Explore the vast range of titles available.

Limited literature explores the relationship between economic impacts and pet ownership. Do people have more pets as a result of economic crises? In the current study, we answer this question by looking at the time series of pet ownership and children present in U.S. households from 2003 to 2018. We utilize a causal inference technique to compare the estimated real trend of pet ownership in American households against the scenario in which the 2007–2008 financial crisis would not have occurred. Our findings suggest that the financial crisis triggered households to own more pets, specifically dogs and cats.

Car owners underestimate total vehicle costs. Giving consumers this information could encourage the switch to cleaner transport and reduce emissions. Running a car costs much more than you think Car owners underestimate total vehicle costs. Giving consumers this information could encourage the switch to cleaner transport and reduce emissions.

Mixed-ownership reform (MOR) represents a pivotal policy instrument for revitalizing China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs); however, its outcomes exhibit substantial heterogeneity. This variation implies that the intrinsic motivations behind reform—whether prompted by regulatory compliance or economic necessity—may constitute an understudied determinant of its efficacy. This research empirically examines how reform motivations influence the economic outcomes of mixed-ownership restructuring. Utilizing panel data from Chinese listed SOEs between 2013 and 2022 and employing a double fixed-effects model, we analyze the interaction between reform attributes—namely, breadth (ownership diversity) and depth (proportion of nonstate ownership)—and reform motivations, classified according to prereform profitability. Our results indicate that in SOEs characterized by survival-driven motives, deeper reform significantly improves firm performance. Nonetheless, this positive relationship is moderated by regional marketization levels. Conversely, reforms motivated primarily by policy directives demonstrate weaker effects on performance. These findings underscore that the impacts of mixed-ownership reform are not monolithic but are fundamentally conditioned on initial motivations and external institutional contexts. This study contributes to a refined theoretical framework for interpreting the heterogeneous effects of SOE reform and offers actionable implications for formulating context-sensitive policies.

Ecological set-asides are a promising strategy for conserving biodiversity in human-modified landscapes; however, landowner participation is often precluded by financial constraints. We assessed the ecological benefits and economic costs of paying landowners to set aside private land for restoration. Benefits were calculated from data on nearly 25,000 captures of Brazilian Atlantic Forest vertebrates, and economic costs were estimated for several restoration scenarios and values of payment for ecosystem services. We show that an annual investment equivalent to 6.5% of what Brazil spends on agricultural subsidies would revert species composition and ecological functions across farmlands to levels found inside protected areas, thereby benefiting local people. Hence, efforts to secure the future of this and other biodiversity hotspots may be cost-effective.

The inefficiency observed in investment within state-owned enterprises presents a significant practical challenge that can affect the sustainable development of China’s economy. To address this issue, this study comprehensively explores the intricate mechanisms underlying the governance implications of mixed ownership on the investment efficiency of listed companies. Drawing on unbalanced panel data encompassing Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange A-share listed companies in China spanning the period from 2008 to 2022, this study employs a fixed-effects model to unveil the nuanced ways in which mixed ownership influences investment efficiency through the lens of agency costs. This study transcends the boundaries of traditional agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. It delves deeper, illuminating the diverse effects of agency conflicts between significant controlling shareholders and minority shareholders. The results revealed a noteworthy positive correlation between mixed ownership and investment efficiency, and verified the intermediary role of agency costs between mixed ownership and investment efficiency, which is an important result of our research. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the relationship between the two can be affected by external events, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, investment efficiency is not the most concerned issue for enterprises. The findings have practical implications for practitioners and policymakers, as they offer avenues for optimizing investment strategies and fostering efficient and effective corporate governance practices.

We examined the consequences of contractual or ownership relationships between hospitals and physician practices, often described as vertical integration. Such integration can reduce health spending and increase the quality of care by improving communication across care settings, but it can also increase providers' market power and facilitate the payment of what are effectively kickbacks for inappropriate referrals. We investigated the impact of vertical integration on hospital prices, volumes (admissions), and spending for privately insured patients. Using hospital claims from Truven Analytics MarketScan for the nonelderly privately insured in the period 2001-07, we constructed county-level indices of prices, volumes, and spending and adjusted them for enrollees' age and sex. We measured hospital-physician integration using information from the American Hospital Association on the types of relationships hospitals have with physicians. We found that an increase in the market share of hospitals with the tightest vertically integrated relationship with physicians-ownership of physician practices-was associated with higher hospital prices and spending. We found that an increase in contractual integration reduced the frequency of hospital admissions, but this effect was relatively small. Taken together, our results provide a mixed, although somewhat negative, picture of vertical integration from the perspective of the privately insured. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; HMOs, Health Maintenance Organizations; MDS, Minimum Data Set; RCTs, randomized controlled trials Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed Summary Points * Nursing home residents are a highly vulnerable population, and nursing home care quality has been a persistent focus of public concern. * There is considerable evidence from observational studies that public funding of care delivered in for-profit facilities is inferior to care delivered in public or nonprofit facilities. * The past decade has seen many industrialized countries increasing governmental payment for care of frail seniors in for-profit nursing homes, leading to questions about whether this leads to inferior care. * Many of Bradford Hill's guidelines for causation can be found in published studies supporting a causal link between for-profit ownership and inferior care. * The precautionary principle should be applied when developing policy for this frail and vulnerable population. Introduction Nursing homes, also called residential long-term care facilities or aged care homes, are regulated institutions providing around-the-clock medical and social care to (mainly) older people who are unable to live independently due to physical and/or mental disability. Because of the vulnerability of this population and frequent media reports of scandals across many industrialized countries [1], nursing home care quality has been a persistent focus of public concern.

The strategic choice of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is crucial to the sustainable development of China’s economy. This paper explores the impact of mixed-ownership reform on the strategic choice of SOEs from the shareholder power and the board power. We find that the greater the diversity of mixed shareholders, the depth of mixed equity, the control of mixed equity, and the excess control of mixed equity, the higher the degree of mixed-ownership reform, and the more likely it is to promote SOEs to choose the prospector strategy. The mechanism test states that the impact of mixed-ownership reform on enterprise strategy is achieved through the balance effect between non-state-owned shareholders and state-owned controlling shareholders with the same power, and the synergy effect between different powers of non-state shareholders. Further research indicates that the mixed-ownership reform has a stronger driving effect on the prospector strategy in SOEs under strict external supervision, competitive industries, and local areas. This study clarifies the governance logic of non-state-owned shareholders on the strategic positioning of SOEs by dual control rights, and it provides empirical evidence for the formulation of enterprises’ market-oriented strategic objectives.

Objectives. To evaluate the impact of the temporary expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for childless adults in 2021 on the mental health of home renters and homeowners. Methods. We used US Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data from 2021 through 2023. Mental health outcomes included the number of mentally unhealthy days in the past 30 days and an indicator for frequent mental distress (14 or more unhealthy days). We used a difference-in-differences design comparing outcome changes before and after the EITC expansion between young adults 18 to 24 years of age (treatment group) and adults 25 to 29 years of age (control group), separately for renters and homeowners. Results. The EITC expansion was associated with statistically significant improvements in mental health among young renters but not homeowners. Specifically, after the expansion in 2022, renters 18 to 24 years of age experienced a mean of 2.21 fewer mentally unhealthy days and exhibited a 9.8 percentage point decrease in the probability of frequent mental distress relative to older renters. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that antipoverty programs such as the EITC are associated with improvements in mental health among young adults who rent. ( Am J Public Health. 2025;115(11):1858–1867. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2025.308219 )

Consolidation of physician practices, largely driven by health systems, has motivated policy efforts to move care toward lower-price, non-health system settings. At the same time, however, private equity (PE) firms are increasingly acquiring those non-health system practices, potentially negating the prior price advantages of those practices. We used novel ownership data on gastroenterology practices linked to commercial claims for the period 2015-20 to study how PE acquisitions affect the prices and volume of care relative to both health system-affiliated practices and independent practices. We examined both professional fees and facility fees. After PE acquisition, prices increased by $92 per claim, or 28.4 percent, driven by a 78.1 percent increase in professional fees. Facility fees did not exhibit a statistically significant change. Meanwhile, utilization also increased. These findings suggest that PE firms have multiple avenues for raising prices-in this case, primarily via professional fees. For policy makers, although moving care out of higher-price health system settings remains a key strategy to lower spending, unchecked growth in professional fees in PE-acquired outpatient settings may nullify some of the intended effects.