blade down the centerline, flaying You pull down the fur like Mom peels off pantyhose, wet from rain I imagine myself divested, like the rabbit, free. Your blade still moves down my centerline, flays me Years will pass, I will feel that blade, those cuts, gutting me I will try to imagine myself divested, free Try to peel my organs—those wet, slick marbles—strip their sacks Years will pass, still that blade, those cuts Heart, lungs: I roll them until they pop, and bleed, ulcerate I peel them, these slick marbles, strip them Of memory, the way you snapped tendons from bone Heart and lungs rolled until they ulcerate, bleed, pop Trap me in a buck-toothed mask: leporid. Gird me. Empty my bed You: snapped, like tendons, like bones; Me: casting and re-casting the ivory lengths My leporid mask girds me. Empties me Still, I peel, I strip, I gut myself to the bones Cast, re-cast, cast, re-cast. Grieve. My childhood a skin I struggle to make new. Peel, strip, gut, tender My heart to your arrivals and departures Re-make a childhood. Re-member: The cold always hugging your skin, layering ice between us My heart: Your arrivals. Your departures. Slicing like wind and steel: pain. That night, cold hugged your skin, layered ice between us I am left disarticulated, game-y with need [End Page 873] Me: like wind, steel, pain. These memories slicing through my life: You pull down the fur like Mom peels off pantyhose, wet from rain Me, disarticulated from love, a-stew, game-y with need as I sit on your lap as you unzip a rabbit from its skin [End Page 874] Alyss Dixson Alyss Dixson, an Oregon native, has worked in different venues in the film industry—at New Line, as assistant; at Rat Entertainment, as Head of Film Development and Production; and at Paramount Pictures, as Vice-President of Production, Worldwide. She has worked on the production of such films as Money Talks, Rush Hour 1 & 2, Family Man, Paid in Full, and Double Take. Copyright © 2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press