Replication Material HKP2024 IER

This material replicates the article "Asset Diversification versus Climate Action" by Hambel, Kraft, van der Ploeg (2024

Unintended consequences of unemployment insurance benefits: The role of banks

We use disaggregated U.S. data and a border discontinuity design to show that more generous unemployment insurance (UI) policies lower bank deposits. We test several channels that could explain this decline and find evidence consistent with households lowering their precautionary savings. Since deposits are the largest and most stable source of funding for banks, the decrease in deposits affects bank lending. Banks that raise deposits in states with generous UI policies squeeze their small business lending. Furthermore, counties that are served by these banks experience a higher unemployment rate and lower wage growth

Standards made in Europe for a global use

This commentary reflects on the contributions by Egan and Delimatsis and Verghese that provide historical accounts of ETSI’s origin and its dynamic evolution, and attempt at explaining its resilience. In this commentary, we place focus on ETSI’s unique attributes and their dynamic evolution to arrive at a better understanding of its resilience during critical moments, and over time. We identify three such key attributes, namely ETSI’s institutional set-up and openness, its standard setting activities and flexibility, and the ETSI IPR policy. The article illuminates their importance, also in ETSI’s interactions with the European Commission, and how these traits originated, were activated, and evolved during critical moments. Taken together, these contributions suggest that the governance reforms proposed by the EU risk undermining the attractiveness of open European ICT standardization, a key ingredient of ETSI’s very success in ICT matters

What Holds the World Together?:Controversies about Values in Times of Pluralism.

This paper examines the reasons for the increasing disputes between universal human values and sociocultural, or particular values, and investigates how to address these disputes from a philosophical standpoint. Following the introduction, the second section presents a summary of the factual role of these values in contemporary societies, drawing on data from the European Values Studies project. Although Europeans recognize the importance of both types of values, the influence of a reductionist approach to universal human values, such as free self-determination, is on the rise. Additionally, reductionist approaches to sociocultural values, such as ethnocentrism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism, have also gained influence. The third section of this paper explores how these conflicting views dominate current public and political discourse. Section four argues that the natural law theory has failed to provide an objective foundation for either type of values. Consequently, section five aims to explore an alternative approach to various aspects of the issue. These aspects include the objectivity of values, the mediation between universal and particular values, and the role of practical wisdom in this mediation. Ultimately, the concluding section presents some lessons that Catholic thought can learn from this investigation

A taskforce for national improvement of innovation implementation in radiotherapy

Background and purpose: Previous research among Dutch radiotherapy centres (RTCs) showed that 69% of innovations was simultaneously implemented in 7/19 centres, with a success rate of 51%. However, no structure to share lessons learned about the implementation process existed. Therefore, a national Taskforce Implementation (TTI) was raised to stimulate efficient implementation of innovations. The aim of the current study was to develop and pilot-evaluate a website for facilitating mutual learning on implementation issues. Material and methods: First, we made an inventory in all Dutch RTCs on their 10 most valuable innovations between 2019 and 2022. In-depth interviews, structured according to the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, were performed on the four most mentioned topics. A website was built, and pilot evaluated 1 year after the launch, using a qualitative survey amongst the TTI members. Results: In 13/18 centres, 19 interviews were conducted on 1) automation, 2) patient participation, 3) adaptive radiotherapy 4) surface guided radiotherapy and tracking. Most innovations (13/16) were implemented with a delay, with many comparable challenges: e.g. shortage of personnel (7/16) and prioritization of projects (9/16). The website allows users to upload and search for projects, including implementation experiences. After 1 year, 14 projects were uploaded. The qualitative evaluation was largely positive with room for improvement, i.e.75 % would recommend the website to others. Conclusion: This study showed that RTCs experience comparable challenges when implementing innovations, thereby underlining the need for a platform to share implementation-lessons learned. The first concept of this platform was evaluated positively

Analysis State Secretary of Supreme Court judgements box 3 and restoration of rights

Staatssecretaris Idsinga van Financiën bericht Tweede Kamer over de eerste bevindingen van de analyse van de Hoge Raad-arresten van 6 juni 2024, waaronder ECLI:NL:HR:2024:704, V-N 2024/28.3 en 14 juni 2024, waaronder ECLI:NL:HR:2024:857, V-N 2024/29.7. In deze Kamerbrief wordt ingegaan op het proces van aanvullend rechtsherstel dat moet worden geboden

Sugar tax and product reformulation proposals reduce the perceived legitimacy of health-promotion institutions:A randomized population-based survey experiment

Background Structural nutrition interventions like a sugar tax or a product reformulation are strongly supported among the public health community but may cause a considerable backlash (e.g. inspiring aversion to institutions initiating the interventions among citizens). Such a backlash potentially undermines future health-promotion strategies. This study aims to uncover whether such backlash exists.Methods We fielded a pre-registered randomized, population-based survey experiment among adults from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel (n = 1765; based on a random sampling of the Dutch population register). Participants were randomly allocated to the control condition (brief facts about health-information provision/nudging), or one of two experimental groups (the same facts, expanded with either a proposed sugar tax on or reformulation of sugar-sweetened beverages). Ordinary least squares regression was used to estimate the proposed interventions' effects on four outcome variables: trust in health-promotion institutions involved; perceptions that these institutions have citizens' well-being in mind (i.e. benevolence); perceptions that these institutions' perspectives are similar to those of citizens (i.e. alignment of perspectives); and attitudes toward nutrition information.Results Trust, perceived benevolence and perceived alignment of perspectives were affected negatively by a proposed sugar tax (-0.24, 95% CI -0.38 to -0.10; -0.15, -0.29 to -0.01; -0.15, -0.30 to 0.00) or product reformulation (-0.32, -0.46 to -0.18; -0.24, -0.37 to -0.11; -0.18, 0.33 to -0.03), particularly among the non-tertiary educated respondents.Conclusions Sugar taxes or product reformulations may delegitimize health-promotion institutions, potentially causing public distancing from or opposition to these bodies. This may be exploited by political and commercial parties to undermine official institutions.Trial registration https://osf.io/qr9jy/?view_only=5e2e875a1fc348f3b28115b7a3fdfd90. Registered 3 February 2022

Alpha neurofeedback training in elite soccer players trained in groups

Neurofeedback training is applied in the world of sports as a means to improve athletes' performance. Training sessions are usually organized on an individual basis, one at a time. Here we investigated if the training could also be organized in groups. Forty-one national-level football (soccer) players (26 females, 15 males) carried out training sessions simultaneously in groups of up to 13, using a wearable device with Bluetooth connection, during their regular training hours at the club. It was possible to obtain good EEG measurements using this setup, albeit with a somewhat higher data loss than usual in standard laboratory sessions. The brain's alpha activity was trained using music-based neurofeedback in a crossover design. A training session consisted of alternating periods of neurofeedback and execution of cognitive tasks. EEG alpha (8-12 Hz) activity was higher in the neurofeedback periods compared to the cognitive task periods, and the reverse was true for beta (13-30 Hz) activity. The training program resulted in an increase of 34% in alpha activity associated with the training, and improved the athletes' performance on task switching and mental rotation tasks. In addition, self-reported sleep duration, as well as scores on the Being in Shape questionnaire (Feeling of Control and Flow) also improved. This study shows that neurofeedback training is feasible in groups of athletes, which can stimulate its application in team sports