Feasible Policy Research Articles

Research on the Transformation and Upgrading of Green Finance Enabling Enterprises in China under the Goal of "Double-Carbon"

Under the background of China's "Double-carbon" goal, the development of green finance is extremely urgent. At present, the transformation and upgrading of green finance enabling enterprises are faced with challenges such as different standards and regulatory loopholes. The study on the mechanism of green finance on low-carbon transformation of enterprises can effectively solve the stagnation of green finance in China, and contribute to the sustainable development of China's economy under the "Double-carbon" standard. Based on the existing literature, this paper expounds the necessity and feasibility of the transformation and upgrading of green finance-enabled enterprises, studies the mechanism and specific forms of the transformation and upgrading of green finance-enabled enterprises under the goal of "Double-carbon", and puts forward feasible policy suggestions.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of CO2 Emissions in China Based on Multivariate Spatial Statistics

With China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization in the process of socio-economic development, the extensive use of energy has resulted in a large amount of CO2 emissions, which puts great pressure on China’s carbon emission reduction task. Through multivariate socio-economic data, this paper proposes an extraction and screening method of multivariate variables based on land-use types, and the downscaled spatial decomposition of carbon emissions at different scales was carried out by using the spatial lag model (SLM). This paper makes up for the shortcomings of previous studies, such as an insufficient modeling scale, simple modeling variables, limited spatio-temporal span of spatial decomposition, and no consideration of geographical correlation. Based on the results of the spatial decomposition of carbon emissions, this paper explores the spatial and temporal dynamics of carbon emissions at different scales. The results showed that SLM is capable of downscaling the spatialization of carbon emissions with high precision, and the continuity of the decomposition results at the provincial scale is stronger, while the differences of the decomposition results at the municipal scale are more obvious within the municipal units. In terms of the spatial and temporal dynamics of CO2 emissions, carbon emissions at both scales showed a significant positive correlation. The dominant spatial correlation types are “Low–Low” at the provincial level, and “Low–Low” and “High–High” at the municipal level. The smaller spatial scope is more helpful to show the geographic dependence and geographic differences of China’s carbon emissions. The findings of this paper will help deepen the understanding of the spatial and temporal changes of carbon emissions in China. They will provide a scientific basis for the formulation of feasible carbon emission reduction policies.

Advance in occupational health risks and management of shift work

The occupational health issues of shift workers has received increasing attention in the field of occupational health, and discussed in this article through literature review on the health risks and management of shift work both domestically and internationally. Based on this, a series of impacts of shift work on the physiological and psychological health of workers, as well as their family and social life, are revealed. Combined with relatively mature regulations and policies in foreign countries, it is proposed that China should fully learn from the relevant experience of health management in shift work abroad, Strengthen research and explore effective management intervention measures to provide ideas for accelerating the development of scientifically feasible regulations and policies related to occupational health in shift work in China.

Redistribution Methods for Income Equality in the United States


 
 
 
 Redistribution for income equality is a contentious issue, with advocates citing increased economic stability and skeptics fearing potential negative impacts on economic growth. The United States (U.S.) faces notably high income inequality compared to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, with wealth concentrated in the top brackets. This paper critically examines the existing U.S. redistribution methods, including the taxation system and welfare programs, highlighting challenges such as the lack of tax progressiveness in top brackets and limited redistribution compared to European counterparts. Based on this overview, the study evaluates alternative redistribution strategies, including wealth and business taxes. The paper compares theory with insights from pilot programs in other countries. Finally, the paper argues for a universal basic income (UBI) set at per-capita welfare spending, positing that this approach can empower individuals to escape poverty traps, enhance productivity, and introduce a choice mechanism for welfare consumption. Ultimately, this research seeks to propose the most effective and feasible income redistribution policies for the U.S. to bridge the income inequality gap.
 
 
 

Revitalising small tourism destination states: necessity and strategies for structural change in tourism development

ABSTRACT This paper delves into the controversy surrounding the link between structural change and tourism development, particularly focusing on small tourism states, over the period 1995Q1–2020Q4 using a panel-based approach. To address the research objective, the Quantile-on-Quantile (QQ) regression approach is utilised to assess the impact of different quantiles of structural change on the quantiles of tourism development. To ensure robustness, the outcomes of the QQR approach are compared with those of the conventional quantile regression technique. Empirical findings from the QQR approach reveal nuanced relationships. In Belize, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Malta, and Seychelles, structural changes exhibit a structural-increasing effect on tourism development. Conversely, in the Bahamas, Fiji, and Trinidad & Tobago, structural changes manifest both structural-increasing and structural-decreasing effects on tourism development. In Bahrain, structural changes have a structural-decreasing impact on tourism development. Furthermore, the study establishes a feedback nexus between tourism and structural change, offering feasible policy suggestions for policymakers. Overall, the findings suggest that sound policy responses to the relationship between structural change and tourism development should be context-specific, responsive to changing dynamics, and aimed at maximising the positive impacts of structural changes while mitigating potential negative consequences.

Qualifications in home languages: opportunities, barriers and policy implications

ABSTRACT There is a recognised need for stronger language skills in the United Kingdom which could be partly addressed by valuing and harnessing the home language skills of its population. One way in which these skills could be supported is through formal accreditation, an opportunity which is not consistently being offered to pupils who speak a language at home which differs from the classroom language. This article draws on data from focus groups with multilingual pupils, interviews with mainstream and complementary school staff, and information from university admissions teams to explore the experiences of these stakeholders regarding home language qualifications, the perceived value of qualifications, as well as barriers and opportunities with regard to language qualification uptake. We discuss actions that could support higher levels of uptake and offer three short-term feasible policy interventions which could make a positive contribution to support for home language skills.

Digital Economy, Energy Structure and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China

The digital economy is an important driving force for China’s economic transformation and upgrading, while “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” is the goal to be achieved in China. Based on the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces (cities and districts) from 2012 to 2019, the article empirically investigates the impact of the digital economy on regional carbon emissions and its mechanism of action by using a two-way fixed-effects model and mediated-effects model. The study shows that, firstly, the digital economy has a significant carbon emission reduction effect, and the conclusion still holds after robustness testing. Secondly, the emission reduction effect of industry digitization in the digital economy dimension is the most obvious. Again, the carbon emission reduction effect of digital economy development on different regions varies, with the strongest carbon emission reduction effect on western regions and regions with high carbon emission levels. Finally, the analysis of mediating effects shows that the energy structure is an important mechanism for the digital economy to suppress regional carbon emissions. The findings of the study provide a feasible path and policy reference for the digital economy to contribute to the goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.”

Modeling assessment of air pollution control measures and COVID-19 pandemic on air quality improvements over Greater Bay Area of China

A remarkable progress has been made toward the air quality improvements over the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China from 2017 to 2020. In this study, for the first time, the emission reductions of regional control measures together with the COVID-19 pandemic were considered simultaneously into the development of the GBA's emission inventories for the years of 2017 and 2020. Based on these collective emission inventories, the impacts of control measures, meteorological variations together with temporary COVID-19 lockdowns on the five major air quality index pollutants (SO2, NO2, PM2.5, PM10, and O3, excluding CO) were evaluated using the WRF-CMAQ and SMAT-CE model attainment assessment tool over the GBA region. Our results revealed that control measures in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region affected significantly the GBA, resulting in pollutant reductions ranging from 48 % to 64 %. In contrast, control measures in Hong Kong and Macao contributed to pollutant reductions up to 10 %. In PRD emission sectors, stationary combustion, on-road, industrial processes and dust sectors stand out as the primary contributors to overall air quality improvements. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic during period I (Jan 23-Feb 23) led to a reduction of NO2 concentration by 7.4 %, resulting in a negative contribution (disbenefit) for O3 with an increase by 2.4 %. Our findings highlight the significance of PRD control measures for the air quality improvements over the GBA, emphasizing the necessity of implementing more refined and feasible manageable joint prevention and control policies.

Reward Penalties on Augmented States for Solving Richly Constrained RL Effectively

Constrained Reinforcement Learning employs trajectory-based cost constraints (such as expected cost, Value at Risk, or Conditional VaR cost) to compute safe policies. The challenge lies in handling these constraints effectively while optimizing expected reward. Existing methods convert such trajectory-based constraints into local cost constraints, but they rely on cost estimates, leading to either aggressive or conservative solutions with regards to cost. We propose an unconstrained formulation that employs reward penalties over states augmented with costs to compute safe policies. Unlike standard primal-dual methods, our approach penalizes only infeasible trajectories through state augmentation. This ensures that increasing the penalty parameter always guarantees a feasible policy, a feature lacking in primal-dual methods. Our approach exhibits strong empirical performance and theoretical properties, offering a fresh paradigm for solving complex Constrained RL problems, including rich constraints like expected cost, Value at Risk, and Conditional Value at Risk. Our experimental results demonstrate superior performance compared to leading approaches across various constraint types on multiple benchmark problems.

Fake news and disinformation in Southeast Asia: how should ASEAN respond?

Southeast Asian nations are vulnerable to fake news and disinformation due to the lack of digital literacy, growing dependence upon online platforms, and the non-democratic nature of ASEAN member states. ASEAN has agreed in the past years to decide, at the normative level, the importance of countering fake news and disinformation. However, it lacks a collective, regional approach. It is suggested that ASEAN define what fake news and disinformation consist of, elevation to a non-traditional security threat, and establishment of an ASEAN-centered fast-checking network as feasible policy options to counter fake news and disinformation in the region. In countering this sensitive issue, special attention is needed to consider ASEAN’s philosophical foundations of non-interference, non-intervention, and respect for sovereignty, which allows state practices of surveillance, legal prosecutions, firewalls, and censorships to be maintained.

Minimization of sensor activation in discrete-event systems with control delays and observation delays

In discrete-event systems, to save sensor resources, the agent continuously adjusts sensor activation decisions according to a sensor activation policy based on the changing observations. However, new challenges arise for sensor activation in networked discrete-event systems, where observation delays and control delays exist between the sensor systems and the agent. In this paper, a new framework for activating sensors in networked discrete-event systems is established. In this framework, we construct a communication automaton that explicitly expresses the interaction process between the agent and the sensor systems over the observation channel and the control channel. Based on the communication automaton, we can define dynamic observations of a communicated string. To guarantee that a sensor activation policy is physically implementable and insensitive to non-deterministic control delays and observation delays, we further introduce the definition of delay feasibility. We show that a delay feasible sensor activation policy can be used to dynamically activate sensors even if control delays and observation delays exist. A set of algorithms are developed to minimise sensor activation in a transition-based domain while ensuring a given specification condition is satisfied. A practical example is also provided to show the application of the proposed framework. Finally, we briefly discuss how to extend the proposed framework to a decentralised observation setting.

Policy scenario of plastic waste mitigation in Indonesia using system dynamics.

Plastic waste has become a major contributor to global environmental pollution. Some of the environmental impacts of plastic waste include littering, the formation of plastic debris in oceans and the contamination of freshwater and terrestrial habitats. Policymakers face great challenges in mitigating plastic waste. Indonesia is considered the second largest contributor of plastic waste in the world. However, existing policies have not addressed this issue. Policies, such as bans on single-use plastic bags and fees on plastic bags, have recently been implemented in some pilot cities, but the results remain unclear. Thus, this study proposes feasible policies to mitigate plastic waste in Indonesia using system dynamics. Specifically, this study seeks to develop a dynamic model of plastic waste mitigation and to propose a policy scenario for plastic waste mitigation. The proposed policies consist of a plastic bag ban, a plastic bag fee, a recycling centre and extended producer responsibility (EPR). The analysis demonstrates that an effective mixed policy instrument for reducing plastic waste depends on the plastic waste type. Regarding plastic bottles, the effective mixed policy is a combination of a recycling centre and EPR. For plastic bags, the effective mixed policies include the following combinations: a plastic bag fee and plastic bag ban, a plastic bag fee and recycling centre and a plastic bag ban and recycling centre.

Research on the trend and optimization path of China’s older adult service industry

With the intensification of the aging population trend, China is facing an increasingly growing demand for older adult care services. As an important field that meets the needs of the older adult, the development of the older adult care service industry is of significant importance for social stability and the well-being of the older adult. This paper examines the trends and optimization paths of the older adult care service industry in China. It aims to analyze the current situation, problems, and causes of the industry, and propose corresponding policy adjustment recommendations. Through comparative analysis of scholars’ viewpoints, the paper redefines the connotation and scope of the older adult care service industry, emphasizing the characteristics of its compound industrial system. The analysis reveals that the current Chinese older adult care service industry is characterized by a small scale, single functionality, narrow coverage, short industrial chain, and a lack of policy support and rational resource allocation. Policy adjustment recommendations are proposed, including top-level institutional design, improvement of the social security system, and the formation of a comprehensive industrial system, in order to promote the development of the older adult care service industry. These recommendations not only promote the expansion of industry scale and the expansion of functionality, but also enhance the quality and effectiveness of older adult care services to meet the diverse needs of the older adult. The value of this paper lies in its in-depth analysis of the current situation of the older adult care service industry in China and the proposal of specific and feasible policy adjustment recommendations, providing important guidance for government departments and practitioners. The research findings can provide beneficial references for the sustainable development of the older adult care service industry, further promoting the progress of the social economy and the healthy development of an aging society.

Does climate variability matter in achieving food security in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Food security in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa is a top priority in global development discourse, as evidenced in Sustainable Development Goal 2. Yet, high climate vulnerability poses serious challenges to food security in Africa even though the literature is inconclusive. Using data from 40 selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2000 to 2021, this paper investigates the extent to which climate variability affects food security in SSA. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to construct a food security index derived from its four dimensions (availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability). The proxies for climate variability included precipitation, temperature, and CO2 emissions. The Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) technique, which takes into account the cross-sectional dependency, serial correlation, and heteroscedasticity, was employed. The empirical results show that precipitation and CO2 emissions influence food security positively, while the association between temperature and food security is negative. Indeed, achieving food security in Africa requires robust and feasible policies capable of mitigating climate vulnerability and impacts on the continent.

It’s Showtime: Live-Streaming E-commerce and Optimal Promotion Insertion Policy

Live-streaming e-commerce has gained tremendous success as a new form of business model over the past few years. Nevertheless, there has been scarce research examining the effect of exogenous stimulus-driven factors (i.e., social cues such as promotion coupons) on the profit of the live-streaming platform. We model the continuous evolvement of the aggregate viewer involvement level with geometric Brownian motion and investigate the optimal timing and depth of promotion insertion policy. Our findings reveal that the optimal promotion insertion policy for the live-streaming room is a threshold policy that consists of a start-to-promote threshold and an involvement target when the trend of the aggregate involvement level is not large and the promotion cost is not high. Under some scenarios, the promotion planning process is constrained by various business rules, such as the promotion depth being limited by a discrete set (e.g., integral multiples of [Formula: see text]). Although this problem involves more complex constraints, we analytically show that a variation of the abovementioned threshold policy is the optimal strategy among all feasible policies, i.e., when the aggregate viewer involvement drops below a certain level ([Formula: see text]), the live-streaming host promotes with the depth of the least integral multiple of [Formula: see text] to raise the viewer involvement level above [Formula: see text]. Finally, to examine the effectiveness of our proposed policy, we compare it with prevalent industry practices. The result shows that the proposed promotion insertion policy outperforms prevailing ones significantly in generating profit for the live-streaming room.

An Approximate Dynamic Programming Approach to Dynamic Stochastic Matching

Dynamic stochastic matching problems arise in a variety of recent applications, ranging from ridesharing and online video games to kidney exchange. Such problems are naturally formulated as Markov decision processes (MDPs) that are, however, intractable in general. To improve tractability, we investigate the linear programming-based approach to approximate dynamic programming. This approach can provide both feasible control policies and bounds on the MDPs’ optimal policy value, which can be used to establish optimality gaps. However, the approximate linear programs (ALPs) resulting from this approach can often be difficult to solve. To address this computational challenge, we derive novel ALP reformulations that can be used for a broad class of dynamic stochastic matching problems that incorporate, among others, possible match failures and certain restrictions on feasible matchings. We show that these ALP reformulations can be solved efficiently and applied to a broad class of dynamic matching problems. In addition, our numerical results indicate that our ALP reformulations can produce tight bounds that allow us to establish near-optimal policy performance for a broad set of problem instances. Thus, ALP reformulations can present an attractive alternative for applications that involve dynamic stochastic matching. History: Accepted by Nicola Secomandi, Area Editor for Stochastic Models & Reinforcement Learning. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2021.0203 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2021.0203 ). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/ .

Causes and Analysis of Sex Discrimination in Price Discrimination

Price discrimination in marriage and gender discrimination in the labor market are common problems in Chinese society. By exploring the pressure and impact of these issues on men and women, this article analyzes the excessive financial pressure that men bear in marriage and the various unfair treatments that women encounter in the labor market. In response to price discrimination against women in the labor market, this article puts forward a series of policy recommendations, including improving relevant laws and regulations to protect women's legitimate rights and interests, increasing penalties for gender discrimination by employers, and improving social concepts to promote gender equality. By releasing women's productivity and enabling women to earn income independently to support their families, it can reduce men's financial pressure in marriage and achieve the best of both worlds for social development goals. The innovation of this article is that it deeply explores gender issues in marriage and the labor market in Chinese society and puts forward feasible policy suggestions for these issues. Through the research of this article, People can deepen people's understanding of gender discrimination, promote the change of social concepts, create a more equal and just social environment, and achieve sustained social stability and sustainable development.

The dynamic role of technological innovations and energy structure in China's industrial coal consumption growth: a joint production theoretical decomposition analysis.

China's energy-intensive industries utilize the leading proportion of coal to meet the demand for its industrial outputs, while on the other hand, these industries also assure the provision of livelihood to millions of people, and capping the share of coal consumption for these industries can adversely affect the industrial and economic growth of China. Thus, to achieve the Pareto improvement between environmental pollution and industrial output growth, it is essential to comprehend the patterns of coal consumption in these industries. Hence, the present research intended to analyze the potential drivers of coal consumption by applying a joint LMDI, DEA, and the production theoretical decomposition approach. Findings indices that, first, industrial output growth was the crucial driver to simulate the industrial coal consumption, while the potential coal intensity and coal technology changes exhibited the reverse effect. Second, the coal inputs and industrial output efficiency, along with the improvements in technological gaps, were found to be the imperative factors in decelerating coal consumption. Third, the energy industrial group was discovered to have more potentials of coal conversation as compared to the non-energy industrial group. Moreover, results also indicated that coal pure technical efficiency is accelerating coal growth, which revealed that coal can be saved by enhancing coal allocative efficiency. These findings laid the empirical ground to design a feasible coal conservation policy for achieving the imperative goals of environmental protection without compromising industrial output growth.

Evaluation of Perceived Environmental Risks of Residents' Life under the Perspective of Environmental Public Opinion

Population health, social development and the environment are important elements of sustainable development. This article uses the China People's Daily message board to collect environmental public opinion data, visualizes the public opinion hotspots of environmental based on word frequency statistics, and applies the Latent Dirichlet Allocations (LDA) topic model to analyze the spatial distribution of environmental risk perception dimensions. The conclusions are as follows: (1) in terms of the hotspots of environmental public opinion, the most frequent occurrences are the living environment, interest demands and noise pollution. (2) There is heterogeneity in the topic of environmental risk perception. The perception of pollution source types has the highest weight in environmental risk perception in the eastern, central, and western regions. Specifically, the types of pollution sources in the eastern that receive the most attention are garbage and noise pollution. In addition to paying attention to noise pollution, the central and western also have a higher perceived weight on the polluters. Residents in northeast are most concerned about changes in residents' health and living environment quality. (3) From the perspective of environmental risk perception, health perception has the highest proportion in northeast, followed by the eastern, and finally the central and western. Proportion of perception of interest demands is highest in the central region, perception of residential environment quality is highest in the northeast region, perception of pollution source types is highest in the eastern, central, and western regions, and lowest in the northeast region. Finally, some practical and feasible policy recommendations were proposed for different regions.

Food Security in Israel: Challenges and Policies.

This article analyzes Israel's food security in comparison to other developed countries, using multiple indicators divided into four sections: food availability, food affordability, food quality and safety, and natural resources and resilience. Overall, the state of food security in Israel is better than in most countries, but the threats to food security arising from the triple risk of climate change, international conflicts, and disruptions in global supply chains, require better preparation for the future. Israel's population growth and the slowdown in the growth rate of its agricultural production, as well as the short-term political desire to reduce prices, are leading the country to increasingly rely on food imports. Such imports expose Israel to even greater global risks, and require the formulation of a risk-management strategy that will balance local production and imports. The global triple risk to food security is currently exacerbated for Israel by the risk of shortage of labor due to the security situation, making this risk-management strategy even more necessary. This calls for the establishment of a governmental authority to oversee the formulation of a long-term food-security strategy, to break it down into feasible objectives and policy measures, and to supervise their implementation. Most importantly, in order to maintain and perhaps even enhance the productive capacity of the agricultural sector, the government must reinstall trust between farmers and the state by establishing a stable long-term policy environment.