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This chapter outlines and critiques Japan’s Furusato Nozei tax program from an economic anthropological perspective. This chapter first introduces the socio-political organization of taxes together with the social-scientific paradigms that have been brought to analyze taxation within anthropological thinking. The chapter then outlines Japan’s tax history and the Furusato Nozei, or Hometown Tax program, before critiquing the program on the basis of these social science and anthropological. This critique confirms the validity of evaluating this Japanese tax program in its orientation and operation from an anthropologic viewpoint, while also calling into question the validity of such an approach to taxation from a broader societal view, thereby contributing to a new area of research within the Anthropology of Taxation.

The index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was reported on 27 February 2020. Subsequently, the exponential increase in cases has brought about the partial and total lockdown of cities, the closure of all schools and the shutdown of government offices in order to curtail the spread of COVID-19. COVID-19 and its subsequent drastic curtailment policies have implications on vulnerable groups, especially, informal workers who constitute about 70% of the active working population in Nigeria. This reflective discourse critically engages the plight of informal workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

The research was guided by the epistemology of pandemic interpretationism. It engages contextual reflections of the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria. Data were collected from secondary sources while rapid case studies were conducted with ten informal workers in Lagos and Ibadan. Afterwards, data were contextually analysed.

Economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria have contextually interpreted COVID-19 as an elite disease, imported into Nigeria by the wealthy. In addition, the mass population views COVID-19 containment measures such as lockdowns, movement restrictions and stay-at-home orders as elitist policies, which are aimed at protecting the wealthy and frustrating the poor and economically vulnerable who live on the fringes of poverty. Many informal workers have slipped below the poverty line while struggling to supply livelihood needs, as they were unable to earn daily income and cannot access palliatives. Consequently, they are of the opinion that “Hunger Virus is deadlier than Corona Virus”.

This paper is a contextual reflection on the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and movement restrictions in Nigeria. It presents pandemic interpretationism as an epistemological guide and reflectively examines the poverty impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian informal sector via contextual analyses of secondary data and rapid case studies. The paper uncovers various COVID-19 livelihood experiences and the responses of the informal workers; furthermore, it provides policy recommendations.

In France, as in other countries, the idea of installing rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels in private homes is based on an incentive scheme (tax advantages, feed-in tariffs, etc.) inspired by neoclassical economic theory. In the case of electricity producers in Reunion Island, unlike economists, we argue that producers’ calculations involve decision-making criteria which go further than any simple evaluation of economic costs and benefits.

Our approach is based on concepts of economic anthropology and on observations and semi-structured interviews conducted in the homes of the producers.

This ethnographic method allowed us to examine economic rationalities which revealed the anticipation of an energy landscape that will be subject to issues relating to the environment, access to electricity, evolution in the local electricity market, and household budget management. In this context, producers’ representations of solar power and of processes for commoditizing and decommoditizing the electricity produced (sold on the network/“free” when consumed) make compatible preservation of the environment and social norms of consumption.

This paper focuses on PV energy producers (who have been the object of very little research) and thus provides input for existing reflection on the diversity of economic rationalities. Such insight is important for understanding how people respond to policy appeals for PV panels. Anthropology therefore has an important role to play in the debate on energy transition. This conclusion paves the way for similar research in other contexts (of a non-insular nature in particular) which would allow for a promising comparative anthropological approach.

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) member schools often compare their faculties’ research records to journal lists of their “peer and aspirational” programs. They often survey faculty and administrators’ perceptions of journal quality; number of Social Sciences Citation Index downloads; or “count” the number of faculty publications – but rarely analyze accounting programs’ actual journal quality lists. To examine this issue, we use a survey of national accounting programs. We identify a set of quality-classified journal lists by sampling 38 programs nationwide, varying by mission (e.g., urban or research), degrees granted (e.g., doctoral degrees in accounting), and national ranking (e.g., classified as a Top 75 Research Program) – from which we derive 1,436 data points that classify 359 journals that appear on these 38 programs’ journal lists. We also describe a case study that an accounting program used to revise its old journal list. We also find that while programs generally use generally accepted “bright lines” among the top three categories (A+, A, A−), they tailor their listings from the wide variety of B or C classified journals to create their own sets of acceptable journals in these categories. The study provides guidance and data for accounting programs who wish to develop or revise their own journal lists. While many studies have examined journal rankings, this is the first study to document the use of journal lists by accounting programs with a wide array of missions.

This article addresses the question of the determinants of public policy at the local level. It is particularly concerned with local political leaders' interpretations of given socioeconomic environments, and the bearing these have on public policy formation.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.