The Economics of Vouchers

This paper aims to provide a swift tour of the economic issues presented by vouchers and thus to fill an apparent gap in the literature for a basic survey of the subject. Among the issues it considers are: factors determining a voucher's cash-equivalence; reasons (such as paternalism, externalities, and distribution) for giving beneficiaries non-cash-equivalent vouchers rather than cash; optimal tax issues involved in the design of vouchers and the choice between vouchers and other delivery mechanisms, including factors determining the optimal marginal reimbursement rate (MRR) in a voucher program, and the similarity between this question and that of determining optimal marginal tax rates (MTRs) under the income tax; the incentive effects of voucher eligibility criteria, such as income or asset tests; factors determining the allocative and price effects of vouchers, both in the short run when unexpectedly enacted and at equilibrium; and factors relevant to the choice between private and public supply that may often overlap with the decision whether to adopt a voucher program.

How Do Complainants Experience the Ombuds Procedure? Detecting cultural patterns of disputing behavior: A comparative analysis of users that complain about financial services

Are systems we use for resolving disputes designed in a user-friendly manner? What motivates us to accept a decision handed down by an ombuds? There is scant empirical evidence to help understand what users of ombuds expect from them and what informs these expectations. Yet, in a recent wide-ranging study Creutzfeldt (2016) asked people who had just been through an ombuds procedure about precisely these issues. Exploring the importance of fairness perceptions for ombuds procedures, one of the findings of the project was that decision-acceptance (and trust) was linked to users being heard, having a voice, and especially their “first impressions” of the ombuds. Does this finding hold true across different jurisdictions, though? By focusing on users of the German insurance ombuds (Versicherungsombudsmann) and the Financial Ombudsman Services (FOS) in the UK, this chapter will explore how procedural justice matters in different ways in different legal cultures. The data reveal culturally distinct narratives about expectations towards ombuds, which we suggest is partially a result of the different legal socialization experiences of people in Germany and the UK. Having identified patterns within the private sector, lessons learned for the public sector are discussed. We conclude this chapter with some thoughts as to how this study might direct future understandings of user experience and future research

Procedural justice in Alternative Dispute Resolution: Fairness judgments among users of Financial Ombudsman services in Germany and the United Kingdom

This article uses the lens of procedural justice theory to explore peoples’ experiences of an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) model: ombudsman services. We focus on two specific services that deal with complaints about financial services in Germany and the UK. Using and expanding upon procedural justice theory we ask two key questions: is the complaints process more important than its outcome; and does the importance of process and outcome vary between countries? In both countries we find a strong association between perceptions of procedural justice and outcomes such as overall perceptions of fairness, confidence in the ombudsman service, and decision acceptance. Against expectations, these associations are broadly invariant across the German and UK samples; but, despite this, all else equal German respondents expressed consistently more positive views. Our data add some nuance to the existing literature on procedural justice and suggest that the national context also plays a role in people’s decision-acceptance of ombudsmen. We suggest that national legal cultures provide for a framework of rules that guide people’s perceptions and behaviors in legal, quasi-legal and related environments

Global Real Estate Markets - Cycles and Fundamentals

The correlations among international real estate markets are surprisingly high, given the degree to which they are segmented. While industrial, office and retail properties exist all around the world, they are not economic substitutes because of locational specificity. In addition, the broad securitization of real estate property companies has, until recently, lagged that of other types of companies. Never-the-less, international property returns move together in dramatic fashion. In this paper, we use eleven years of global property returns to explore the factors influencing this co-movement. We attribute a substantial amount of the correlation across world property markets to the effects of changes in GNP, suggesting that real estate is a bet on fundamental economic variables which are correlated across countries. A decomposition shows that a local production factor is more important in some countries than in others.

Thinking holistically about procedural justice in alternative dispute resolution: a case study of the German Federal Ombud Scheme

This paper examines data collected from users of the German Federal Ombud Scheme. The data was collected as part of a research project to understand how the German Federal Ombud Scheme operates in practice and how its procedures and outcomes are accepted by its users. We begin from the premise that experience of procedural justice during this alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process will build institutional legitimacy, and the paper makes three contributions to the literature on procedural justice. First, we extend evidence of the link between procedural justice and legitimacy to a novel institutional context that is different in many ways to the criminal justice focus of much of the extant literature. Second, we consider the motivations of service users to engage with ADR as potential moderators of that link. Third, we analyse the relationship between procedural justice, subjective outcomes, and the actual outcomes provided to service users. Overall, we conclude that the link between procedural justice and legitimacy can be identified among those with very different motivations for using the German Federal Ombud Scheme

Radial distribution of gas and dust in spiral galaxies: The case of M 99 (NGC 4254) and M 100 (NGC 4321)

By combining Herschel-SPIRE data with archival Spitzer, H i , and CO maps, we investigate the spatial distribution of gas and dust in the two famous grand-design spirals M 99 and M 100 in the Virgo cluster. Thanks to the unique resolution and sensitivity of the Herschel-SPIRE photometer, we are for the first time able to measure the distribution and extent of cool, submillimetre (submm)-emitting dust inside and beyond the optical radius. We compare this with the radial variation in both the gas mass and the metallicity. Although we adopt a model-independent, phenomenological approach, our analysis provides important insights. We find the dust extending to at least the optical radius of the galaxy and showing breaks in its radial profiles at similar positions as the stellar distribution. The colour indices f350/f500 and f250/f350 decrease radially consistent with the temperature decreasing with radius. We also find evidence of an increasing gas to dust ratio with radius in the outer regions of both galaxies

SPIRE imaging of M 82: Cool dust in the wind and tidal streams

M 82 is a unique representative of a whole class of galaxies, starbursts with superwinds, in the Very Nearby Galaxy Survey with Herschel. In addition, its interaction with the M 81 group has stripped a significant portion of its interstellar medium from its disk. SPIRE maps now afford better characterization of the far-infrared emission from cool dust outside the disk, and sketch a far more complete picture of its mass distribution and energetics than previously possible. They show emission coincident in projection with the starburst wind and in a large halo, much more extended than the PAH band emission seen with Spitzer. Some complex substructures coincide with the brightest PAH filaments, and others with tidal streams seen in atomic hydrogen. We subtract the far-infrared emission of the starburst and underlying disk from the maps, and derive spatially-resolved far-infrared colors for the wind and halo. We interpret the results in terms of dust mass, dust temperature, and global physical conditions. In particular, we examine variations in the dust physical properties as a function of distance from the center and the wind polar axis, and conclude that more than two thirds of the extraplanar dust has been removed by tidal interaction, and not entrained by the starburst wind

Herschel photometric observations of the low metallicity dwarf galaxy NGC 1705

We present Herschel SPIRE and PACS photometeric observations of the low metallicity (Z ~ 0.35 Z_☉) nearby dwarf galaxy, NGC 1705, in six wavelength bands as part of the Dwarf Galaxy Survey guaranteed time Herschel key program. We confirm the presence of two dominant circumnuclear IR-bright regions surrounding the central super star cluster that had been previously noted at mid-IR wavelengths and in the sub-mm by LABOCA. On constructing a global spectral energy distribution using the SPIRE and PACS photometry, in conjunction with archival IR measurements, we note the presence of an excess at sub-mm wavelengths. This excess suggests the presence of a significant cold dust component within NGC 1705 and was modeled as an additional cold component in the SED. Although alternative explanations for the sub-mm excess beyond 350 μm, such as changes to the dust emissivity cannot be ruled out, the most likely explanation for the observed submillimetre excess is that of an additional cold dust component

The central region of spiral galaxies as seen by Herschel: M 81, M 99, and M 100

With appropriate spatial resolution, images of spiral galaxies in thermal infrared (~10 μm and beyond) often reveal a bright central component, distinct from the stellar bulge, superimposed on a disk with prominent spiral arms. ISO and Spitzer studies have shown that much of the scatter in the mid-infrared colors of spiral galaxies is related to changes in the relative importance of these two components, rather than to other modifications, such as the morphological type or star formation rate, that affect the properties of the galaxy as a whole. With the Herschel imaging capability from 70 to 500 μm, we revisit this two-component approach at longer wavelengths, to see if it still provides a working description of the brightness distribution of galaxies, and to determine its implications on the interpretation of global far-infrared properties of galaxies. We quantify the luminosity of the central component by both a decomposition of the radial surface brightness profile and a direct extraction in 2D. We find the central component contribution is variable within the three galaxies in our sample, possibly connected more directly to the presence of a bar than to the morphological type. The central component’s relative contribution is at its maximum in the mid-infrared range and drops around 160 μm to reach a constant value beyond 200 μm. The central component contains a greater fraction of hot dust than the disk component, and while the colors of the central components are scattered, colors of the disk components are more homogenous from one galaxy to the next