Corporate Ownership and Control in the UK: The Tax Dimension

While generally the impact tax has on patterns of corporate ownership and control has received little attention in the relevant academic literature, this paper argues that tax is potentially an important determinant of ownership patterns in large companies. The paper focuses on historical developments in Britain, where an 'outsider/arm's-length' system of corporate governance took shape during the twentieth century and became fully entrenched by the end of the 1970s. Taxes imposed on corporate profits, taxation of managerial and investment income and inheritance taxes help to explain why during this period blockholders sought to exit and why there was sufficient demand for shares among investors to permit ownership to separate from control.     

The maternity care needs of refugee and asylum seeking women in Ireland

This article presents some of the findings from the original research carried out with asylum seeking and refugee women in Ireland who were pregnant or who had recently given birth. The explosion in numbers in Ireland from 1998 onwards has been such that this group now comprises more than one in five of every birth in the country's three major maternity hospitals, all based in Dublin. The article explores the background reasons for the major increase in recent years of this group of women. It discusses the difficult circumstances encountered by women who must engage with a system of maternity care unused to such complex needs, amidst a general policy climate of uncertainty and even hostility towards asylum seekers. The research findings contribute to the feminist literature on maternity and challenge us to examine the way in which globalization is impacting on women as mothers and the need for challenging Western states anew on the development of a more coherent model of maternity care in response to the needs of such women.     

A New Method for the Characterization of the Degree of Fire Damage to Gypsum Wallboard for Use in Fire Investigations

A new method to characterize the degree of fire damage to gypsum wallboard is introduced, implemented, and tested to determine the efficacy of its application among novices. The method was evaluated by comparing degree of fire damage assessments of novices with and without the method. Thirty-nine “novice” raters assessed damage to a gypsum wallboard surface, completing 66 ratings, first without the method, and then again using the method. The inter-rater reliability was evaluated for ratings of damage without and with the method. For novice fire investigators rating degree of damage without the aid of the method, ICC(1,2) = 0.277 with 95% CI (0.211, 0.365), and with the method, ICC(2,1) = 0.593 with 95% CI (0.509, 0.684). Results indicate that the raters were more reliable in their analysis of the degree of fire damage when using the method, which support the use of standardized processes to decrease the variability in data collection and interpretation.     

Associations between Parent and Child Reports Of Interparental Conflict/Violence And Child Difficulties in A Family Mediation Setting*

We examined the association between parents’ (N = 52 mothers and 52 fathers) and children's (N = 27) reports of interparental conflict and child difficulties in a family mediation setting. Parents’ reports of conflict were moderately associated with children's reports of exposure to parental conflict, but only fathers’ reports of conflict were associated with children's reports of negative responses to parent conflict. While mothers and fathers agreed on their child's difficulties, only mothers’, not fathers’, report of child difficulties were moderately related to child reports of child difficulties. Mothers’ and fathers’ reports of conflict generally were not strongly associated with reports of child difficulties. In contrast to parent reports, children's reports of exposure to parents’ conflict were moderately and significantly related to self‐reported child difficulties and moderately related to parents’ reports of child academic difficulties. The magnitude of the association between the child's report of interparental conflict and self‐report of difficulties was stronger than the association between parent report of conflict and parent report of child difficulties, suggesting that parents may not fully understand their child's exposure to parent conflict/violence or the problems their child is experiencing.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Family law stakeholders prioritize the creation of parenting arrangements that are in the best interest of the child; however, it is unclear how to gather information about the child and the child's perspective in order to inform such arrangements.
• The study results suggest that parents may not agree with each other or with the child about important family issues, such as parent conflict and child difficulties. For example, parents may not fully understand their child's exposure to parental conflict/violence when in the midst of custody negotiations.
• More research is needed to determine the best method for gathering information about the child during custody proceedings. In the meantime, it is important to gather information from multiple sources and to consider the agreement and differences across such sources of information.

     

How Do Sectoral Interests Shape Distributive Politics? Evidence from Gasoline and Diesel Subsidy Reforms

Sectoral interests play an important role in distributive politics, but their influence is difficult to measure. We compare the effect of international oil prices on subsidies for domestic gasoline and diesel consumption. Because diesel is used by a smaller number of organized agricultural and transportation interests, they are more capable of collective action than the dispersed beneficiaries of gasoline subsidies. The conventional wisdom holds that sectoral interests could mobilize to stop reform (e.g., price increases, deregulation). Challenging this view, we consider the possibility that sectoral interests promote reform by facilitating the targeted allocation of compensation and exemptions. An empirical analysis of gasoline and diesel prices, 1991–2012, strongly supports the second hypothesis: diesel prices respond to international oil prices more strongly than do gasoline prices. Quantitative tests and case studies allow us to explore causal mechanisms, verify that the gasoline‐diesel difference is related to actual policy reforms, and reject alternative explanations.