Private Arrangements Research Articles

Impact of fiscal policy shocks on health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: A panel structural VAR approach

This study investigates the impact of fiscal policy shocks on health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It is motivated by health systems’ increasing reliance on public funding despite growing macroeconomic uncertainties. This study adopts a regional analysis, sampling five countries with the highest per capita public health expenditure from the Central, Eastern, Southern, and Western African regions. The study employs the panel structural vector autoregression technique and expresses health outcomes as a function of fiscal policy and private health expenditure shocks. The results suggest that fiscal policy shock significantly and positively affects health outcomes in Central and Western Africa. However, health outcomes are resilient to fiscal policy shock in Eastern and Southern regions and to private health expenditure shock in all regions. The study indicates that achieving sustainable improvement in health outcomes in SSA would require policies designed to expand health financing options beyond the traditional public and private funding arrangements.

District nurses experiences in providing terminal care in rural and more urban districts. A qualitative study from the Faroe Islands

Objective To explore district nurses’ experiences in providing terminal care to patients and their families until death in a private home setting. Design, setting and subjects Qualitative study. Data derived from focus group discussions with primary nurses in The Faroe Islands. Results Four themes were identified: ‘Challenges in providing terminal care’, ‘The importance of supporting families’, ‘Collaborative challenges in terminal care’ and ‘Differences between rural districts and urban districts’. The nurses felt that terminal care could be exhausting, but they also felt the task rewarding. Involving the family was experienced as a prerequisite for making home death possible. Good collaboration with the local GPs was crucial, and support from a palliative care team was experienced as helpful. They pointed out that changes of GP and the limited services from the palliative care team were challenging. Structural and economic conditions differed between urban and rural districts, which meant that the rural districts needed to make private arrangements regarding care during night hours, while the urban districts had care services around the clock. Conclusion Our findings underline the complexity of terminal care. The nurses felt exhausted yet rewarded from being able to fulfil a patient’s wish to die at home. Experience and intuition guided their practice. They emphasised that good collaboration with the GPs, the palliative care team and the families was important. Establishing an outgoing function for the palliative care team to support the nurses and the families would increase the scope for home deaths. Working conditions differed between rural and urban districts.

LEVELS OF PROVISION OF AGROECOSYSTEM SERVICES

Rural areas are characterised by high biological diversity. Farmers are both direct users of ecosystem services, but on the other hand management of agricultural land affects not only the economic outcome but also has an impact on the condition of agroecosystems. Farm activities and agroecosystems are interlinked. The more conserved and protected the ecosystem functions are, the higher the positive feedback on the farm and the surrounding ecosystems is. The provision of ecosystem services can take different forms – through private contracts, collective contracts, government payments, etc. In Bulgaria at the moment, the most common form of provision is through public payments or through ecological certification of organic products. However, private arrangements can also enhance this provision and secure a win-win scenario for both provider and buyer of ecosystem services. This study shows several case-studies on private arrangements with comparative analysis on several contract features. These examples show different levels of provision of ecosystem services. In some cases, both the efforts and the actual benefit are at the same level, for example an agricultural plot (pollination contracts). In other cases, an actual effort in the form of agri-environmental measure can take place in a certain farm holding, but the actual benefit can be seen somewhere else, for example downstream of a watershed catchment. And in some instances, the actual effort is used to compensate for someone else’s pollution activities (see carbon credit markets). Very often, a farm is a user of ecosystem services, both within and outside its physical boundaries. On the other hand, some ecosystem services require collective action to be effective and meaningful (most often this is the example of biodiversity conservation). There is still a controversy over what is the best form for providing ecosystem services from agriculture – through private contracting or through the traditionally used public provision. The answer is likely to be found in the nature of the ecosystem services themselves. If for an ecosystem service such as crop pollination it is easy to establish a buyer and seller of the service, there are clear benefits for both parties, and the price can be easily determined. For others such as biodiversity, all this is very difficult to be achieved. For this purpose, it is necessary to assess the most important features characterising a contract. The form of the contract is tightly connected with whether the environmental effort of the farmer is measurable or not. For some ecosystem services, like pollination the environmental result is easily monitored and measured. Where in other instances, like the watershed groundwater quality, monitoring is difficult or impossible. Therefore, different ecosystem services pose the need for different contract arrangements. Keywords: agroecosystem services, private contracts JEL code: Q15, Q57

What COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity Reveals About Solidarity

What COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity Reveals About Solidarity

Women’s experiences of the consenting process for pregnancy remains disposal following early miscarriage

Background and methodologyUK clinical practices around managing pregnancy remains after pregnancy loss involve a process of documenting consent. Women are typically offered options for disposal, which may include cremation, burial,...

Agreement For Kidney Transplant Between An International Donor And An Indonesian Recipient In Compliance With Indonesian Health Legislation

The arrangement between an international donor and an Indonesian recipient requiring a 'kidney' or any other organ for human organ transplantation represents a private understanding between the involved parties. This stems from the fact that therapeutic agreements and health-related legislations do not govern relationships established through private arrangements between donors and recipients. An incident was reported wherein an individual generously donated their kidney to a recipient in need and received compensation as an expression of gratitude. Although the donor's actions in this case went against the humanitarian principles endorsed by health laws, they did not contravene the legal framework. This serves as evidence that Indonesian regulations currently lack provisions addressing organ transplants conducted by unrelated living donors, resulting in the absence of legal safeguards for such donors.

Inframarginal externalities: COVID-19, vaccines, and universal mandates.

COVID-19 vaccine mandates are in place or being debated across the world. Standard neoclassical economics argues that the marginal social benefit from vaccination exceeds the marginal private benefit; everyone vaccinated against a given infectious disease protects others by not transmitting the disease. Consequently, private levels of vaccination will be lower than the socially optimal levels due to free-riding, which requires mandates to overcome the problem. We argue that universal mandates based on free-riding are less compelling for COVID-19. We argue that because the virus can be transmitted even after receiving the vaccine, most of the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine are internalized: vaccinated individuals are protected from the worst effects of the disease. Therefore, any positive externality may be inframarginal or policy irrelevant. Even when all the benefits are not internalized by the individual, the externalities mainly are local, mostly affecting family and closely associated individuals, requiring local institutional (private and civil society) arrangements to boost vaccine rates, even in a global pandemic. Economists and politicians must justify such universal vaccine mandates on some basis other than free-riding.

Fragmented sustainability governance of telecoupled flows: Brazilian beef exports to China

The intensified interconnection of global agri-food systems has linked local sustainability problems to distant global drivers. With point of departure in contributions within the field of environmental governance from the telecoupling literature, we examine how rapidly increasing Chinese demand for beef is associated with detrimental sustainability outcomes in Brazil. Providing an overview of the overlapping public and private governance arrangements that apply to these trade flows, our findings suggest that governance of telecouplings within the beef sector is highly fragmented, and has been predominantly concerned with market facilitation, generally overlooking sustainability issues. China has thereby emerged as a potential source of regulatory leakage, where non-compliant Brazilian exporters can redirect products with a low potential for commercialization in developed countries. We, therefore, call attention to the importance of governing new telecouplings between large developing countries through policies effectuating these states’ official environmental pledges.

Informal land leasing in rural India persists because it is credible

While insecure property rights are considered ‘perverse’ with respect to development, we examine what are the features most amenable for their persistence. Applying a Credibility Thesis framework in the context of rural land tenancy relations in India, that are largely held through private arrangements, we try to understand if there are inherent preferences to the existing informal structure of land leasing. An in-depth primary household survey across four states of India reveals that farmers rely on customary, informal mode of leasing arrangements because of their functionality in terms of no paperwork, easy accessibility, swifter modes of payment and prompt conflict resolution. Informality makes the existing institutional arrangement ‘credible’ in the eyes of both the tenants and owners. This raises the questions of whether policy prescriptions on intricate land related issues should entail appreciation of prevailing informal tenant customs, regulating them, or simply letting them be and realign agrarian support and delivery systems around this embedded informality.

MNE Buyers of Local Firms as an Opportunity Structure: How NGOs Promote Sustainability in China

This paper presents new theory and evidence on how multi-stakeholder institutions affect the diffusion of sustainable practices in autocratic contexts. By highlighting the embeddedness of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in global supply chains, we study how this embeddedness helps non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promote sustainability in power-imbalanced institutional environments. Drawing on social movement and resource dependence theories, we argue that global supply chains that tie MNEs to foreign suppliers offer NGOs an opportunity structure to shift the balance of power across geographic boundaries by establishing MNE-NGO collaborations. This helps NGOs leverage competencies and resources to facilitate the adoption of sustainable practices by local firms within MNEs’ global supply chain networks. However, this mediated stakeholder effect decreases when governmentally produced structural conditions reduce the perceived effectiveness of this opportunity structure: greater priority given to environmental protection by governments substitutes private governance arrangements involving MNEs and NGOs. Additionally, greater curtailment of civil liberties suppresses their synergistic potential. To test our theory, we examine the relationship between Chinese NGOs’ collaborations with 168 MNEs across 25 countries and these MNEs’ local green supply chain ratings in the period 2014-2020. This study contributes to the literatures on multi-stakeholder institutions, social movements, and corporate sustainability.

Im/possible Careers. Gendered Perspectives on Scholarly Personae around 1900

In German-speaking countries as elsewhere, women, especially from the middle classes, demanded entry into the male-dominated academic world with growing vehemence around 1900. This essay focuses on the constellations and dynamics that prompted the reframing of the social field of knowledge production. Taking the case of the women’s rights activist and writer Käthe Schirmacher, who publicly campaigned for women’s access to higher education, I explore the motivations, social transformations and socially available life plans behind her path. To this end, I draw on the concept of the scholarly persona as a mediating instance between individual aspirations and social relations and examine its potential for a gender-sensitive intellectual history. Here I argue that a differentiated analysis of knowledge production in the sciences and the humanities is only possible if non-institutional and, therefore, less obvious gender regimes are also addressed. The institutional and private arrangements that enable academics, intellectuals, and also artists to concentrate on their work play an essential part in their production of knowledge and artistic work. Therefore, the key argument of this paper is that questions about gender-specific (as well as class-specific) life plans in various creative social fields can only be examined in a differentiated way if this support is systematically included in research on the scholarly, intellectual, or artistic persona.

Public and Private Sector to Zero Deforestation Commitmen in South Sumatra

To address deforestation, South Sumatra Goverment was committed to be the frontrunner in attaining Green Growth 2017. All economic activities related to land use must comply with the regulations. The private sector supports them with some initiatives by several certifications as their commitment toward zero deforestation (ZDC). However, from the land cover data, South Sumatra Province is one of the highest forest cover loss in Indonesia followed by increasing economic activities. This study aims to explain commitments of the public and private sectors in complying toward zero deforestation. We conducted interviews with relevant agencies and collect the data regarding interventions and initiatives. This study used compliance theory to analyze the commitments of both sectors. The results showed that the public and private sectors in South Sumatra have shown their commitment with the type of treaty-induced compliance. The compliance showed how the commitment is integrated into policies, aligned public and private governance arrangements, and a good environmental quality change by reduced deforestation rate. This showed that one of the ZDC’s objectives is at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 has been implemented by both. Thus, they strive to end natural forest loss by 2030.

Public value creation and appropriation mechanisms in public–private partnerships: How does it play a role?

AbstractScholars have extensively investigated public value creation and appropriation concerning public services delivered strictly by the government and public–private arrangements, such as public–private partnerships (PPPs). However, such studies often focus on value for money and economic performance criteria. This study examines how public value can be created and appropriated in PPP settings and how public value mechanisms can influence these phenomena. Considering that the literature lacks an integrated and structured analytical framework to assess such phenomena, this conceptual article addresses four mainstream PPP topics regarding public value mechanisms (information sharing, public and private capabilities, risk governance, and stakeholder orientation), which can be associated with PPPs' public value creation (destruction) and appropriation (misappropriation). Thus, this article highlights a need to evaluate PPPs in terms of public value creation beyond the economic performance criteria and fills the literature gap by proposing a public value creation and appropriation framework.

What Is Out There and What Can We Learn? International Evidence on Funding and Delivery of Long-Term Care

This article describes the social care funding and delivery arrangements of a varied selection of developed countries, focusing on long-term care of older people. International evidence and latest reforms can inform the debate as countries struggle economically. Some have opted for mandatory social insurance that provides universal coverage. A premium is paid and if the insured individual or relatives require support, they are entitled to it. Others opted for a similar universal system but with earmarked taxation, while others fund their social care entirely from general taxation. Many chose a safety-net system in which benefits are means-tested leaving wealthier individuals to secure private arrangements of care. Within the UK, the level of support varies as Scotland provides personal care free of charge, being more generous than England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is no “one solution”, but understanding different options can help in the discussion of current and future reforms.

Contracting out Rules for Family Income Sharing Arrangements: Providing Certainty and Protecting the Vulnerable

Despite equal division of assets at the end of a relationship, residual economic disparity often remains. This is especially common when one partner has left the workforce to care for children. Addressing such divergent economic prospects at the end of long-term relationships has been a perennial policy challenge. In 2019, the Law Commission completed its review of the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (PRA). The Commission recommended replacing the current economic disparity compensation and maintenance regimes with an income pooling mechanism: Family Income Sharing Arrangements (FISAs). It also recommended that couples be able to contract out of FISAs. This article explores the rationale for changing the current regime and the conceptual underpinnings of the proposed FISA regime, using human capital as a framework. The article proposes a detailed policy regime for FISA contracting out. The proposed rules consider the needs of couples with children, where a partner has left the labour force, or where lived reality has not met the couple's ex ante expectations. The resulting rules meet the policy goal of allowing couples to contract out of FISAs, but only where their contract causes no hardship. Additional disclosure is also recommended for contracting out of the other provisions of the PRA, with greater deference recommended for such private arrangements as a result.

The Exit Theory of Judicial Appraisal

For many years, we and other commentators have observed the problem with allowing judges wide discretion to fashion appraisal awards to dissenting shareholders on the basis of widely divergent, expert valuation evidence submitted by the litigating parties. The results of this discretionary approach to valuation have been to make appraisal litigation less predictable and therefore more costly and likely. While this has been beneficial to professionals who profit from corporate valuation litigation, it has been harmful to shareholders, making deals costlier and less likely to complete. In this Article, we propose to end the problem of discretionary judicial valuation by tracing the origins of the appraisal remedy and demonstrate that its true purpose has always been to protect the exit rights of minority shareholders when a cash exit is otherwise unavailable, and not to judge the value of the deal. While such reform would be costly to valuation litigation professionals, their loss would be more than offset by the benefit of such reforms to shareholders involved in future corporate transactions. Shareholders presently have adequate protections, both from private arrangements and legal doctrines involving fiduciary duties.

Żeńskie rzymskokatolickie zgromadzenia zakonne w Świebodzicach. Szare Siostry z Marienstrasse 11 (1866-1945)

The article is a very modest reason for the history of the religious house of the Congregation of the Grey Sisters of St. Elizabeth in Świebodzice during the years 1866-1945. The author briefly describes the origins of the order, as well as the circumstan-ces of the appearance of the sisters and the location of the religious institution in the city based on cartographic material (map) and iconographic (photos, old postcards). He goes on to mention the subject matter of Elizabethan activities. In addition, it reconstructs the personnel of the religious house during the 1930s in the light of the data contained in the pre-war address books (residents) of the city. Finally, he briefly discusses the history of the religious house during World War II (1939-1945), as well as the tragic post-war fate of individual sisters based on private arrangements.

The New Transformation of Europe: Arcana Imperii

Abstract The European Union is undergoing a structural transformation—a regression from integration through law as an anti-hegemonic project of equal membership to a condition in which member state orders, under a transformed European Union law, gravitate around unequal relations of subordination. Alongside the surveillance mechanisms that constrain the member states to conform to the requirements of the Economic and Monetary Union are private law arrangements (the “memoranda of understanding” qua “contracts”) that equally, and with greater force, produce subordination. Adopting a critical comparative-historical approach, this Article delves into Europe’s collective legal memory, and the past of colonial relations, to make intelligible the deployment of the memoranda contracts whose harsh terms have been dramatically changing the condition of the “debtor countries” for the worse; in the arcana of private law lies the truth about the changing condition of sovereign power in contemporary Europe and about the potential to change direction and counter the “jurisdomination” turn.

Social learning and land lease to stimulate the delivery of ecosystem services in intensive arable farming

Current intensive arable production systems tend to favour food production at the cost of the provision of other ecosystem services. In order to decrease the environmental impact and increase the variety and level of ecosystem services delivery, arable farmers would need to change their current practices. Governance arrangements aimed at such changes of behaviour not only include those from government, but also from institutions as developed bottom-up by farmers, other actors and networks. This paper investigates the role that governance arrangements developed by groups of farmers in intensive arable production systems in The Netherlands may have in changing agronomic practices that will improve the delivery of regulating and cultural ecosystem services. We evaluate the arrangements according to their potential effects on farmers and their social environment. Firstly, we consider the effect on farmers’ motivation and ability to change their practices. And secondly we consider the legitimation of, and demand for behavioural change by their social environment. The results suggest that social learning and land lease are promising supportive governance arrangements for behavioural change, and that private and public governance arrangements can be complementary.

Impacts of Public and Private Sector Policies on Soybean and Pasture Expansion in Mato Grosso—Brazil from 2001 to 2017

Demand for agricultural exports in Brazil has stimulated the expansion of crop production and cattle raising, which has caused environmental impacts. In response, Brazil developed public policies such as the new Forest Code (FC) and supply chain arrangements such the Soy and the Cattle Moratoriums. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of these policies, considering the trajectories of agricultural expansion in the state of Mato Grosso in three years: 2005 (pre-moratorium and before the new FC), 2010 (post-moratorium and before the new FC) and 2017 (post-moratorium and post-new FC). Our analysis uses a detailed land use change data for both the Amazon and Cerrado biomes in Mato Grosso. In all the years considered, soybean expansion occurred in consolidated production areas and by conversion of pastures. Pasture expansion is influenced by existence of pastures nearby, by areas of secondary vegetation and deforestation. Our data and models show the effectiveness of public policies and private arrangements to reduce direct conversion from forests to crop production. However, our results also provide evidence that soybean expansion has caused indirect impacts by replacing pasture areas and causing pasture expansion elsewhere. Evidence from our work indicates that Brazil needs broader-ranging land use policies than what was done in the 2010s to be able to reach the land use goals stated in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement.