Fist

This chapter discusses the guidelines for the needed federalism debate by outlining a sequence of evaluative questions that national policy-makers should consider before the passage of any national law that affects one or more of the three institutions of federalism: assignment as to who does what, the number of lower-tier governments, and representation of those governments to the national legislature. The proposed evaluation provides citizens with a Federalism Impact Statement, or FIST, for the proposed policy. As implemented, FIST begins with an analysis of the economic implications of each proposed central government policy by asking whether the national benefits of the policy outweigh its national costs, and whether there might be an alternative policy that is plausibly more efficient. If the proposed policy is viewed as inefficient, by itself or relative to alternative policies, then FIST asks whether there is evidence of, or plausible argument for, compensating benefits from improved local political participation, improved economic fairness, or increased protection of individual rights or liberties. If so, then FIST asks whether these noneconomic benefits can be achieved more efficiently. The execution of FIST would be by an independent agency, such as the Congressional Budget Office or the European Commission, while a national court could ensure that all relevant central government legislation acknowledge, though not necessarily accept, the content and conclusions of the FIST analysis.

A Party Trick

This chapter distinguishes between health and health care. Health is a desired state of well-being that allows people to do what they want to do, enabling them to live full, rich lives, and to realize their human potential. Health care is the system that aims to restore people to health when they get sick. The conflation of health and health care is not without consequence. In fact, it fundamentally affects the health of the country. When people believe that health and health care are synonymous, they pour money into health care, thinking they are investing in health. This leads them away from addressing the true foundations of health, such as early childhood education, parks and recreation, prevention of suicide and substance use, gender equity, and economic fairness. This results in a one-sided focus on health care, at the expense of investing in the roots causes of health.

Conclusion

The central arguments of this book have been that children are owed a good environment in which to grow up and that adults are owed the stable and supported right to care for children if they so desire. In Part I, I explored how to conceptualize children’s justice and how to measure whether children’s interests are being met by their society. I showed why children’s interests cannot be understood in terms of holding a set of resources, even if resources are understood in a very broad sense. When the subject of justice is understood to be adults, then it makes sense that the role of principles of justice simply be giving each person their fair share. This was the perspective taken by the two most influential liberal thinkers of the last century, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. I suggested their approach cannot cope with the needs of children, since children might have a fair share of economic resources yet grow up socialized into beliefs, values and practices that are harmful to their current and future flourishing. A theory of justice must, therefore, take holistic account of the various ways in which upbringing might affect a person’s life, thus looking at its effects on children’s well-being. To meet this challenge, I offered an objective list account of children’s well-being which suggested that this is principally driven by the quality of their relationships with others. This theoretical shift implies a reconceptualization of what justice is about. Instead of justice being understood primarily as economic fairness, it must be seen as fundamentally about creating a society with norms and practice which foster flourishing interpersonal relationships, with a particular concern for the least advantaged children whose interests must be given priority....

Judgments of Economic Fairness Are Based More on Perceived Economic Mobility Than Perceived Inequality

Are judgments of the fairness of the American economy based on perceptions of economic inequality, mobility, or both? In two experiments, the authors varied information on levels of U.S. inequality and mobility, measuring effects on individuals’ judgments of economic fairness and meritocracy. Although both treatments influenced perceptions of economic fairness and meritocracy, the mobility effect was generally larger. The two treatments did not interact, countering a common claim that high social mobility legitimizes high inequality. Effects on preferences for government action to reduce inequality and increase mobility were weak or nonexistent. Additional conditions that measured, rather than manipulated, inequality and mobility perceptions showed that respondents generally perceived inequality to be very high but were more optimistic about the level of mobility. Our studies suggest that Americans’ optimism about economic mobility does more to mitigate concerns about economic fairness than does underestimation of economic inequality.

The Financial Sector as Stewards for the Sustainable Development Goals

<p><strong>The best of times, the worst of times:</strong></p><p>As in Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities”, we seem to be living in “the best of times and the worst of times”, with hopefully “resurrection” (after the 1789 French Revolution though) or, in current jargon, societal, economic, technological “transformation”, fitting a modern, inclusive, just, prosperous, fair, peaceful world.</p>Social justice, nature conservation and economic fairness are essential elements for “the world we want”, as articulated in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) for the period 2015-2030. With its 17 Goals, 169 targets and 234+ indicators it is, together with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Addis Action Agenda on Financing for Development, a powerful, global, universal driver for positive change, “leaving no one behind”, “from us all, by us all for us all”.

Related parties disclosure: Is a risk-based approach more effective?

Following recent corporate scandals increased attention has been paid to Relat-ed Party Transactions (RPTs), since they have often played a central role in abuses and frauds. Regulators have consequently been obliged to strengthen current regu-lations, introducing new bans and requirements aimed at guaranteeing the substantial and economic fairness of RPTs and a proper level of transparency. This reaction is due to the high inherent risk of these transactions and because companies in crisis tend to resort to this type of operation. In Italy, the regulations on RPTs were completely revamped in 2010. The material RPTs that have to be disclosed through an ad hoc communication were defined by former regulations through qualitative criteria, whereas now a quantitative approach is used in order to reduce subjectivity. The initial results of the new regulations show that a higher number of RPTs has been disclosed to the market, thus improving transparency, but the effects of RPTs remain unreported in Income Statements. Through an online questionnaire this paper, starting from previous research, in-vestigates potential improvements supported by independent directors involved in the RPT evaluation process. These independent Directors are uniquely placed to shed light on the experience of the initial years of application of the new Regula-tion, which may help lawmakers, after the lengthy initial consultation process, in-evitably influenced by divergent (and non-independent) interests without the bene-fit of the hindsight that is now available. It is to be hoped that lawmakers will take note of these results and fine-tune the regulations accordingly, without necessarily abandoning the quantitative approach, in order to increase the transparency of the information made available on RPTs.

The Moral Economy of the Scottish Coalfields: Managing Deindustrialization under Nationalization c.1947–1983

This article examines conceptions of social justice and economic fairness with regard to employment. It does so through an analysis of the management of deindustrialization in the Scottish coalfields between the 1940s and 1980s. Emphasis is placed on the historical roots and social and political constitutions of labor market practices. The analysis is grounded within Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation; industrial relations within coal mining are conceived through an ongoing conflict between commodifying, liberalizing market forces and a “counter-movement” of worker and community resistance and state regulation, which works to embed markets within social and political priorities. E. P. Thompson’s moral economy provides the basis for an understanding of the formulation of communal expectations and employment practices that acted to mitigate the disruption caused by pit closures. The analysis grounds the historical roots of the moral economy within Poalnyi’s counter-movement and illuminates the operation of specific practices of a Thompsonian character within the nationalized industry, which maintained individual and collective employment stability. This is constructed utilizing interviews with former mineworkers and members of mining families. These are supplemented by archival sources that include the minutes of Colliery Consultative Committee meetings, which took place before pit closures. They reveal the moral economy was fundamentally centered on the control of resources, collieries, and the employment they provided rather than simply elements of financial compensation for those suffering from labor market instability. Resultantly procedure centering on collective consultation was fundamental in legitimating colliery closures.