Drawing on primary and secondary data, the article illustrates that whilst the health system in Australian certainly dissipates the social determinants of health and lessens health inequality, there remain significant inequalities in life expectancy, health access, utilisation and outcomes. The key argument is that class, gender, racial and spatial inequalities are mirrored in the health system. With respect to class, the weakening of bulk billing, where the full cost of the medical consultation is borne by the government, means that a proportion of low-income individuals defer visiting their GP. The problem is far more acute with respect to specialist, dental and mental health consultations where the out-of-pocket costs are greater. Again it is far more likely to result in low-income people deferring or avoiding necessary consultations. ‘Medical misogyny’ - the argument that the medical concerns of women are taken less seriously than those of men, is shown to be a major issue. The Indigenous - non-Indigenous health divide is acute; the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is eight years less than non-Indigenous Australians. Spatial inequality is also significant; the health outcomes of people in rural and remote areas are shown to be poorer than those of people in the metropolitan areas.

We document that climate-triggered institutional portfolio rebalancing affects S&P 500 firms’ cost of equity through climate change price pressure (CCPP). Using a demand-based asset pricing framework, we estimate firm-level CCPP from physical and transition exposures over 2005–2021. A one-standard-deviation intensification of CCPP raises the cost of equity by up to 6% of its average, with banks and insurers as the main drivers. Yet firms do not subsequently improve environmental performance, indicating that the statistically significant effect of CCPP on cost of equity is ineffective to alter corporate behavior. Our CCPP metrics can help policymakers and investors design targeted environmental strategies.

This article shows that when a compensation peer firm experiences a significant failure in its say-on-pay (SOP) voting, the focal firm’s stock price is adversely affected, resulting in reduced CEO pay in the subsequent period. This pay-reduction effect is amplified when the board is more powerful, when proxy advisors express concerns about CEO pay, and when the compensation consultant lacks quality. Directors who react to the price drop and cut the CEO’s pay receive higher votes in future director elections, implying a market feedback effect for directors of the focal firm triggered by their peers’ SOP voting failure.

We report evidence consistent with institutional investors using industry-level information that they obtain from their investments in venture capital (VC) funds to earn excess returns in publicly traded stocks. We use court rulings regarding the Freedom of Information Act as an exogenous shock affecting the information flow between VC funds and institutional investors to show that the excess returns are explained by information received via this channel. Thus, institutional investors serve as conduits of information from private to public markets. In the process, institutional investors earn higher returns from their VC investments than implied by the cash flows received therefrom.

This article set out to explore how organisations can raise awareness for menopause at work without unintentionally exacerbating stigma. Identity regulation can control the boundaries within which stigmatised identities are (re)constructed, and yet it is unclear how identities that are constructed through awareness of menopause, might respond to the traditional control pathway of identity regulation. This multi-method study was conducted in two parts: a survey (n = 525) on women’s health at work, the findings of which informed the content of a qualitative vignette writing task, which was completed by a sub-population (n = 54, women in their 40s and 50s) from the survey. Findings suggest that organisations should create awareness while adequately considering unintentional consequences of exacerbating stigma, and that uncritically adopted male allyship might present a barrier to menopause awareness and disclosure. There are practical implications of these findings relevant to menopause awareness at work.

This research presents the design, pricing, and consumer testing results of a potential private financial product that integrates retirement savings with social care funding through contributions to a supplemental defined contribution pension scheme. With this product, some contributions will be earmarked specifically to cover social care expenses if needed post-retirement. Our research indicates that offering benefits that address both retirement income supplementation and social care funding in a combined approach is appealing to consumers and could help overcome behavioural barriers to planning for social care. As with established defined contribution schemes, this product is designed for distribution in the workplace. Employees can contribute a portion of their earnings to their pension accounts. Employers may partially or fully match these contributions, further incentivising participation. In addition to financial support, participants will gain access to social care coordination services designed to facilitate ageing at home. These services will help retirees navigate care options, coordinate necessary support, and optimise the use of their allocated social care funds, ultimately promoting independence and well-being in later life.

Qualitative data and analysis can enrich our understanding of key questions in behavioural public policy. In this perspective, I make the case for incorporating qualitative approaches better and more often into our research. I offer practical ideas on how to do this, and a call for action from researchers, reviewers, editors, policy makers and our Higher Education and funding institutions.

We investigate the impact of corruption on female leadership in Brazil using cross-sectional municipal-level data. Our findings suggest that corruption significantly reduces the proportion of working women in leadership roles. Additionally, corruption decreases female representation in leadership relative to men, though this effect is less robust. When examining sectors most vulnerable to corruption, the results remain largely consistent, but we also note that women tend to avoid these sectors entirely. Our findings suggest that corruption acts as a significant barrier to female leadership.

Sludge is one of the most important yet underappreciated problems in modern society. Examples of sludge include unnecessarily complex paperwork requirements, hard-to-navigate documents and websites, long waiting time, and unfriendly or confusing staff interactions. However, little is known about whether some people are more vulnerable to and less accepting of some types of sludge than others. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey with 1,591 participants from Ireland, we show that people report being particularly vulnerable to outdated websites with broken links, unfriendly staff interactions, complex documents laden with jargon, and hard-to-navigate websites. These are also the types of sludge that are least acceptable. Less vulnerability is reported to long waiting times and requirements about having to provide private information. We find only minor differences in sludge perceptions depending on whether the sludge emerges in the public or the private sector. Moreover, people with poor mental health report being more vulnerable to and less accepting of sludge. Self-reported administrative literacy is related to less reported vulnerability, and the tendency to procrastinate and a lack of time and mental energy predict more reported vulnerability to sludge. Administrative literacy and a lack of mental energy also predict acceptability of sludge.

Sums of the ratings that judges assign to wines are a near universal method of determining the winners and losers of wine competitions. Sums are easy to calculate and easy to communicate, but seven flaws make sums of ratings a perilous guide to relative quality or preference. Stars & Bars combinatorics show that the same sum can be the result of billions of compositions of ratings and that those compositions, for the same sum, can contain dispersion that ranges from universal consensus to apparent randomness to polar disagreement. Order preference models can address both order and dispersion, and an example using a Plackett–Luce model yields maximum likelihood estimates of top-choice probabilities that are a defensible guide to relative quality or preference.