What Has Happened to Marginal Tax Rates? ESRI Research Bulletin 2011/3/4

As the economy boomed in the early 2000s, income tax rates were reduced, tax credits were increased and the standard rate band was widened. With the onset of the crisis in 2007‐2008, and the collapse of revenues from capital gains tax and stamp duty, major increases in taxes on income were introduced to sustain and increase tax revenue.What has been the net impact of these policy changes on marginal effective rates of tax on income? This is one of the topics examined in a recent conference paper.

Budget Perspectives 2012. RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 22 October 2011

The annual Budget Perspectives Conference, co‐hosted by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Foundation for Fiscal Studies (FFS), provides a forum for discussing key public policy issues of both immediate and longer‐term concern. Against the current backdrop of major economic and fiscal challenges, budgetary policy must be seen to support Ireland’s return to a sustainable growth path. At a time when expenditure cuts are needed and more tax revenue must be generated, equity issues are of great importance to social solidarity. Research on the allocation of benefits and tax burdens allows these equity issues to be addressed systematically

Leading Change: Reproductive Rights, Empowerment and Feminist Solidarity in the Dublin Bay North Repeal the 8th Campaign

This article examines how the Dublin Bay North (DBN) Repeal the 8th activist group, an independent women-led, grassroots movement in the largest constituency in Ireland, practiced a collectivist approach to forms of ‘power-with’ and ‘power-to’ (Allen, 2018) that enabled the group to create an activist community based upon a feminist ethics of ‘caring-with’ (Tronto, 1993). In 2018 in Dublin, what had been a narrow majority in 1983 against abortion rights became a decisive 3:1 margin in favour. While this remarkable change can be attributed to the efforts of numerous feminist and reproductive rights activists working for many years, including those tied to the national Together for Yes campaign, less attention has been paid to new activist leaders participating at the grassroots level. This article focuses on the leadership roles adopted by first-time grassroots activists who became ‘team leaders’ and ran decentralised campaigns in their neighbourhoods. Using qualitative analyses of a survey of 125 members (June 2018), 16 semi-structured interviews with DBN team leaders and other key people within the campaign (October 2018 and March 2019), and the authors’ own experiences, we consider how new activists recruited and empowered others to tell their stories, canvass, and lead their own actions

Aspiration Before Tissue Filler—An Exercise in Futility and Unsafe Practice

Background: Aesthetic physicians rely on certain anecdotal beliefs regarding the safe practice of filler injections. These include a presumed safety advantage of bolus injection after a negative aspiration. Objectives: The authors sought to review and summarize the published literature on inadvertent intravascular injection of hyaluronic acid and to investigate whether the technique of aspiration confers any safety to the practitioner and the patient. Methods: Pertinent literature was analyzed and the current understanding of the safety of negative and positive aspiration outlined. Results: The available studies demonstrate that aspiration cannot be relied on and should not be employed as a safety measure. It is safer to adopt injection techniques that avoid injecting an intravascular volume with embolic potential than utilize an unreliable test to permit a risky injection. Conclusions: To prevent intravascular injection, understanding "injection anatomy"and injection plane and techniques such as slow, low-pressure injection are important safety measures. Assurance of safety when delivering a bolus after negative aspiration does not appear to be borne out by the available literature. If there is any doubt about the sensitivity or reliability of a negative aspiration, there is no role for its utilization. Achieving a positive aspiration would just defer the risk to the next injection location where a negative aspiration would then be relied on

What Has Happened to Marginal Tax Rates?

taxes

Campaigning for Choice: Canvassing as Feminist Pedagogy in Dublin Bay North

The dramatic and resounding vote for abortion rights in Ireland was won by committed women sharing their personal stories. While some of these stories were circulated in the mass media, many more were shared with family and friends in the privacy of kitchen or living room. Still more were retailed on doorsteps to complete strangers face-to-face when activists canvassed. This aspect of the Repeal campaign was prepared for and supported by groups who organised locally in their constituencies. This chapter comes from our membership and activism in Dublin Bay North Together For Yes (DBN Repeal) group, a grassroots, women-led group set up to remove the Eighth Amendment (8th) from the Irish constitution. In this chapter, we draw upon a survey of June 2018 conducted by and of 125 activists from DBN Repeal to describe how this vote was won and the particular place of the canvass in the campaign.2 After providing an overview of our constituency, group, and campaign, we argue that our approach to canvassing may properly be understood as a form of feminist activist pedagogy

Campaigning for Choice: Canvassing as Feminist Pedagogy in Dublin Bay North

The dramatic and resounding vote for abortion rights in Ireland was won by committed women sharing their personal stories. While some of these stories were circulated in the mass media, many more were shared with family and friends in the privacy of kitchen or living room. Still more were retailed on doorsteps to complete strangers face-to-face when activists canvassed. This aspect of the Repeal campaign was prepared for and supported by groups who organised locally in their constituencies. This chapter comes from our membership and activism in Dublin Bay North Together For Yes (DBN Repeal) group, a grassroots, women-led group set up to remove the Eighth Amendment (8th) from the Irish constitution. In this chapter, we draw upon a survey of June 2018 conducted by and of 125 activists from DBN Repeal to describe how this vote was won and the particular place of the canvass in the campaign.2 After providing an overview of our constituency, group, and campaign, we argue that our approach to canvassing may properly be understood as a form of feminist activist pedagogy

Molecular signature characterisation of different inflammatory phenotypes of systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Objectives The International League of Associations for Rheumatology classification criteria define systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (SJIA) by the presence of fever, rash and chronic arthritis. Recent initiatives to revise current criteria recognise that a lack of arthritis complicates making the diagnosis early, while later a subgroup of patients develops aggressive joint disease. The proposed biphasic model of SJIA also implies a 'window of opportunity' to abrogate the development of chronic arthritis. We aimed to identify novel SJIA biomarkers during different disease phases. Methods Children with active SJIA were subgrouped clinically as systemic autoinflammatory disease with fever (SJIA syst) or polyarticular disease (SJIA poly). A discovery cohort of n=10 patients per SJIA group, plus n=10 with infection, was subjected to unbiased label-free liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and immunoassay screens. In a separate verification cohort (SJIA syst, n=45; SJIA poly, n=29; infection, n=32), candidate biomarkers were measured by multiple reaction monitoring MS (MRM-MS) and targeted immunoassays. Results Signatures differentiating the two phenotypes of SJIA could be identified. LC-MS/MS in the discovery cohort differentiated SJIA syst from SJIA poly well, but less effectively from infection. Targeted MRM verified the discovery data and, combined with targeted immunoassays, correctly identified 91% (SJIA syst vs SJIA poly) and 77% (SJIA syst vs infection) of all cases. Conclusions Molecular signatures differentiating two phenotypes of SJIA were identified suggesting shifts in underlying immunological processes in this biphasic disease. Biomarker signatures separating SJIA in its initial autoinflammatory phase from the main differential diagnosis (ie, infection) could aid early-stage diagnostic decisions, while markers of a phenotype switch could inform treat-to-target strategies