Attitudes Towards Modern Living: The Mid-century Showrooms of Herman Miller and Knoll Associates

The independent manufacturer’s furniture showroom, as defined by Herman Miller and Knoll in the mid-twentieth century, presented a highly controlled and controllable context in which both companies and their designers familiarized American architects, designers and consumers with new ideas about living with modern furniture and architecture. Embracing consumerism within a modernist idiom, these mid-century furniture showrooms provided a unique interior typology wherein the reconciliation of modernism, mass-produced goods and personal expression was not only possible, but also accessible. Challenging long-held practices and beliefs within the nation’s conservative home furnishings market, Herman Miller and Knoll superseded retail buyers by reaching out directly to customers. The independently-run showrooms allowed both companies to engage their customers in a sophisticated and sustained proposition about the role of modern furniture and architecture in daily life. Examining the showrooms designed for Herman Miller and Knoll Associates during the latter 1940s and early 1950s, this article explores the ways in which these spaces were utilized as both laboratories and showcases, demonstrating the adaptability of modern furniture and interiors to individual lifestyles. Key words Charles and Ray Eames display design furniture Herman Miller Knoll Associates modernism showrooms

Honesty in the provision of expert services: The effect of naturalistic framings and participants' professions

This thesis studies the incentives and behaviour of providers of expert services, like doctors, financial advisors and mechanics. The focus is in particular on provision of health care using a series of credence goods experiments conducted to investigate undertreatment, overtreatment and overcharging in a medical context. The findings of study one suggest that a medical framing compared to a neutral framing significantly increases pro-social behaviour for standard participants in economic experiments. Study two compares the behaviour of medical practitioners - mainly doctors - to students. It is observed that medical doctors’ undertreat and overcharge significantly less, but at the same time overtreat significantly more than students. The final study compares behaviours for other experts - accountants, engineers and lawyers - using experimental framings drawn from the respective contexts and students from the respective faculties as participants in credence goods experiments.

The enhanced Russell-based directional distance measure with undesirable outputs: Numerical example considering CO2 emissions

Following the spirit of the enhanced Russell graph measure, this paper proposes an enhanced Russell-based directional distance measure (ERBDDM) model for dealing with desirable and undesirable outputs in data envelopment analysis (DEA) and allowing some inputs and outputs to be zero. The proposed method is analogous to the output oriented slacks-based measure (OSBM) and directional output distance function approach because it allows the expansion of desirable outputs and the contraction of undesirable outputs. The ERBDDM is superior to the OSBM model and traditional approach since it is not only able to identify all the inefficiency slacks just as the latter, but also avoids the misperception and misspecification of the former, which fails to identify null-jointness production of goods and bads. The paper also imposes a strong complementary slackness condition on the ERBDDM model to deal with the occurrence of multiple projections. Furthermore, we use the Penn Table data to help us explore our new approach in the context of environmental policy evaluations and guidance for performance improvements in 111 countries.

Paper 1: The disruptive forces of the sharing economy

Overview: - The sharing economy unlocks a previously unused value of goods and labour, and causes disruption in established industries. - The pattern of disruption is similar regardless of the industry that's impacted. While the initial phases of disruption are transformational for many (e.g. lost jobs), often the industries end up stronger than before they were before the disruption. - Due to different in setting, upholding and enforcing standards, it is hard to assess the regulatory trade-offs. Safety, labour relations and social fairness are important factors to consider across the industry.

Principles of Taxation Law [9th Edition]

"Taxation law can be an incredibly complex subject to absorb, particularly when time is limited. Written specifically for students, Principles of Taxation Law 2016 brings much needed clarity to this area of law. Utilising many methods to make this often daunting subject achievable, particular features of the 2016 edition include: - seven parts: overview and structure, principles of income, deductions and offsets, timing issues, investment and business entities, tax avoidance and administration, and indirect taxes; - clearly structured chapters within those parts grouped under helpful headings; - flowcharts, diagrams and tables, end of chapter practice questions, and case summaries; - an appendix containing all of the up to date and relevant rates; and - the online self-testing component mentor, which provides questions for students of both business and law; Every major aspect of the Australian tax system is covered, with chapters on topics such as goods and services tax, superannuation, offsets, partnerships, capital gains tax, trusts, company tax, tax administration and state taxes."--Publisher Website