Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Taxing Nudges","authors":"K. Thomas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3544263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3544263","url":null,"abstract":"Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The theory behind nudges is that, rather than mandating certain behaviors or providing costly economic subsidies, modest initiatives may “nudge” individuals to choose desirable outcomes by appealing to their behavioral preferences. For example, automatically enrolling workers into savings plans as a default rather than requiring them to actively sign up has dramatically increased enrollment in such plans. Similarly, allowing individuals to earn “wellness points” from attendance at a gym, redeemable at various retail establishments, may improve exercise habits.<br><br>A successful nudge should make a desired choice as simple and painless as possible. Yet one source of friction may counteract an otherwise well-designed nudge: taxation. Under current tax laws, certain incentives designed to nudge behavior are treated as taxable income. At best, people are ignorant of taxes on nudges, an outcome that is not good for the tax system. At worst, taxes on nudges may actively deter people from participating in programs with worthy policy goals. To date, policymakers have generally failed to account for this potential obstacle in designing nudges.<br><br>This Article sheds light on the tax treatment of nudges and the policy implications of taxing them. It describes the emergence of a disjointed tax regime that exempts private-party nudges but taxes identical incentives that come from the government. What’s more, an incentive structured as a government grant may be taxable while an economically identical tax credit is not. The Article then proposes reforms that would unify the tax treatment of nudges and enhance their effectiveness. Specifically, lawmakers should reverse the default rule that all government transfers are taxable, and instead exclude government transfers from income unless otherwise provided by the Tax Code.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134147210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bank Presence and Local Disaster Resilience","authors":"N. Gao, C. Hua, A. Khurshed","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3866878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3866878","url":null,"abstract":"Using data on the federal declaration of disasters in contiguous U.S. counties and the presence of brick and mortar bank branches in each county, we show that a greater presence of bank branches reduces the disasters’ impairment on the number of employees, total annual payroll, and the number of establishments in the local business sector. The presence of bank branches also mitigates the disastrous impact on overall local employment and personal wealth. Our findings demonstrate that the physical presence of banking service enhances the resilience of a local economy to disasters significantly, in line with the findings of the previous literature that banks respond to the up rise in credit demand in disaster-affected areas.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124413236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Economic Consequences of Placing a Child for Adoption among Unmarried Teenage Mothers","authors":"Julie Hollenbaugh, D. Monson, Joseph Price, Josh Witter","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3481328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3481328","url":null,"abstract":"Past research suggests that less than 1 percent of children born to unmarried teenage mothers are placed for adoption. This low rate of adoption placement is surprising given the large possible economic consequences of teenage childbearing. We document the economic consequences on the four groups of people most directly affected by the decision to place the child for adoption: the mother, the child, the future children of the mother, and the grandparents of the child. We find that, on average, the combined lifetime economic benefit to these four groups from the decision to place a child for adoption is well over a million dollars. While the decision to place a child for adoption involves consideration of multiple social, family, and child factors, the results in this paper suggest that policies that produce even a small increase in the fraction of unmarried teenage mothers placing their child for adoption could produce very large social returns.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126571161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Machine Learning Predictive Algorithms and the Policing of Future Crimes: Governance and Oversight","authors":"M. Oswald, A. Babuta","doi":"10.4324/9780429265365-11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429265365-11","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses upon machine learning algorithms within police decision-making in England and Wales, specifically in relation to predictive analytics. It first reviews the state of the art regarding the implementation of algorithmic tools underpinned by machine learning to aid police decision-making, and notes the impact of austerity as a driver for the development of such tools. We discuss how what could be called ‘Austerity AI’ is often linked to the prevention and public protection common law duties and functions of the police, a broad and imprecise legal base that the ECtHR in Catt found less than satisfactory. The potential implications of these tools for appropriate application of discretion within policing, as well as their potential impact on individual rights are then considered. Finally, existing and recommended governance and oversight processes, including those designed to facilitate trials of emerging technologies, are reviewed, and proposals made for statutory clarification of policing functions and duties, thus providing a clearer framework against which proposals for new AI development can be assessed.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131099822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Data Policy and Choices in Platforms","authors":"H. Bhargava, O. Rubel, E. Altman, Ramnik Arora, J. Boehnke, Kaitlin M. Daniels, Timothy P. Derdenger, Bryan Kirschner, Darin LaFramboise, Pantelis Loupos, Geoffrey G. Parker, Adithya Pattabhiramaiah","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3473606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3473606","url":null,"abstract":"Data policies in platform environments drive choices made by firms and consumers. The distinctive feature of platform businesses is how the combination of network effects with data analytics drives choices made by platforms themselves, as well as by their complementors and consumers. We explore how data policies drive technological, organizational and economic decisions made by platforms, complementors and consumers. We conclude by observing a need for education on digital and data interactions. Similar to financial decision-making research, scholars and policy makers should seek to understand motives and biases that influence consumers’ digital and privacy decisions in platform environments, and design suitable education for digital citizens.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"513 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123040595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Telling Schools Apart: The Role of Preferences, Constraints, and the Ability to Differentiate between Schools in Parents' Choices","authors":"Diego Amador, Juan Castro, Nicolás Grau","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3422914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3422914","url":null,"abstract":"imitations in the ability of parents to compare schools have important implications for market oriented educational systems, which rely on parents choices to improve quality through competition. To empirically study these limitations, we develop and estimate a static model of elementary school choice that distinguishes between preferences for academic quality, the ability to differentiate between schools of different quality, and constraints in terms of the schools available to different households. Because school quality might be endogenous to parents' choices, we identify the key parameters related to preferences for quality using exogenous variation in schools' funding introduced by a policy that substantially increased the voucher amount for each enrolled socioeconomically vulnerable student. We estimate the model using a combination of administrative and survey data from Chile, which includes rich information on how parents compare the academic quality of schools. Using counterfactual simulations, we find the interaction between limitations to tell schools apart and differences in preferences across households plays an important role in decreasing the quality of schools attended by Chilean children, especially for children with less educated parents.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123225611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Blockchain Based Course Feedback System","authors":"Atharv Chandratre, S. Garg","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3762332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3762332","url":null,"abstract":"Blockchain Technology is an innovative tool which can be used for tracking objects in the digital world. This project explores the usage of Blockchain Technology as a Course Feedback System to track the feedback given by the students taking a course. This is to be done by implementing a smart contract on the Ethereum Blockchain which will accept the feedback given by students. This feedback will be recorded by a Survey Management System and then will be pushed onto the Blockchain for immutability and enhanced trackability. The system should be able to support the creation of a survey by the professor who is in charge of the course. The system will then have to create a matching smart contract to support the survey questions decided by the professor. After the survey goes live, the system will store the data collected during the survey and push it to the blockchain, as a complete Feedback object file or as a hash of the values entered by the student in the review.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127371722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Role of Digital Divide in Optimal Zero-Rating Policy","authors":"Neena Pandey, Manaswini Bhalla, Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3388474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3388474","url":null,"abstract":"Several Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Content Providers (CPs) have proposed zero-rating plans whereby consumers get access to certain websites without paying for it. While consumer and open-access advocates have decried these plans, arguing that they are anti-competitive and violate the principles of net neutrality, ISPs and CPs have argued that such initiatives enable segments of the world population - especially those in developing economies - to finally join the rest of the world in accessing the Internet. Extant literature on the topic has contributed to this debate by analyzing the optimality of zero-rating policy as an extension of net neutrality. In contrast, our work looks at this issue in the presence of a digital divide. We analyze the ISP's and the CPs' decision-making as well as its subsequent impact on social welfare when a fraction of the population does not have access to the Internet. Thus, the study fills the research gap of analyzing the impact that context (Internet penetration, in particular) may have on different network management strategies, under zero-rating plans. Our research finds that zero-rating plans can enhance social welfare in many cases in the presence of a digital divide. However, Internet regulators need to be vigilant, since the ISPs may sometime deviate from a strategy that maximizes social welfare. The findings have implications for policymakers arguing for their nuanced role in regulating zero-rating policies, rather than indiscriminately allowing or disallowing the practice.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121477718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"CNIL’s Decision Fining Google Violates One-Stop-Shop","authors":"L. Moerel","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3337478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3337478","url":null,"abstract":"On 21 January 2019, the French Data Protection Supervisory Authority (CNIL) imposed a penalty of 50 million euros on Google. In its assessment, the CNIL considered itself competent to rule on complaints filed in France alleging unlawful processing of personal data by Google. The decision was made despite the fact that the complaints concerned a ‘cross-border processing’ in the EU, in respect of which the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides for a ‘one-stop-shop’ enforcement mechanism (1SS) by the supervisory authority (SA) of the ‘main establishment’ of a company in the EU. In its decision, the CNIL considered that Google EU headquarters ‘did not have a decision-making power’ in relation to the relevant cross-border data processing activities to which the complaints related. For that reason the CNIL decided that the 1SS mechanism did not apply and that the CNIL was therefore competent to make a decision. This article questions whether the CNIL is right to require that, for the 1SS mechanism to apply, the EU administrative headquarters has to determine the purposes and means of the relevant cross-border processing. If that is correct, the 1SS mechanism will de facto not be available for non-EU controllers (such as Google), as their EU administrative headquarters will rarely independently decide on the purposes and means of its cross-border processing activities in the EU. This exposes these companies to a potential accumulation of fines for their cross-border processing activities, as each and every national SA would be able to fine the company up to the maximum allowed under GDPR. As the CNIL’s decision focusses on non-EU headquartered companies, it is overlooked that this decision also severely impacts the availability of the 1SS for EU headquartered companies, also exposing these companies to a potential accumulation of fines. As the CNIL’s decision will set a precedent for other enforcement actions, it is of paramount importance to evaluate its merits. Overall, this article opposes the interpretation given by the CNIL and proposes an understanding of the 1SS mechanism that is consistent with the rationale of the 1SS, the legislative history of the GDPR, and the regime for Binding Corporate Rules.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128751345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Twin Peaks 2.0: Reforming Australia's Financial Regulatory Regime in Light of Failings Exposed by the Banking Royal Commission","authors":"A. Schmulow, Karen Fairweather, J. Tarrant","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3357415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3357415","url":null,"abstract":"In November 2017 the Federal government established a Royal Commission in Australia’s financial services industry that has become widely known as the Banking Royal Commission. The Commission has, during its hearings and in its recent Interim Report, exposed serious misconduct and poor regulation in Australia’s financial services industry. The authors argue that the recommendation of the 2014 Financial System Inquiry that there be an Assessment Board to provide continuous oversight of the financial regulators, APRA and ASIC, is an effective solution to the regulatory failures exposed by the Banking Royal Commission. The benefits to Australia of the establishment of an Assessment Board are clear, and include enhanced accountability, improvements in the regulator’s culture, prevention of regulatory capture, and enhanced capacity to prevent financial crises. The introduction of an Assessment Board in Australia would serve as a timely and highly effective adjunct to the current Australian Twin Peaks financial regulatory architecture comprising APRA and ASIC.","PeriodicalId":210701,"journal":{"name":"Decision-Making in Public Policy & the Social Good eJournal","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114984190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}