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The authors aim to demonstrate the impact of allowing for unequal intra-household distribution of resources on income poverty and income inequality.

The paper applies a collective consumption model to study the intra-household distribution of resources in Visegrád countries (V4). It utilises subjective financial satisfaction as a proxy for indirect utility from individual consumption to estimate the indifference scales within couples instead of the traditional equivalence scale. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2013 and 2018 data are applied.

This study’s results indicate substantial economies of scale from living in a couple that are generally higher than implied by the commonly applied equivalence scale. The sharing rule estimates suggest that at the mean of distribution factors, women receive a consumption share between 0.4 and 0.6; however, some of the results are close to an equal sharing of 0.5. The female consumption share rises with her contribution to household income. Regarding income poverty and inequality, the authors show that both these measures might be underestimated in the traditional approach to equal sharing of resources.

The authors add to the empirics by estimating indifference scales for Czechia (CZ), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK), countries that have not been involved in previous research.

The main objectives of this paper are to measure weather-risks in Korean city-gas industry, whose revenue is strongly correlated with temperature changes, and show how managing weather-related risks using weather derivatives (priced using a utility indifference pricing technique) affects Korean city-gas industry's volatility of cash-flow through computational tests.

Since the fluctuation in temperature is the major risk factor for Korean city-gas providers (who are mostly nongovernmental companies), they can considered as strong potential participants in weather-derivatives' market. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate the impact of temperature changes on city-gas demands and the effectiveness of the application of weather-derivatives to city-gas providers' revenue. Our tests indicate that hedging weather-risks using weather derivatives can not only reduce the volatility of cash-flow but also increase cash income for Korean city-gas providers.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the main measures of inconsistency in the context of intertemporal choice and to identify the relationships between them (more specifically, the measures by Prelec, Takahashi and Rohde). In effect, Thaler (1981), awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 2017, argued that when a preference must be expressed between two reward options, some people may reverse their original preference when a significant delay is introduced before the reward is to be received. This anomaly is known as inconsistency in intertemporal choice.

After a revision of the existing literature and by using the methods from mathematical calculus, the authors have derived the logical relationships between the measures presented in this paper.

The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a novel parameter, the so-defined ratio of two instantaneous discount rates, which the authors call the instantaneous variation rate, which allows relating some other measures of inconsistency, namely the measures described by Prelec and Rohde. A limitation of this paper is the unavailability of empirical information about the inconsistency measures needed to substantiate the theoretical findings. Indeed, this paper has social implications because recent behavioral and neuroeconomic studies have shown the existence of preference reversal or time inconsistency in other areas. The authors’ models can be implemented in these fields in order to better analyze the situations of inconsistency.

The originality of this paper lies in the authors’ aim to bring some order to the proposed measures of inconsistency which have arisen as a result of the different approaches adopted.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore, this paper analyses whether auditors perceive that voluntary non-financial reporting impacts audit risk differently for old clients as compared with new clients.

This study is conducted on a sample of Italian audit firms through a paper-based questionnaire. Both Big4 and non-Big4 audit firms have been included in the sample.

Results show that integrated reporting is perceived to be the most relevant reporting method and intellectual capital statement the least relevant. Surprisingly, empirical findings over the sample period show that auditors do not perceive statistically significant differences between old and new clients.

Auditors can identify opportunities to adapt their assessment model to include voluntary non-financial report information. Moreover, they can use different assessment models regarding the research variables in the case of new and old clients.

Empirical findings highlight the growing role of voluntary non-financial reporting in the auditors’ perception of their client’s audit risk. All the observed voluntary non-financial reporting forms, except for intellectual capital, are considered as relevant by auditors in the evaluation of their client’s audit risk when compared to an indifference point. In addition, findings reveal that female auditors perceive a reduced gap in the relevance between integrated reports and intellectual capital reports compared to their counterparts.

This study aims to compare linear programming and stable marriage approaches to the personnel assignment problem under conditions of uncertainty. Robust solutions should exhibit reduced variability of solutions in the presence of one or more additional constraints or problem perturbations added to some baseline problems.

Several variations of each approach are compared with respect to solution speed, solution quality as measured by officer-to-assignment preferences and solution robustness as measured by the number of assignment changes required after inducing a set of representative perturbations or constraints to an assignment instance. These side constraints represent the realistic assignment categorical priorities and limitations encountered by army assignment managers who solve this problem semiannually, and thus the synthetic instances considered herein emulate typical problem instances.

The results provide insight regarding the trade-offs between traditional optimization and heuristic-based solution approaches.

The results indicate the viability of using the stable marriage algorithm for talent management via the talent marketplace currently used by both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force for personnel assignments.

Suicide and attempted suicide is an important health issue and the number of people who die of suicide exceeds that of conflicts. Kashmir has been suffering from a low intensity war since last 20 years in which thousands have been killed or injured. There has been phenomenal increase in cases of psychological disorders along with suicide and and suicide attempters. Suicide in a conflict zone is viewed with indifference due to focus on the physical part of trauma. Difficulties faced by the suicidal patient and his attendants are seldom highlighted. 1408 patients who reported to emergency room for suicide attempt from 2000 to 2008 were taken for the study. All the patients underwent the hospital protocol for poisoning management. Patients were subjected to detailed psychiatric evaluation and questions were specifically asked about the difficulties encountered during management. Most of the cases were females with 92.11% belonging to the Muslim religion. 76.20% cases were from a rural background. 32.5% had been referred because of the lack of specific antidotes. Forty-three percent required arrangement of transportation by their own family members. Fifty-seven percent had been stopped for security checks along the way. Seventy-three percent felt that the attitude of the staff hostile. Twenty-three percent of patients had to share a bed. Almost all patients were questioned by security agencies within the hospital. More than 68% patient reported hostility amongst their neighbors. Suicidal poisoning is a significant health problem in Kashmir and management of these cases is fraught with difficulties across the spectrum of health care. Educating the doctors at primary care about first aid, improvement in community services followed by long term resolution of the conflict would go some way in alleviating the difficulties faced by a suicidal patient and his family in a conflict zone.

This paper aims to examine three of the major issues relating to the welfare of seafarers, including wages, social security benefits and onboard and ashore welfare facilities and services. It is impossible to research all countries here, so this paper selects Greece – which is one of today’s primary shipping countries as for shipowning, as well as for global supply and demand for seafarers – to conduct an empirical case study.

Based on the existing knowledge and scholarship, and primary data collected in several phases of fieldwork, this paper intends to critically examine three major issues relating to the welfare for Greek seafarers, namely, wages, social security benefits and onboard and ashore welfare facilities and services.

This paper finds that they face poor labour conditions, which are getting worse due to the depressed world and Greek economies and intense financial pressures on shipping companies. The entry into force of the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 has a significant impact on the world maritime industry.

This paper critically examines the three major issues relating to the welfare of Greek seafarers.

Such issues, which Greece is facing are also common in other countries, so the findings and suggestions revealed from this paper are of importance for the global shipping industry and other states.

Background: The ideas-informed society represents a desired situation in which: (1) citizens see value in staying up to date, and; (2) citizens regularly keep themselves up to date by actively, openly and critically engaging with new ideas, developments and claims to truth. As a result, it is hoped citizens become increasingly knowledgeable, better able to make good decisions, and better positioned to support new progressive norms and beliefs. Yet despite these potential benefits, a substantive proportion of the population do not value staying up to date, nor attempt to do so.

Methods: With this research project we seek to identify whether the theoretical lens of anomie can account for why “ideas refusers” do not engage with ideas, as well as provide clues as to how they might be encouraged to do so. To explore the possible impacts of anomie on ideas-engagement we conducted four online focus groups, interviewing a purposive sample of ten individuals who previously indicated they were ideas refusers.

Results: Our findings identify eleven themes which seemingly account for why ideas refusers do not currently engage with ideas. Of these, ten are related to anomie, including themes which encapsulate feelings of frustration, anxiety, confusion and powerlessness regarding the complexities of modern society.

Conclusions: We also identify three areas of future focus that might help the ongoing development of the ideas-informed society. These are: (1) the more positive and relevant reporting of ideas; (2) supporting “healthy” face-to-face engagement with ideas; and (3) supporting effective ideas engagement through social media.