Effects Of Various Policies Research Articles

A Policy Category Analysis Model for Tourism Promotion in China During the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on Data Mining and Binary Regression.

Background and AimAt the end of 2019, the outbreak of COVID-19 had a significant impact on China’s tourism industry, which was almost at a standstill in the short-term. After reaching the preliminarily stable state, the government and the scenic area management department implemented a series of incentive policies in order to speed up the recovery of the tourism industry. Therefore, analyzing all sorts of social effects after policy implementation is of guiding significance for the government and the scenic areas.MethodsTargeted as the social effect with the implementation of tourism promotion policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper briefly analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the national cultural and tourism industry and selects several representative types of tourism policies, crawls the comment data of Weibo users, analyzes users’ perception and emotional preference to the policy, and thus mines the social effect of various policies. Subsequently, by identifying the social effects of various policies as dependent variables, a binary logistic regression model is constructed to obtain the best combination of tourism promotion policies and promote the rapid revitalization of the cultural and tourism industry.ResultsThe results show that from the single policy, the social effect of the “safety” policy is the best. From the perspective of combination policies, the simultaneous release of “safety” policies and “economy” policies have the greatest social impact, which can dramatically accelerate the recovery of the cultural and tourism industry. Finally, this paper proposes suggestions for policy formulation to improve the ability of the cultural tourism industry to cope with crisis events.ConclusionThese results explain the perceived effects of the public on the government policies and can be used to judge whether the policies have been released in place. Based on the above results, corresponding suggestions are proposed as follows: 1) the combination of economic policies and security policies can achieve better results; and 2) the role of “opinion leaders” can be played to improve the perceived effect of policies.

Policies for achieving inclusion in higher education

ABSTRACT Considering the extensive social and private benefits that higher education generates, ensuring inclusive access and success is essential to achieve social justice and economic efficiency. With this premise in mind, this article reviews current knowledge about equity promotion policies in higher education and what is known about the effectiveness of various policies, drawing from experience in various parts of the world. It starts with reviewing definitions of under-represented groups in higher education, which can be considered as ‘equity target groups’. After examining the depth and scope of disparities across regions and countries, it analyses studies focusing on the effectiveness of equity promotion policies and measures. For this purpose, it distinguishes between financial aid programmes (grants, loans) and non-monetary interventions (outreach, affirmative action, retention, specialized institutions, etc.) that seek to remove the barriers facing students from under-represented groups. It concludes that policies matter and can make a significant difference.

Poverty and Policy in the Developing World: Before and After the Pandemic

This paper begins with the definition, measurement, and other conceptual issues related to poverty in the developing world. It then makes an international comparison of experiences in poverty alleviation—how various countries and regions have fared in alleviating poverty before the COVID-19 Pandemic. The next section reviews the effectiveness of various approaches to poverty reduction, which are grouped under two broad headings: inclusive growth and redistributive policies to empower the poor. Under inclusive growth, it reviews the various strategies of growth in alleviating. In particular, it draws on the experiences of successful Asian countries and examines the salience of different policies and strategies such outward-orientation, domestic liberalization, and investments in physical infrastructure. It then examines the role of various redistributive policies, which include investments in human capital, land reform, microcredit, and income transfer, and safety net programs. The article concludes with some prognostications about the effectiveness of various policies and strategies in the post-pandemic developing world.

Acceptability of transport emissions reduction policies: A multi-criteria analysis

Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector of New Zealand have increased rapidly over the last two and half decades despite various policy initiatives by the government. This raises questions over the acceptability and effectiveness of various policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from this sector. This study therefore investigates the mitigation potential of various transport policies while considering their costs, benefits and ethical aspects. A multi-criteria analysis technique is adopted to understand how experts (including policy advisers) perceive the costs, benefits, emissions reduction potentials and ethical priorities of New Zealand's transport policies. A total of 26 policy options are identified, and they are categorized under six mitigation policy pathways. The perspectives of experts are sought and aggregated using the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) technique to compare and evaluate the mitigation policy pathways and policy options. Results demonstrate that increasing active and public transport investment is the most acceptable option followed by travel demand management, a carbon price, electric vehicle support, and support for fuel-efficient vehicles and biofuels. However, in terms of emissions reduction potential, ceasing the import of petrol and diesel cars into New Zealand by 2030 is found to be the strongest policy option. It is expected that the findings of this study will help illuminate the costs, benefits, mitigation potential and ethical aspects of various transport emissions reduction measures and assist policy advisers in identifying the most attractive policies and projects for investment.

Analysis of Inter-Temporal Change in the Energy and CO2 Emissions Efficiency of Economies: A Two Divisional Network DEA Approach

Measuring changes in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of various large economies is fundamental for analyzing the impact and effectiveness of various policies in this direction. This study analyzes intertemporal changes in energy and CO2 emissions efficiency of economies by applying a network data envelopment analysis approach that takes into consideration the internal structure of the analysis units. We have applied two divisional network data envelopment analysis models for analysis of the economic and distributive efficiency of economies from 2001 to 2011. The results are very useful in analyzing the situation; we found that none of the economies was efficient in both aspects in the sample period, implying that none of the countries in the analysis was efficient in the production and distribution of economic outputs simultaneously. Brazil, Canada, China and Germany showed improvement in economic efficiency but the distribution efficiency of the most of the economies is low because of the increase in population and high-income class. Most of the countries had an increase in the high-income class but China performed better in the second division because it has managed to improve its middle-income class in the recent past by moving more people from low-income class to middle income class. It is suggested that countries should emphasize on economic restructuring and expansion of the middle-income class to improve their performance in the production and distribution of economic outputs.

Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?

We present a theory of Keynesian supply shocks: supply shocks that trigger changes in aggregate demand larger than the shocks themselves. We argue that the economic shocks associated to the COVID-19 epidemic—shutdowns, layoffs, and firm exits—may have this feature. In one-sector economies supply shocks are never Keynesian. We show that this is a general result that extend to economies with incomplete markets and liquidity constrained consumers. In economies with multiple sectors Keynesian supply shocks are possible, under some conditions. A 50% shock that hits all sectors is not the same as a 100% shock that hits half the economy. Incomplete markets make the conditions for Keynesian supply shocks more likely to be met. Firm exit and job destruction can amplify the initial effect, aggravating the recession. We discuss the effects of various policies. Standard fiscal stimulus can be less effective than usual because the fact that some sectors are shut down mutes the Keynesian multiplier feedback. Monetary policy, as long as it is unimpeded by the zero lower bound, can have magnified effects, by preventing firm exits. Turning to optimal policy, closing down contact-intensive sectors and providing full insurance payments to affected workers can achieve the first-best allocation, despite the lower per-dollar potency of fiscal policy.

INNOVATION, INNOVATION POLICIES, AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Innovation policies have become an important element in national and regional innovation systems. This study presents a framework to analyze innovation policies and outputs, in terms both of knowledge and economic benefits, in China, with a focus on Jiangsu. We classify local innovation policies into seven major categories and twenty-one subcategories as well as five categories of national policies based on their characteristics. We find that main local policies vary largely depending on the level of economic development, and the spatial evolution of national policies is not homogenous, concentrated in the relatively more -developed region of southern Jiangsu (Sunan). Our analysis using a vector error correction model shows that the time lag effect of various policies on economic output is longer than on knowledge output, and cumulative local policies have a significant impact on both types of outputs. The model also confirms the important roles of innovation subjects, intellectual property, and talents related policies on outputs. Last, the questionnaire identifies the reasons for unsatisfactory implementation of policies, such as low level of policy awareness, insufficient financial support, and imperfect innovation and entrepreneurial ecological environment. Our study reveals innovation policies in China favor more-developed regions, which reinforces the digital divide and spatial polarization. Our study suggests that China’s regional innovation policies need to be better integrated, should pay more attention to less-developed regions, and improve the role of the market in the allocation of innovation resources.

Poverty reduction saves forests sustainably: Lessons for deforestation policies

Efforts to reduce deforestation are increasing worldwide through the implementation of climate change mitigation schemes and have recently been promoted as one of the goals of the United Nations’ 2015–2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, existing strategies are associated with high costs, low effectiveness, and potential adverse economic impact on tropical countries and local people. Moreover, because the underlying causes of deforestation are not clearly understood, the policy options that would be most effective in halting deforestation are not known. Therefore, in this study, I examine the main factors influencing forest area change by synthesizing the results of a multinational data analysis, a Malaysian socio-economic survey, and Indonesian household surveys on deforestation that were conducted between 1990 and 2014. I reveal that poverty has a strong impact on forest area change and that high agricultural rent accelerates deforestation. I then use logical equations based on my own findings and those of previous studies to represent the relationships between deforestation, poverty, agricultural rent, and forest scarcity. From these equations, I derive clear and reasonable explanations for the causes of deforestation and assess the effectiveness of various policies and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation strategies to halt deforestation. I suggest that poverty-reduction strategies can represent sound and effective methods for reducing tropical deforestation. These findings will facilitate development of sustainable strategies that will both reduce deforestation over long term and reconcile forest conservation with social welfare.

Anticipating employment location patterns in economic regions: modeling complex dynamics

Complex social-ecological systems—such as cities and regions—change in time whether or not we intervene through plans and policies. This is due in part to the numerous individual and organizational actors who make self-interested, unilateral decisions. Public decision makers are expected to act in the public interest and are accountable to constituents. They need the ability to explore alternatives, select ones that are likely to benefit the public, and avoid or mitigate negative outcomes. Predicting processes and outcomes in the context of complex systems is risky, however, and mistakes can be costly. Switching from prediction of specific future states to anticipation of possible ranges of futures may help contend with the uncertainties inherent in these systems. We propose here a dynamic network model for generating ranges of possible futures for employment location in an economic region. The model can be used to anticipate employment location effects of various policies. First, using historical (2002–2015) number and location of jobs in two rather different metropolitan areas, we calibrate the model for each and validate it against actual data. Having found that the model performs well, we show how policy makers can use it to ask what-if questions regarding proposed policies to either attract businesses to specific locations or discourage them from locating in parts of the region.

Analysis of different public policies through simulation to increase total social utility in a healthcare system

Public and private hospitals are seen to co-exist in several countries and they have different levels of service, waiting times and prices. Public hospitals, in general, are cheaper, but more crowded and offer lower quality service than private ones while private ones are underutilized because of the higher payments required for their services. These differences among hospitals affect patients’ choices in hospital selection and result in different levels of satisfaction in the community. Appropriate subsidy mechanisms can be developed to balance the capacity utilization of both sectors and to improve overall access to healthcare. The objective of this study is to develop an estimate of the magnitude of this improvement and differential effectiveness of various policies in achieving this improvement. For this purpose, we develop a simulation model that includes all the emergency departments of main public and private hospitals in a certain region of Turkey. We analyze the effects of different public policies on patients’ preferences regarding hospital choices and the results of these choices on social utility and public healthcare spending. Different capacity decisions, contracting and subsidy mechanisms are proposed and the optimal system parameters are determined under these mechanisms over this simulation model. After the validation and verification of the simulation model, several scenarios are designed and executed to increase social utility, decrease government expenses, improve patient satisfaction level and decrease waiting times. We compare the proposed scenarios based on multiple objective functions and present numerical results for different scenarios in this system.

Board monitoring, product market competition and firm performance

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the monitoring role of board and product market competition in relation to firm performance. Further, this paper analyzes the moderating role of product market competition in influencing the board monitoring and firm value relationship in the context of an emerging economy, India.Design/methodology/approachA large sample of 3,854 firm-year observations has been used over a period of 10 years (2007-2016). Industry and year-fixed effect regression methodology has been used to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsThe empirical findings indicate that board monitoring adds negatively to the firm value. The results also indicate that product market competition bears an insignificant moderating effect on the effectiveness of board monitoring in India. However, a more in-depth analysis reveals that product market competition complements the weak board monitoring of business-group firms. Further, the effectiveness of the board monitoring (which is relatively stronger in business-group firms) is weakened by the increased level of product market competition for stand-alone firms.Research limitations/implicationsA significant negative effect of board independence on the firm value raises the effectiveness of various policies advocating the board independence to strengthen the governance structure of the firms. The findings relating to the moderating role of product market competition for the business-group and stand-alone firms are helpful in understanding the governance behavior of the firms in relation to the external product market competition.Originality/valueExternal governance mechanisms such as the market for corporate control and product market competition have been described as significant corporate governance mechanisms. However, the empirical efficacy of these governance mechanisms has not been explored in a greater detail in the context of the emerging markets. This study aims to address this research gap.

Korean public rental housing for residential stability of the younger population: analysis of policy impacts using system dynamics

ABSTRACTTo alleviate the burden of high residential costs for the younger population, the Korean government has recently implemented a public rental housing program for those who are vulnerable in their residential conditions and endure low quality of life. This program is not yet fully effective in achieving its policy aim because of lengthy construction periods and consistent vacancies (despite high demand). To address this issue, policy guidelines are sought. This study comprehensively models supply and demand of public rental housing and analyzes the effects of diverse policies on the rental housing system behaviour. To represent the rental housing system, system dynamics is applied which consists of continuous simulation based on causal relationships among variables encompassing their time-lagged effects (and in which system variables are highly interdependent). By testing the effects of policy variables of public rental housing delivery strategies upon the system, the developed model provides an in-depth understanding of policy impacts towards achieving a desired policy objective (in this case to accommodate more public rental housing demands by minimizing vacancy rates). The results provide guidelines for developing detailed policies for more efficient public rental housing project delivery, which can contribute to alleviating the residential problems of the younger population.

Implications of Commodity Programs and Crop Insurance Policies for Wheat Producers

AbstractWe analyze the effects of Price Loss Coverage (PLC), Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC), individual revenue protection insurance (RP), and Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) on the RP coverage level, certainty equivalent, and program payments. The model is calibrated to a representative wheat farm in Mitchell County in Kansas to analyze the effects of various policies. The result highlights that when insurance is framed as an investment, cumulative prospect theory predicts farmers’ coverage decisions accurately at 70%. ARC or PLC program increases the RP coverage level to 75%, but PLC and SCO jointly decrease the RP coverage level to 70%.

Merging Data to Facilitate Analyses

AbstractIn order to demonstrate the value of higher education and evaluate the effectiveness of various policies and practices, researchers are increasingly expected to merge data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) with a range of other federal and private‐sector data sources. In this article, I detail a number of the most important higher education data sources and explain how to properly merge them in order to conduct analyses. I conclude by providing some examples of how researchers merged multiple datasets in order to conduct policy analyses.

Reputation Building under Observational Learning

A patient seller faces a sequence of buyers and decides whether to build a reputation for supplying high quality products. Each buyer does not have access to the seller's complete records, but can observe all previous buyers' actions, and some informative private signal about the seller's actions. I examine how the private signals the buyers receive affect the speed of social learning and the seller's incentives to establish reputations. When each buyer privately observes a bounded subset of the seller's past actions, the speed of social learning is strictly positive but vanishes to zero as the seller becomes patient. As a result, the patient seller receives a low payoff from building reputations, which also results in low social welfare. When each buyer observes an unboundedly informative private signal about the seller's current-period action, the speed of learning is bounded from below and a patient seller can secure high returns from building reputations. My results provide an explanation to empirical findings of reputation failures in developing countries. I also discuss the effectiveness of various policies in accelerating social learning and encouraging sellers to establish good reputations.

Externalities of home-ownership on entrepreneurship: empirical evidence

PurposeThis study aims to examine the externalities from regional home-ownership to individual-level entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachThe paper links individual-level data from the Finnish Income Distribution Statistics for years 1990-1992 to regional home-ownership proportions. Probit models of entrepreneurship with regional home-ownership and appropriate control variables as regressors are estimated. A rental housing market deregulation experiment which caused exogenous variation in regions’ home-ownership is exploited to identify the causal effects on entrepreneurship.FindingsResults show that higher home-ownership in a region leads to greater entrepreneurship. Further analyses together with the fact that homeownership tends to have detrimental labour market effects suggest that homeownership encourages entrepreneurship by leading to less paid work opportunities. These results are in line with those of earlier literature that self-employment and entrepreneurship, especially during bad economic times, are partly motivated by bad employment opportunities.Originality/valueThis study presents novel results on the externalities that home-ownership has on entrepreneurship. These externalities are shown to be important enough that they need to be considered when assessing the economic effects of various policies that affect the prevalence of owner-occupied housing. The instrumental variables’ estimates are the first causal estimates in the literature and the bias resulting from assuming exogeneity is shown to be nonnegligible.

A policy model to analyze macroprudential regulations and monetary policy

AbstractWe construct a small‐open‐economy, new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general‐equilibrium model with real financial linkages to analyze the effects of financial shocks and macroprudential policies on the Canadian economy. The model incorporates rich interactions between the balance sheets of households, firms and banks, long‐term household and business debt, macroprudential policy instruments and nominal and real rigidities and is calibrated to match dynamics in Canadian macroeconomic and financial data. We study the transmission of monetary policy and financial and real shocks in the model economy and analyze the effectiveness of various policies in simultaneously achieving macroeconomic and financial stability. We find that, in terms of reducing household debt, more targeted tools such as loan‐to‐value regulations are the most effective and least costly, followed by bank capital regulations and monetary policy, respectively.

An accelerating Benders’ decomposition approach to the integrated supply chain network design with distributed generation

Distributed generation (DG) is one of the new trends in distribution networks under the effect of various policies, such as distribution loss reduction. It is important to find the position and determine the size of DGs in the existing distribution network. In this paper, we consider DGs for the integrated supply chain networks and obtain the optimal locations, sizing, and the service areas of DGs. First, a mixed integer programming model is proposed to formulate the problem. Then, an accelerating Benders’ decomposition approach with two valid cuts and Pareto-optimal cuts is described for this problem. Computational results show the efficiency of the our model and proposed algorithm.

An evaluation of government incentives for new energy vehicles in China focusing on vehicle purchasing restrictions

In order to reduce carbon emissions and urban smog, the Chinese government has instituted a number of policies to promote the diffusion of new energy vehicles (NEVs), achieving remarkable results. This paper aims to quantify the effectiveness of various policies. After reviewing and quantifying the policies directly related to the sales and driving of NEVs in the past five years, we established a multivariate co-integration model and an error correction model to analyse the long- and short-term effects of these policies. The results demonstrate positive co-integration for the relationship between the NEV market share and the NEV purchase subsidy, tax exemption, the policy of restricting internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) purchase, and the abolishment of traffic restrictions for NEVs. China's unique policy of restricting ICEVs has in fact promoted NEV sales by adjusting the supply and demand to influence the consumers' choices. Finally, we found technology to still be a bottleneck factor in the NEV industry, and technological progress's effect on NEV diffusion is greater than the economic subsidy policy. Therefore, this study suggests that the funds being made available from the gradual reduction of the purchase subsidy should be transferred to research and development.

Towards the sustainable development of the regional phosphorus resources industry in China: A system dynamics approach

The explosive growth of the phosphorus resources industry in China has led to a series of problems (e.g., resource depletion, market supply and demand imbalances and environmental pollution). It is necessary to analyze the bottleneck in the development of the phosphorus resources industry under traditional modes and to suggest new directions for development. Therefore, this paper presents a system dynamics model based on the state of the regional phosphorus resources industry that focuses on resource, industrial, economic, environmental and social subsystems. Furthermore, by focusing on and quantitatively expressing the tailings recovery and resource reuse module, market regulation and elimination mechanism structures, governmental support and environmental constraints of game structures, and feedback structures between social innovation and industrial production, we construct a transformation mode as a development strategy for the phosphorus resources industry. The results demonstrate that the service life of phosphate rock under the transformation mode can be extended by 31 years. Compared to the 2014 levels, the resource productivity and ecological efficiency levels achieved can be increased by 2-fold and 2.5-fold in 2025, respectively. In addition, the social satisfaction levels can rise by roughly 50% under the transformation mode. Thus, the model can be used to assess the effects of various policies and to support decision making on development and environmental protection strategies.