Search results

This paper aims to evaluate the progressivity of health-care financing in Egypt by assessing all five financing sources individually and then combining them to analyze the equity of the whole financing system.

Lorenz dominance analysis and Kakwani progressivity index were applied on data from 2010/2011 Household Income, Expenditure, and Consumption Survey and the National Health Accounts 2011 using Stata to evaluate the progressivity of each source of health-care finance and the financing system overall.

The data show that Egypt’s health-care system, which is largely financed by out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, is slightly regressive, with an overall Kakwani index of −0.079. The overall regressive effect was the result of three regressive sources (OOP payments, an earmarked cigarette tax and direct taxes), one proportional finance source (social health insurance) and two slightly progressive sources (indirect taxes and private health insurance). This shows that the burden of financing health care falls more on the poor. These results signal the need for reform of health-care financing in Egypt to reduce dependence on OOP payments to achieve more equitable financing.

The paper seeks to augment the literature on health-care financing in Egypt by calculating specific progressivity estimates for all five sources of financing the Egyptian health-care system and analyzing the overall equity of this financing system. It will, therefore, provide a benchmark for monitoring the equity of finance in the Egyptian health-care system in future studies and allow one to assess the impact of implemented financing reforms in the future on the level of progressivity of health system financing.

Dissatisfaction with the current federal tax system is fostering serious interest in several tax reform plans such as a value-added tax (VAT), a flat tax, and a national retail sales tax. Recently, one of the former Republican presidential candidates, Herman Cain, initiated a 999 tax plan. As illustrated on Cain’s official website, the 999 plan intends to replace current federal taxes with a 9% business flat tax, a 9% individual flat tax, and a 9% national sales tax. We examine the distributional effects of the 999 tax plan, as well as the current system it intends to replace, under both annual income and lifetime income approaches. Global measures of progressivity and bootstrap-t confidence intervals suggest that the current federal tax system is progressive while Cain’s 999 tax plan is regressive under the annual income approach. Under the lifetime income approach, both the current federal tax system and Cain’s 999 tax plan show progressivity. However, the current federal tax system is more progressive. The findings in this study suggest that Cain’s 999 tax plan should be considered more seriously and further analysis of the 999 tax plan is warranted.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the introduction of three specific fiscal flexible mechanisms such as VAT surcharges/discounts, surcharges on import/manufacture of risk substances and maturity land tax to implement a new environmental fiscal reform that aims to reduce pollutions and emissions and avoid a regressive impact on low-income households using a feedback system.

The idea behind this article is to explore alternative environmental taxation system that aims to foster the transition to social-ecological sustainability without affect negatively poor and low-income households. It looks at the potential of environmental fiscal reform in terms of environmental benefits and present in the first section, evidence of some economic regressive impact caused by environmental fiscal reform in European Union from previous empirical studies. The article then introduces of a feedback mechanism to create a repayment system, such as rebate or cash transfer to compensate the regressive effect of the levy being added to the consumer price affecting low-income households in a very short period and push consumers to buy alternative eco-friendly products and services and to stimulate the market to offer them.

Lowering VAT rate for green products and services has the potential to increase demand for sustainable products and services and stimulate green jobs. Surcharges on import and manufacture of risk substances play a significant role to discourage the import of hazardous and pollutant substances by putting price on them and push the industrial sector towards a medium and long-term transition. Lowering taxes rates for buildings in inner cities encourage improvements and renovations, while raising tax on peri-urban areas discourage land speculation in areas with higher grade of biodiversity. This fiscal mechanism indirectly will reduce private and public transport emissions caused by urban sprawling and travel costs, reduce public infrastructure costs for connecting suburban area to the inner city and reduce the loss of urban-edge farmland area that are vital for smart urban growth.

The previous studies on the economic impact of the on environmental fiscal reform analysis, have focused on environmental aspects, economic growth and employment, but little on the regressive impact in short and medium terms on least wealthy sections of society. The proposed feedback mechanism aims to reduce distortion and inequalities caused by surcharges on existing taxation to low-income using monetary repayment measures, especially for products and services with elastic demand and no substitutes.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the impacts of motivation for avoiding loss and actual abnormal audit fees on management behaviors of audit opinion shopping.

Using empirical research methods, this study employs regressive models and moderating effect models with data from Chinese listed companies from 2001 to 2008.

By analyzing the empirical data, it is found that strong motivation for avoiding loss has a certain moderating effect on the relationship between abnormal audit fees and audit opinion shopping; abnormal descent of audit fees significantly increases both the likelihood of receiving modified audit opinions of annual financial reports and that of the improvement of audit opinions; listed companies reporting consecutive losses in the last two years have a higher likelihood of an improvement in unfavorable audit opinions because of stronger motivation for avoiding loss and audit opinion shopping of management; and strong motivation for avoiding loss has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between abnormal increase of audit fees and audit opinion shopping.

This study has a significant practical implication for market supervisors, small and medium investors.

The paper classifies abnormal audit fees into abnormal increase and descent of audit fees, and audit opinions differences into the improvement and deterioration of audit opinions, and further empirically analyzes and verifies the moderating effect of motivation for avoiding loss on the relationship between abnormal audit fees and audit opinion shopping.

The purpose of this paper is to open up discussion about the relationship between trade unions and workplace learning.

The paper is based on an analysis of a series of case‐studies of restructuring in the European steel industry, incorporating interviews, observation and documentary analysis.

The paper argues that trade unions often fail to address the significance of workplace learning for members, because they address workplace learning as a service. This approach fails to exploit opportunities and possibilities to extend workplace‐learning provisions, and thereby meet the wider learning and employability enhancing needs of members. The outcome is that trade union involvement in skill formation and workplace learning is marginal, and contributes to the perpetuation of traditional sector practices and regressive learning provisions.

The paper focuses on a discussion of trade union involvement in workplace learning in the European steel industry. The implications for workplace learning practices more generally, are limited to industries where trade unions (and companies/industry) organise in relation to training and learning agendas in similar ways – and in relation to industries undergoing similar process of restructuring and “modernisation”.

The paper provides a critique of trade union service approaches to learning agendas and highlights for policy‐makers gaps in current learning provisions within industry.

This paper makes an original contribution to debates concerned with trade union involvement and participation in workplace learning. It focuses on workplace inequities in training provision, and the implications for the future of unions and the employability prospects of workforces within the European steel industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the redistributive effect of domestic public debt: lenders to the government lie on the higher end of the income distribution, but the burden of debt financing falls on the entire tax base, to the extent that taxes are used to service debt. Because domestic debt is typically held by domestic lenders, this involves a redistribution of resources.

The author uses cross-country panel data on debt composition, and run regressions of income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, using various specifications, controlling for a variety of macroeconomic, fiscal and political variables.

The author finds that the composition of public debt is consistently a significant determinant of income inequality: the domestic share of public debt is regressive and significant across all specifications, even controlling for total and external debt servicing, political conflict, corruption and a variety of government spending variables.

The data span 18 years (1990-2007) which means that long-run effects are hard to track. While the author has a good mix in the sample of observations from low-, middle- and high-income countries, the author is constrained in the choice of countries by the availability of data on inequality and on the composition of public debt.

This is the first paper to examine the composition of public debt in terms of domestic and external debt, and any bearing it may have on income inequality. The finding is also new for both the public debt and income inequality literatures: cross-country panel data are consistent with the belief that domestic debt redistributes resources from the entire tax base to wealthy holders of government debt in a way that external debt does not.

The proposed Sliding Mode Control-Global Regressive Neural Network (SMC-GRNN) algorithm is an integration of Global Regressive Neural Network (GRNN) and Sliding Mode Control (SMC). Through this integration, a novel structure of GRNN is designed to enable online and. This structure is then combined with SMC to develop a stable adaptive controller for a class of nonlinear multivariable uncertain dynamic systems.

In this study, a new hybrid (SMC-GRNN) control method is innovatively developed.

A novel structure of GRNN is designed that can be learned online and then be integrated with the SMC to develop a stable adaptive controller for a class of nonlinear uncertain systems. Furthermore, Lyapunov stability theory is utilized to ensure the hidden-output weighting values of SMC-GRNN adaptively updated in order to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop dynamic system. Eventually, two different numerical benchmark tests are employed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller.

A novel structure of GRNN is originally designed that can be learned online and then be integrated with the sliding mode SMC control to develop a stable adaptive controller for a class of nonlinear uncertain systems. Moreover, Lyapunov stability theory is innovatively utilized to ensure the hidden-output weighting values of SMC-GRNN adaptively updated in order to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop dynamic system.

The purpose of this study is to enhance the estimation of vertical and horizontal inequity within property valuation. Property taxation is a crucial source of finance for local government around the world – based on a presumptive tax base underpinned by estimates of property value, inaccurate real estate valuations used for such ad valorem or value-based property tax calculations potentially lead to a variety of costs, both financial and other, for tax payers and governments alike. More common are increased costs in time, staff and, in some cases, legal fees. Some governments are even bound by acceptability thresholds to promote fairness, equitability and overall government accountability with respect to valuation.

There exist a number of vertical inequity measurements that have undergone academic testing and scrutiny within the property tax industry since the 1970s. While these approaches have proved successful in detecting horizontal and vertical inequity, one recurring disadvantage pertains to measurement error/omitted variable bias, stemming largely from a failure to accurately account for location. A natural progression within property tax research is the application of a more spatially local weighted modelling approach to examine vertical and horizontal inequity. This research, therefore, specifies a geographically weighted regression (GWR) methodology to detect and measure vertical inequity in property valuations.

The findings show the efficacy of using more applied spatial approaches for vertical tax estimation and indeed the limitations of employing conditional mean estimates coupled with delineated boundaries for assessing property tax inequity. The GWR model findings highlight the more fluctuating nature of vertical inequity across the Belfast market for the apartment sector both in a progressive and regressive sense and at different magnitudes. Moreover, the results reveal spatial clustering in the effects and are indicative of systematic inequities related to location inferring that spatial (horizontal) tax inequities are not random. The findings further show increased GWR model predictability overall.

This research adds to the existing literature base for evaluating both vertical and horizontal inequity in value-based property taxation at the intra-neighbourhood level. This is accomplished by modifying the Birch–Sunderman approach by transforming the traditional OLS model architecture to a GWR model, thereby allowing coefficient estimates of inequity to vary not only across a jurisdiction, but also at a more local level, while incorporating property characteristic variables. This arguably allows assessors to identify specific geographical areas of concern, saving them money, time and resources on identifying, addressing and correcting for inequity.

This study investigates which expectation formation mechanism governs Eurozone firms regarding their expectations on external finance availability.

In this study, we link consecutive surveys from the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises to bring new evidence on how non-financial corporations shape their expectations on external finance availability.

In line with the past literature, we demonstrate that the data reject the Rational Expectations hypothesis, and we find evidence in favor of the Adaptive Expectation mechanism.

This is the first study studying firms' expectations of external finance availability, implementing survey data of firms' expectations from the SAFE database on a country level. The formation of firm expectations is vital in directing policymakers in designing appropriate monetary policies, as both the employment and inflation targets of central banks around the world are highly dependent on the firm-level decision process.