Wealthy Individuals Research Articles

Knowledge of wealth shapes social impressions.

Seven experiments conducted in India and the United States (N ∼7,000; 5 preregistered) examined the effects of wealth on warmth and competence, 2 fundamental dimensions of social impressions. Wealth causally influenced perceptions of a target's competence: high wealth increased perceived competence and low wealth decreased perceived competence (Experiments 1-3). Furthermore, both high and low wealth reduced perceived warmth compared with control conditions that provided no wealth-related information (Experiments 2 and 3). Attributing prosocial tendencies to the target in the form of charitable donations reversed wealth-induced reductions in warmth, while low levels of charitable donations lowered both perceived warmth and competence (Experiment 3). Reciprocally, information about the target's competence or warmth influenced how wealthy they were perceived to be (Experiment 4). Knowing the source of wealth (e.g., entrepreneurship, corporate fraud, inheritance) also affected perceptions of competence and warmth (Experiments 5 and 6). Moreover, participants expressed greater willingness to hire wealthier targets compared with poorer targets in hypothetical employment scenarios, a relationship mediated by perceived competence, suggesting that an individual's wealth may influence consequential assessments and decisions (Experiment 7). With rising economic inequality, it is crucial to understand how wealthy and poor individuals are perceived and the implications of these perceptions. The present experiments offer insight in this direction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

21st Century Rex: maximising access to a privately owned Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the digital age

A ~60-70% complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Stan recently sold for 31.8 million US dollars to an unknown buyer (announced in March 2022 as the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi), pushing up the price of all such skeletons way beyond the budget of most museums. Wealthy private individuals who purchase expensive fossil specimens sometimes put them on public display but leave them in an intellectual limbo, unable to be studied and published. However, a partial T. rex skeleton known as Titus was excavated in Montana in 2018, shipped to the UK in 2020, and had casts of Stan's bones added to complete the skeleton during mounting. It was loaned to the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall, as the centrepiece to a temporary exhibition called Titus: T. rex is King. This was the first time a mounted T. rex skeleton containing fossil bones had been on display in England for many decades. Importantly, before the mounting process began, all the real bones were 3D scanned in detail using photogrammetry. The resulting digital 3D models were sent to palaeontologists in America who studied them and produced a paper describing the palaeopathology before the mounting process was even complete. Replicas of all the identifiable bones were 3D printed for display in the exhibition and were accessioned into the museum collections, along with the 3D digital models and all associated data. This ensured that physical as well as digital replicas of the bones would remain accessible, and in theory publishable, forevermore.

WEALTH TAX MODIFICATIONS: STATUS AND TRENDS

The purpose of this article is to study the topical issues of wealth taxation, which is due to the existing stable trends of growth of wealth of market subjects. Modern society is characterized by a marked increase in the wealth of individuals and corporations. Especially the number of wealthy individuals is growing. The aim of the paper is to define the essence of wealth and prerequisites of its taxation. The theme of the article is conditioned by the necessity to reveal different forms and methods of wealth taxation. At the same time the aim of the article is not to study wealth, but its taxation. In this connection the general system of taxes on wealth is considered and the peculiarities of functioning of different types of tax on wealth are determined. Methodology. A proper analysis of the social structure of society in the context of individual groups of taxpayers allows us to assess the effectiveness of the application of specific forms of wealth taxation. Results. The issue and modern specificity of the system of wealth taxes is explored. Wealth taxes exist in many countries in various forms. Practical implications. The peculiarities of application of different wealth taxes to different categories of taxpayers are investigated. The economic essence of taxes on wealth is investigated. The specifics of functioning of various taxes on wealth in modern conditions are considered. Value/originality. It has been established that taxation of wealth is a perfectly acceptable and even necessary form of fiscal influence of the state on society. A wealthy society is able to pay more taxes. This is important for the formation of state revenues. The economic potential of a large part of society is sufficient to pay a wealth tax. The peculiarities of functioning of different types of wealth tax for different taxpayers in different countries of the world are considered. The use of various taxes on wealth as a fiscal tool in the tax system of the state is proposed. Improvement of fiscal mechanisms of wealth taxation is recommended.

Can teacher‐centered community‐based conservation programs influence student household sustainable behaviors near a biodiversity hotspot?

AbstractLocal communities living on the borders of protected areas can be key drivers of environmental degradation. Community‐based conservation initiatives seek to use sustainable activities as a strategy for mitigating these degradative behaviors while improving livelihoods but must be scalable to the site and sustainable over time. Teacher training, as a means of information transfer to the broader community, is one technique for implementing long‐term sustainable behavior programs. To be effective, sustainability practices must reach beyond behavior change in teachers to influence students and the broader community in which they work. UNITE for the Environment (UNITE) is a community‐based environmental sustainability program located along the border of Kibale National Park in Uganda, a site of high biodiversity, particularly for primates. UNITE focuses on conducting teacher trainings with 12 schools within 5 km of the park. We conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of the transfer of UNITE's sustainability practices to the broader community. Families of teachers and students from schools that UNITE worked with, as well as control schools, were surveyed to assess their use of sustainable activities promoted by UNITE. Sustainable activities included specific agricultural practices, composting, bee‐keeping and fuel‐efficient stoves, while controlling for possible confounding variables between households including socioeconomic, spatial, and demographic variables. Results revealed that UNITE households, in comparison with control group households, showed greater use of sustainable practices for 12 of 13 behaviors tested. Wealth was the most influential of socioeconomic factors, with wealthier individuals more likely to implement sustainable activities. UNITE participants had greater value of the environment and belief in their ability to affect the environment than members of the control group. This study demonstrates the ability of teacher training programs to influence sustainable behavior, even while controlling for socioeconomic factors, suggesting that other programs should consider this approach to community‐based conservation.

Review: The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin

Review: <i>The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America</i>, by Greg Grandin

Tax the Eggs, not the Hen

The VC industry provides an excellent example for an industry that is based on the ability to bring together ideas and high-risk capital in a process that generates value. Of particular interest is the case where the entrepreneurs reside in one country and the investors reside in another country. There are two types of benefits. The first type of benefits depends on the success of the young innovative technology firms. The second type of benefits depends on the total flow of high-risk capital from the country of the investors to the country where the investment takes place. While the benefits to the entrepreneurs and the shareholders are vastly discussed, the benefit to the hosting country is less explored. Successful entrepreneurs earn a lot of money in case of success. The high gains attract public pressure for higher and more effective capital gains tax. In this work we show that this to be a worthless and even harming. We show that the benefits are both direct in the form of taxes and indirect as higher wages. We use hand-picked database to estimate the total benefit to a small country that was successful in attracting international VC funding. Our main result is that the Income tax collected from VC backed employees is 10.7 higher than the Capital tax gained from exits. The call for the taxation of capital gains of the wealthy individuals could materially hurt the revenue of the hosting country

Access to denture restoration services under removable dentures subsidy program for adults aged 65\xa0years and older in Taiwan- an interpretive approach

BackgroundAccess is an important issue in health equality. Availability of dental services and cost subsidies is an important factor affecting access to denture restoration for the elderly. This study aims to explore access to denture restoration services in the elderly removable denture’s subsidy program of Taiwan.MethodsAccess to the elderly removable dentures subsidy program was measured from two aspects, that is, availability of subsidies and payment for these services and the characteristics of patients and their treatment needs. The first aspect included reimbursements and the number and location of subsidy clinics, and the second aspect included the age and gender distribution of patients and denture types. Information on reimbursement regulations and the number and location of dental clinics providing subsidized services were obtained from the website of the Taoyuan City Public Health Bureau, Taoyuan Hospital, Department of Statistics and Ministry of Health and Welfare. Data on patient characteristics and denture type were obtained through a retrospective survey. We selected individuals who participated in the elderly removable denture’s subsidy program from 2015 to 2018 at the Geriatric Dentistry Department of Taoyuan Hospital. We conducted data analysis using an interpretive approach.ResultsThis study found that reimbursement amounts are inadequate, and the availability of subsidized services is low. Moreover, the proportion of male applications is slightly higher than that of females. In addition, among the applicants, removable partial dentures for single or two arches are the most common.ConclusionsProblems of insufficient numbers of contracted hospitals and low reimbursement amounts are observed in the subsidy program, which are the key factors affecting access to denture restoration services among the elderly. Policymakers should exclude wealthy individuals and offer subsidy only to low-income elderly individuals with missing teeth who are in dire need of financial support to improve their dental health.

Tax evasion and tax avoidance

Exploiting rich administrative data and salient policy variation, we study the substitution between illegal tax evasion and legal tax avoidance. By increasing its enforcement effort, the Norwegian government pushed many wealthy individuals to disclose assets previously hidden abroad. We find that the taxes paid by these individuals rise 30% at the time of disclosure and that the rise is sustained over time. After stopping to evade, taxpayers do not start avoiding more. Our results suggest that cracking down on evasion by the wealthy can be an effective way to raise tax revenue, increase tax progressivity, and ultimately reduce inequality.

Exploratory study of credit-card indebtedness during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the current COVID-19 global pandemic on the selected intrinsic and extrinsic factors associated with behaviour personal indebtedness; namely, the changing landscape of credit-card indebtedness. The hypotheses were derived from the literature and focuses on moderating aspects of financial knowledge and responsibility with potential gender bias in purchasing essentials and paying down current debt burden. It was found that financial knowledge was the most powerful factor of the many intrinsic/extrinsic motivational factors explored in predicting essential purchases and debt maintenance. There were some gender differences, but both strongly agreed that such debt would not negatively impact attaining their life's goals. It appears that younger, lower-income professionals were more conscious about managing their debt than some older, more wealthy individuals. Credit-card rewards have always been a major motivating factor to induce credit-card use. In purchasing basic essentials, credit rewards were not found to be significant as financial knowledge and lifestyle images.

Debt Relief or Exit: The Long-Term Effects of Forex Loans on Latvian Households

The stubborn decision of the Latvian government to join the eurozone at any cost put a great burden on Latvian households after the crisis of 2008. Nevertheless, no popular protest movement emerged to change the course of this decision. This study discusses why Latvians undertook individual strategies to cope with the forex loan crisis. Particularly, I look at the choice between formal debt relief procedures and emigration as alternative individual strategies for defaulted debtors. These programmes have not reversed the negative migration trends or significantly decreased the number of Latvian households in arrears. Debt discharge is mainly attainable for wealthy individuals who are able to mobilise their financial and kinship resources. Worse-off debtors cannot attain debt discharge or are stigmatised during the process. Alternatively, emigration has offered a way to cope with overindebtedness and keep up with mortgages and consumer loan payments for a much larger segment of the debtor population.

Validation of Ideal Breast Characteristics With Breast Augmentation Patients.

BackgroundBreast augmentation procedures are one of the most commonly performed aesthetic procedures in the United States. Little work has focused on the general public’s overall perception of the ideal breast or has validated them with patient photographs.ObjectivesTo validate crowdsourced perceptions of breasts with their alignment to the aesthetics of breast augmentation patients.MethodsA prospective cross-sectional study was performed using participants enrolled through the AmazonMechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform (Amazon Web Services, Amazon, Seattle, WA) to obtain participant opinions ofhow closely patient breasts aligned with previously obtained results of 4 ideal breast characteristics. Outcomes were reported based on the correlation between breast attractiveness and alignment to ideal breast characteristics, both before and after breast implant procedures.Results2306 responses from 737 participants reported patient photograph alignment with ideal breast projection proportion (1.0) as having the highest correlation to opinions of heightened aesthetic beauty (R = 0.98, P < 0.001), and ideal nipple direction (front) as having the lowest correlation to aesthetic beauty (R = 0.90, P < 0.001). Younger age groups (18-24) and participants with a high school diploma or less rated patients as less attractive, while married and wealthy individuals reported higher attraction levels.ConclusionsCrowdsourcing can be a useful tool for aesthetic surgery preferences and has helped reveal key takeaways. The importance of the 4 breast characteristics has been validated, with alignment to all 4 characteristics tested having a high correlation to preferences. Differences in preference across demographic groups are a topic to further investigate.

Community‐engaged philanthropy: The role of the fundraiser in building equitable communities

AbstractIn recent years, fundraisers have become increasingly focused on major gift solicitation while donors have been making larger gifts to fewer organizations. As this trend continues, some have begun to question whether major organizations and/or wealthy individuals now have too much control over the work of nonprofits and the communities they serve. While it is true that major gifts are important and can made a noticeable, positive impact, in some cases community members might see their impact as intrusive. In situations such as this, what is the “best” course of action? How should fundraisers consider, balance, and address the perspectives and rights of their organization, donors, and community members? This paper creates a framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and constituents, but also their responsibilities for promoting equity within their community as a whole. This paper draws on the social‐ecological model, as well as concepts from intersectionality, to explore how fundraisers can increase involvement from all community members in a nonprofit's work to create a participatory and community‐engaged process, with a special focus on including those who are typically marginalized, rather than maintaining a hierarchical system of power. It also draws on the theories of rights‐balanced fundraising ethics, community‐centric fundraising, and other ethical frameworks of fundraising and public administration to compare what is being done by fundraisers to what should be done to encourage ethical practices in fundraising. The paper is supplemented by examples of the impact of implementing (or not implementing) community engagement in fundraising practices. This paper aims to create a community‐engaged philanthropy framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and donors, but also their responsibilities for promoting equitable distributions of power within their community. This framework provides specific guidance for fundraisers as to how they can balance these multiple (and sometimes competing) responsibilities while also keeping ethics at the forefront of their actions. It demonstrates how, by taking a community‐engaged approach to their work, fundraisers are able to bring about better long‐term outcomes for their organization. Specifically, the framework considers: (1) To whom are fundraisers most responsible, and to whom should fundraisers be most responsible—their nonprofit, their donors, or those being served? (2) For what rights of community members must the fundraiser account when soliciting funds, and to what extent is the fundraiser responsible for upholding these rights? (3) In what ways can an invitation from a fundraiser to make a gift also invite some level of power or control over the organization's work? (4) To what extent do fundraisers have the responsibility to maintain an equitable power balance among their constituents, including donors and those served? (5) How can fundraisers help ensure that all community members are able to participate in the organization's work to extent that they are willing and able?

Prevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 according to socioeconomic and ethnic status in a nationwide Brazilian surveyPrevalência de anticorpos contra o SARS-CoV-2 de acordo com o status socioeconômico e étnico em uma pesquisa nacional no Brasil

RESUMENObjetivos.Investigar las desigualdades socioeconómicas y entre distintos grupos étnicos en la prevalencia de anticuerpos contra el SARS-CoV-2 en las 27 unidades federativas de Brasil.Métodos.En este estudio transversal, se realizaron tres encuestas de hogares los días 14-21 de mayo, 4-7 de junio y 21-24 de junio de 2020 en 133 áreas urbanas brasileñas. Se utilizó un muestreo de etapas múltiples para seleccionar 250 individuos en cada ciudad a fin de someterlos a una prueba rápida de anticuerpos. Los sujetos respondieron un cuestionario sobre los bienes del hogar, la escolaridad y el color de la piel y etnia (autodeclarado utilizando la clasificación brasileña estándar de cinco categorías: blanco, negro, pardo, asiático o indígena). Se utilizó el análisis de los componentes principales de los bienes para clasificar el estatus socioeconómico en cinco quintiles de riqueza. Se empleó la regresión de Poisson para los análisis.Resultados.Se analizaron 25 025 sujetos en la primera encuesta, 31 165 en la segunda y 33 207 en la tercera, que mostraron una prevalencia de resultados positivos de 1,4%, 2,4% y 2,9%; respectivamente. Los individuos del quintil más pobre tuvieron 2,16 veces más probabilidades de presentar un resultado positivo (intervalo de confianza del 95%: 1,86-2,51) que los del quintil más rico, y los que tenían 12 o más años de escolaridad tuvieron una prevalencia menor que los sujetos con menos educación. Las personas indígenas presentaron una prevalencia 4,71 (IC95%: 3,65-6,08) veces mayor que las blancas, al igual que las de piel negra o parda. El ajuste por región del país redujo los índices de prevalencia según la riqueza, la educación y el origen étnico, pero los resultados siguieron siendo estadísticamente significativos.Conclusiones.La prevalencia de anticuerpos contra el SARS-CoV-2 en Brasil muestra gradientes relacionados con la posición socioeconómica y la etnia muy pronunciados, con menor riesgo en las personas blancas, educadas y ricas.

People are more tolerant of inequality when it is expressed in terms of individuals rather than groups at the top

Despite the ever-growing economic gap between the very wealthy and the rest of the population, support for redistributive policies tends to be low. This research tested whether people's tolerance of inequality differs when it is represented in terms of a successful individual versus a group of people at the top of the economic ladder. We propose that drawing people's attention to wealthy individuals undermines support for redistribution by leading people to believe that the rich person's wealth is well deserved. Across eight studies (n = 2,800), survey participants rated unequal distributions of resources as more fair when presented with an individual, rather than a group, at the top of the distribution. Participants also expressed lower support for redistributive policies after considering inequality represented by successful individuals compared to groups. This effect was driven by people's different attributions for individual versus group success. Participants thought that individuals at the top were more deserving of their successes and, in turn, were less likely to support redistribution when inequality was represented by individual success. These findings suggest that support for inequality, and policies to reduce it, may depend on who people are led to consider when they think about the top of the economic distribution.

Economic inequality and congressional action in the United States: A comparison of the minimum wage and alternative minimum tax

AbstractA central puzzle in American politics is the stark increase in economic inequality since the early 1970s due, in part, to the absence of public policies to address this trend. One explanation is policy drift: Inequality has grown in the United States because the political process has been unresponsive to economic trends toward inequality. A second explanation is unequal political influence: Wealthy individuals and corporations wield superior political influence and tilt public policy toward their interests. We compare these explanations using the federal minimum wage and alternative minimum tax (AMT) from 1969 to 2012 as comparison cases. These policies were both denominated in nominal dollars, so the effect of policy inaction is comparable for both policy domains. We find that (1) the U.S. Congress was much more likely to update AMT policy than minimum wage policy after 1978, (2) Congress protected and increased the real value of the AMT deduction for married couples, whereas the real value of the minimum wage and individual deduction declined after 1978, (3) Congress and the President eventually converted the AMT—but not the minimum wage—to automatic adjustments for inflation. These patterns highlight the role of political inequality in economic policy‐making.

Adoption and frequency of use of ride-hailing services in a European city: The case of Madrid

New app-based mobility services are revolutionizing urban transport. Particularly, ride-hailing has experienced a worldwide boom in the last decade since it provides a convenient, on-demand door-to-door service for urban trips. In parallel, an increasing number of studies have been conducted, mainly analyzing individuals’ behavior towards this transport option, mobility patterns, as well as ride-hailing effects on urban sustainability. Nevertheless, the majority of these contributions focus on US cities, while almost no efforts have been devoted to other geographic areas, such as Europe. Cities in this continent present some particular characteristics that make them a case worth investigating, such as a higher presence of public transport modes or a great public concern on environmental issues. The aim of this paper is to explore travel behavior towards ride-hailing services in a European city. Based on the information collected from a survey campaign in the city of Madrid (Spain), we estimate a Generalized Heterogeneous Data Model approach to identify the key factors motivating ride-hailing adoption and frequency of use. The paper identifies a higher adoption of ride-hailing services among young, well-educated, wealthy individuals, who are familiar with new technologies. More interestingly, the research suggests a noticeable role played by environmental consciousness in ride-hailing frequency of use, compared to US cities. Particularly, individuals with lower environmental consciousness are more car-oriented, which is also linked to a more intense use of ride-hailing. By contrast, individuals with a higher environmental consciousness tend to reduce their use of ride-hailing, which reflects their propensity towards public transport in a transit-intensive background.

Optimal attention and heterogeneous precautionary saving behavior

This paper applies rational inattention theory proposed by Sims (2003) to study a puzzling empirical fact that wealthier individuals have a stronger precautionary saving motive. In the model, consumers face uninsured capital income risk but suffer from an information-processing capacity constraint. I solve for the optimal attention and consumption choices analytically in a Gaussian framework. I find that consumers with more initial wealth pay less attention to the capital income risk. As a result, wealthier consumers have higher perceived uncertainty about their future capital income and display a stronger precautionary motive by saving at higher rates.

Where Do the Less Affluent Vote? The Effect of Neighbourhood Social Context on Individual Voting Intentions in England

A widely accepted finding in the literature on political participation is that individuals living in poorer neighbourhoods are less likely to vote than those living in more affluent neighbourhoods. Yet, why some poor residents of the most deprived neighbourhoods are more likely to vote than others is still understudied. This article presents a new theoretical framework arguing that when they believe that most others vote in the neighbourhood, poor citizens are more likely to follow their example than wealthy citizens. To empirically test these claims, I develop a two-level multilevel model using survey data and the Index of Multiple Deprivation for England. My findings point to the higher importance of a social norm of voting for the political behaviour of poor individuals than wealthy individuals. Social norms define which behaviour is right and proper. They are enforced through social interactions with others.

Reproductive Ethics and Family

Reproductive Ethics and Family

Different Conspiracy Theories Have Different Psychological and Social Determinants: Comparison of Three Theories About the Origins of the COVID-19 Virus in a Representative Sample of the UK Population

COVID-19 conspiracy theories have proliferated during the global pandemic, and their rapid spread among certain groups may jeopardize the public health response (e.g., undermining motivation to engage in social distancing and willingness to vaccinate against the virus). Using survey data from two waves of a nationally representative, longitudinal study of life in lockdown in the United Kingdom (N= 1,406), we analyze the factors associated with belief in three origin theories related to COVID-19, namely that it 1) originated in a meat market in Wuhan, China; 2) was developed in a lab in Wuhan, China; and 3) is caused by 5G mobile networks. Our findings suggest that political-psychological predispositions are strongly associated with belief in conspiracy theories about the virus, though the direction and effect sizes of these predictors vary depending on the specific content of each origin theory. For instance, belief in the Chinese lab conspiracy theory is strongly associated with right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and general conspiracy ideation, as well as less reliable news sources, distrust in scientists, and anxiety about the pandemic. Belief in the 5G network conspiracy theory is strongly associated with SDO, distrust in scientists, while less strongly with conspiracy ideation and information from social networks/media; RWA is strongly negatively associated with belief in the 5G conspiracy theory, with older and more wealthy individuals somewhat less likely to endorse it. The meat market origin theory is predicted by intolerance of uncertainty, ethnocentrism, COVID-19 anxiety, and less so by higher income, while distrust in scientists is negatively associated with this origin story. Finally, belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories is associated with negative public health behaviors such as unwillingness to social distance and vaccinate against the virus. Crucially, our findings suggest that the specific content of COVID-19 conspiracy theories likely determines which individuals may be most likely to endorse them.