News by Subject Social & Behavior

A study of beverage sales in Cook County, Illinois, shows that for four months in 2017 -- when the county implemented a penny-per-ounce tax on both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks -- purchases of the taxed beverages decreased by 21%, even after an adjustment for cross-border shopping.

A place-based payroll tax incentive can be effective in stimulating employment in remote and underdeveloped regions, helping to address regional inequalities, according to a new UCL and University of Oslo study.

La Trobe University researchers have found introducing a minimum unit price (MUP) of $1.30 per standard drink across Australia could dramatically reduce alcohol consumption.

Compared to Canada, the US spends four times more on health care administration ($551 vs. $2,479 per person), mostly due to the surging overhead of private insurers. Health care bureaucracy cost Americans $812 billion in 2017, representing more than one-third of total expenditures for doctor visits, hospitals, long-term care, and health insurance. Cutting U.S. administrative costs to Canadian levels by adopting single-payer health financing would have saved more than $600 billion.

There's nothing certain in life except death and taxes. But taxpayers' support for the latter could potentially be improved, according to a new study led by SFU psychology researchers Emily Thornton and Lara Aknin. Their work, conducted alongside University of Kansas psychologist Nyla Branscombe and University of British Columbia economist John Helliwell, reveals that when taxpayers recognize their tax dollars are used to help others, they are more supportive of taxation and more willing to pay their taxes.

Government leaders must set a good example to the business community if they want to eliminate corporate corruption, a new study reveals.

Protecting our climate will protect health, and implementing evidence-based policies that consider action to meet targets on global warming, the economy, taxes and health together should be a priority for Canada's government, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A new study identified a way to determine how US multinational firms' decisions about offshoring affect domestic employment. The study found that, on average, when US multinationals increase employment in their foreign affiliates, they also modestly increase employment in the United States -- albeit with substantial dislocation and reallocation of workers.

New research based on observations of auditors suggests that strong relationships and trust between auditing agencies and firms can reduce monitoring failures, such as unintended mistakes, to a point, but can also eventually lead to negligence and collusion. Using a combination of methods, researchers looked at the role of auditing relationships and trust in the monitoring of firms.

Since the early 2000s, Russia has seen significant declines in overall alcohol consumption, and a new review shows that there has been a parallel, steep decline in the country's mortality rates as well.