Welfare Perspective Research Articles

The analysis of trade liberalization on open-access shared renewable resources with pollution: A small open economy case

Trade liberalization is discussed to likely result in resource depletion and utility losses, indirectly diminishing productivity levels via the cross-border impact of economic activities. However, existing studies generally focus on nationally-owned domestic resource stocks, failing to assess the cross-border influence of internationally shared renewable resources under the condition that harvesting and manufacturing industries yield environmental pressures detrimentally impacting the common stock. This paper intends to study the impacts of trade liberalization on welfare grounds, resource protection, and labor allocation in a two-country, two-good small open-economy model when two countries share a common renewable resource stock. Depending on the different levels of harvesting technology, the countries can be divided into two groups: a country where the open-access problem dominates the industrial pollution, and the opposite applies for the other country. The results indicate that trade may cause welfare gains for both countries when they show full specialization in manufacturing goods of a comparative advantage, even if the shared resource stocks are severely depleted. Furthermore, based on the common resource stock assumption, we demonstrate that it cannot be optimal for a country to specialize in its respective “cleaner” goods from a welfare perspective. The reason is that only one country's specialization in its respective “dirtier” goods can be sufficient to reverse the welfare and conservation results in both countries adversely. Strikingly, the findings recommend that international cooperation is likely to happen if both countries specialize in resource goods rather than in pollution-producing goods.

The effects of new energy vehicle subsidies on air quality: Evidence from China

Automobile exhaust emissions cause detrimental effect to human health by polluting air. The promotion of new energy vehicles (NEVs) to reduce vehicle exhaust emissions for human health has become an important tool to fight against air pollution. This paper examines the causal relationship between the NEV subsidies in China and air quality through a two-way fixed effects model and a theoretical model. Combining data on staggered prefecture-level city implementation of the subsidies with remote-sensing daily PM2.5 concentration data, we show that the subsidies for NEVs in China significantly improved air quality. The subsidy of NEVs in the private sector (EVPV) reduced PM2.5 concentration by 3% for the current year and 3.2% two years after. In particular, the effect of the EVPV implemented two years after increases by 5.7% with an additional 10,000 people, increases by 3.1% with an additional million civilian cars, increases by 0.3% with another one key corporation related to NEVs existed in the city, and in medium city, large city, megacity and megalopolis is significantly positive on air quality as compared with that in small city. In addition, the EVPV implemented for the current year and two years after reduce PM2.5 concentration by an additional 1.6% and 3.4% if air quality worsens by 25% in the city, respectively. The subsidy of NEVs in the public sector (EVPB) increased PM2.5 concentration by 4.3% for the one-year lead and reduced PM2.5 concentration by 5% for the current year of the policy implementation. The year before implementation of the EVPB significantly increases PM2.5 concentration in medium city, large city and megacity and the EVPB implemented for the current year reduces PM2.5 concentration by an additional 3.2% if air quality worsens by 25% in the city. Driving and purchasing restrictions have significant impact on the causal relationship of the EVPB on air quality. Our results remain robust through a series of robustness tests. By developing a theoretical model, we analyze the effect of subsidy policy on air quality as a supplement for empirical results and compare the optimal subsidy intensities for NEVs from the perspectives of consumer surplus, emissions and social welfare. The results indicate that the cost of subsidy policies is lower at the initial stage of the promotion of NEVs, while when consumers begin to accept NEVs widely, the cost of the subsidy policies will increase accordingly.

Improving Community Welfare Through the Cultivation of Coffee: A Case Study of Bondowoso's Coffee Republic, Indonesia

This paper seeks to examine the efforts of the Bondowoso community to grow coffee to empower and welfare the community. Community empowerment is carried out through the Coffee Republic program as a form of cooperation between local governments and communities. This research applied a qualitative approach. First, data collection is information about community empowerment in the people's coffee program in Bondowoso regency. The population and sample of this study are stakeholders who understand the 'coffee republic' program and the coffee growers. The secondary data is sociocultural information in Bondowoso Regency, East Java. The study used the perspective of human ecology and green social welfare. The first perspective explains the relationship between humans and the surrounding natural environment. While the second one is used to describe the relationship between the environment and social problem-solving resource systems, particularly in rural communities. The results of this study showed that the people's coffee program under the name of the Coffee Republic positively impacted the economic empowerment of the Bondowoso community, especially in providing more jobs and increasing income. This research contributes to giving strategic feedback to regional governments on alternative strategies for empowering a community through coffee production.
 
 Received: 21 April 2022 / Accepted: 28 February 2023 / Published: 5 March 2023

A win-win partnership for affordable homeownership solutions by connecting responsible investors, community housing providers, and government

Many studies have examined the affordable housing sector from the welfare perspective, but no study has discussed the sector's investment perspective. Therefore, this study presents new evidence of the governance and downside protection relating to the affordable housing sector and contributes to the limited literature on the performance of socially responsible investments. First, we identified the specific risk management and corporate governance practices of the affordable housing sector in Australia by conducting focus-group discussions with industry experts. The sector's strong governance helps to attract responsible investors by reducing investment risk and guaranteeing environmental and social outcomes. Second, by analyzing the downside risk and risk-adjusted returns such as the Sortino ratio and excess return to value at risk, we show that investing in low-priced houses has more downside protection while still offering higher risk-adjusted returns, than high-priced houses and selected responsible investments in Australia. We also find that investing in low-priced houses can improve the portfolio performance of responsible investors. Therefore, we conclude that the affordable homeownership programs in Australia have the potential to attract responsible investments and so increase the supply of much-needed affordable houses.

P-005 Ovine mastitis through a welfare perspective and reporting characteristics

P-005 Ovine mastitis through a welfare perspective and reporting characteristics

Psychological effect of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare professionals of Yemen and coping strategies

ABSTRACT COVID-19 pandemic has triggered psychological stress such as anxiety and depression among people around the globe. Due to the nature of the job, healthcare professionals (HCPs) are at high risk of infection and are facing social stigma as well. This research was conducted with the objective to evaluate the psychological influence of the COVID-19 pandemic among HCPs in Yemen and the coping strategies adopted thereof. A web-based, as well as face-to-face cross-sectional study was carried out from July to December 2021 among HCPs of Yemen. The generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7), patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Brief-COPE scales were applied for the evaluation of anxiety, depression, and coping strategies. A total of 197 HCPs participated in the study where 28.4% and 43.1% had anxiety and depression respectively. The prevalence of both anxiety and depression in the majority were found of the minimal to none and mild categories (71.6% vs. 56.9% respectively). The respondents who had received training on COVID-19 had statistically significant lower GAD-7 scores than those who did not (6.32 vs. 8.02 respectively). A significant statistical difference was observed between physicians versus nurses regarding depression based on the working area (p < 0.05). The physician and pharmacist had a significant positive association with brief COPE scores at the 50th centile compared to other HCPs. The female respondents had statistically significant higher mean Brief COPE scores than male respondents (78.11 vs. 69.50 respectively). Our findings illustrate the requirement for efficient policies through administrative, clinical, and welfare perspectives from the regulatory body in preparedness and preventive measures towards such a pandemic that aids HCPs to provide service in a stress-free condition and assurance of a better healthcare system..

The evaluation of Acehnese people's health insurance from the welfare perspectives

Link of Video Abstract: https://youtu.be/UEJWESqCEvo Introduction: Indonesia has tried to implement the UHC system by implementing the National Health Insurance (JKN) program since 2014. To extend the coverage of JKN, the government of Aceh, one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia carries out Acehnese People's Health Insurance (JKA), which aims to improve the health and welfare of the people of Aceh. However, there has never been an evaluation of the usefulness of JKA related to the welfare of the Acehnese people. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the impact of JKA on the level of welfare of the people of Aceh. Methods: This was an ecological study with a cross-sectional approach to evaluate the correlation between welfare indicators (education, health, and housing) and Community Coverage Levels and Capitation Costs on Acehnese People's Health Insurance. All study data were taken from the Acehnese public health insurance accountability report and the people's welfare statistics report from the Central Statistics Agency. All data collected were analyzed using SPSS ver. 25. Results: JKA has an average community coverage of about 2 million people with an average capitation payment of around 139 billion rupiahs from 2015 to 2021. Immunization coverage was significantly correlated with community coverage, non-capitation fee, and drug cost. In addition, drug costs are also significantly related to formal school coverage. Meanwhile, medical equipment cost was correlated with sanitation and internet coverage. However, other welfare indicators did not find a correlation between community coverage and capitation costs. Conclusion: Some indicators of JKA were significantly correlated with several indicators of welfare in Aceh.

When Will First-Price Work Well? The Impact of Anti-Corruption Rules on Photovoltaic Power Generation Procurement Auctions

Along with the prevalence of photovoltaic (PV) procurement contracts, the corruption between auctioneers and potential electricity suppliers has attracted the attention of energy regulators. This study considers a corruption-proof environment wherein corruption is strictly suppressed. It elaborates a mechanism to explore the impact of corruption-proof measures on PV procurement auctions. It adopts incentive compatible constraints based on revelation principle to reflect PV firms’ optimal utilities. It employs first-price and first-score auctions and uses the Bayesian Nash equilibrium to provide a description of market outcomes. The results show that several strategies have different impacts on social welfare, PV firms’ utility, and the benefits of corruption. First, a first-price auction cannot act as a suitable policy because it may encourage corruption. Second, the first-score choice is desirable for social welfare to fit the forthcoming high-quality and low-price surroundings. Third, the first-score strategy maximizes PV firms’ utility and total income. The implications suggest that regulators ought not to employ first-price auctions in the future PV market from the perspective of social welfare. Another disadvantage of the first-price approach is that it enables the PV firm to maintain the utmost benefit from corruption.

The Interplay Between Subsidy and Regulation Under Competition

This study extends the work of Anand and Giraud-Carrier (2020) [Pollution regulation of competitive markets. Management Science. 66(9), 4193–4206] to an even more general case in which the government offers a subsidy to firms. For the purpose of investigating the interplay between subsidies (rewarding positive externalities) and regulation (punishing negative externalities) under competition, we propose a game-theoretic model to formulate the problem. By Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions and backward induction, we obtain the following results. They are unique in our new scenario compared to Anand and Giraud-Carrier (2020). First, in terms of abatement, the effects of regulation and subsidy offset when the abatement efficiency is relatively high, and reinforce when abatement is inefficient. From the perspective of social welfare (SW), the effects of regulation are often offset by the effects of subsidy, and vice versa. Second, the relationship between the optimal subsidy rate and regulation depends heavily on the degree of competition and marginal cost of public funds. Third, in product and abatement subsidy schemes, cap-and-trade and taxes remain equivalent under competition. Finally, under certain conditions, a higher product subsidy rate will not necessarily give rise to higher SW at certain regulatory levels. Our research can provide a rationale for social planners who aim to achieve peak of CO2 emissions and carbon neutrality.

Animal welfare during transport and slaughter of cattle - background and facts

In the case of commercial transport of animals, both national and European legal requirements must be observed and complied with. The animal welfare obligation extends to all persons involved in the transport of animals. When deciding to hand over an animal, e. g. for slaughter, the question of the animal's fitness for transport in the sense of the European Transport Regulation (Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005) must also be taken into account.In general, only animals fit for transport may be transported. In cases of doubt, answering the question of whether an animal is fit for transport is a challenge for all persons involved in the transport. In addition, the owner must confirm in advance by means of the so-called standard declaration that the animal is "free of signs of the occurrence of diseases that could affect the safety of the meat" within the meaning of food hygiene law. Only under this condition can the transport of an animal fit for transport to the slaughterhouse be justified.This article summarizes the respective legal framework and provides a source of information on the fitness for transport and suitability for slaughter of cattle from an animal welfare perspective.

Opium consumption and living standards in Singapore, 1900 to 1939

Studies on opium consumption in Southeast Asia have thus far not addressed the issue from an economic welfare perspective. This article assembles data from colonial sources to derive estimates of aggregate opium consumption in Singapore during the early decades of the twentieth century. It shows that an alternative measure of welfare that includes opium in the consumption basket led to a declining standard of living amongst unskilled labourers who depended on the drug for their work.

Sustainability and the Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing Industries: An Enhanced One Welfare Perspective.

As society debates the use of animals in sport, entertainment, and leisure, there is an increasing focus on the welfare, social, and ecological impacts of such activities on the animals, human participants, people close to them, and the physical environment. This article introduces the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" to reveal significant costs and benefits associated with Thoroughbred breeding and racing globally. In addition, relative to calls to ban horseracing and similar activities as part of sustainability approaches that focus chiefly on animals, the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" is better positioned politically to guide discussions that renegotiate the conditions under which horses are used for sport and the impact racing has on humans and the planet. In 2020, the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities issued its minimum horse welfare standards based on the Five Domains model, positioning lifelong horse welfare as "fundamentally important to the viability and sustainability of the industry". In this article, we critique the One Welfare framework's historic lack of focus on sport and enhance it by including sport, leisure, and entertainment and framing it within the Five Domains model. We offer a novel extension of the Five Domains model beyond animal welfare to consider human welfare and the physical environmental impacts of the sport, leisure, and entertainment industries and propose innovations that may help thoroughbred breeding and racing assure a sustainable future.

A Bioeconomic Model for the Thoroughbred Racing Industry-Optimisation of the Production Cycle with a Horse Centric Welfare Perspective.

The Thoroughbred racing industry faces new and competing pressures to operate within a modern, changing society. Three major moderators drive the focus and productivity of the industry worldwide: economic sustainability, horse biology and social licence to operate. This review proposes that despite the apparent homogeneity in the structure of racing across jurisdictions due to international regulation of the sport, there are significant differences within each jurisdiction in each of the three moderators. This creates challenges for the comparison of injury risk factors for racehorses within the industry across different jurisdictions. Comparison of the relative distribution of racing and gambling metrics internationally indicates that the Asian jurisdictions have a high focus on gambling efficiency and high economic return of the product, with a high number of starts per horse and the highest relative betting turnover. In contrast, the racing metrics from the USA have proportionally low racing stakes and fewer horses per race. These differences provide insight into the sociology of horse ownership, with a shift from the long-term return on investment held by most jurisdictions to a short-term transitional view and immediate return on investment in others. Wastage studies identify varying risks influenced by the predominant racing culture, training methods, production focus and environment within individual jurisdictions. Increasing societal pressure to maintain high racehorse welfare and reduce the negative impact of gambling poses fluctuating risks to each jurisdiction's social licence to operate. Based on the data presented within this review, the authors propose that the use of a bioeconomic model would permit consideration of all three moderators on industry practice and optimisation of the jurisdiction-specific production cycle with a horse-centric welfare perspective.

Dumping, antidumping duties, and price undertakings

This paper examines which types of firms, from a developed country (DC) or a less developed country (LDC), tend to practice dumping, using a two-market equilibrium analysis of trade in similar products. Specifically, we present a vertical product differentiation model of duopolistic competition between a DC firm and an LDC firm under free trade to show that the DC firm sells a higher-quality product without dumping. In contrast, the LDC firm sells a lower-quality product and practices dumping in the DC market by charging a price lower than the product's price in the LDC's local market. In response to the LDC dumping, the DC government's use of an optimal antidumping duty increases its domestic welfare. The LDC's social welfare may increase if its exporting firm accepts price undertaking rather than dumping. From the perspective of world welfare, defined by aggregating the welfare of the trading countries (DC and LDC), the trade damage measure through imposing antidumping fines on LDC dumping is Pareto-improving compared to free trade (under which dumping takes place) and price undertakings.

Is it worth promoting battery swapping? A social welfare perspective on provider- and consumer-side incentives

In countries that promote further EV diffusion, battery swapping opens up a market outlet for time-sensitive consumers as well as another green policy channel. To better understand this phenomenon from the perspective of policy-making, this study establishes a Hotelling model of a competitive market comprising a battery swapping service provider and a charging service provider. The analyses of three scenarios, no subsidization, consumer subsidization, and provider subsidization, reveal how to maximize social welfare. Considering subsidy amount, consumer time preferences, service time, and operating costs, the findings provide valuable insights for policymakers. Whereas incentive programs are generally helpful for battery swapping development and social welfare improvement, it is more effective to subsidize service providers than end consumers. Considering subsidy opportunity cost, it is necessary to control incentive amount and make continuous adjustments to promote battery swapping services without harming charging services.

Understanding mobility inequality through the lens of economic welfare: The difference in willingness-to-pay and actual fare matters

Existing studies investigate mobility inequality from the perspectives of accessibility and non-economic welfare. This paper proposes to analyze mobility inequality through the lens of economic welfare, which reflects the difference of passengers' willingness-to-pay and the actual fare. Based on the theory of welfare economics, this paper first defines the concept and specifies the formula of economic welfare with regards to mobility inequality. Then, economic welfare is calculated regarding the elderly's bus fare in Beijing and econometric models are estimated to examine how mobility inequality is socially and spatially distributed. Results show that those with low income and living in the low-unit-house-price communities in the city center are the marginalized group. The benefits of introducing economic welfare to mobility inequality studies include (1) it can improve the objectivity in assessing travelers' feelings and identifying marginalized groups; (2) the concept of economic welfare can directly correspond to the “sense of gain” policy initiative in China; (3) the perspective of economic welfare can inform transportation pricing policies to mitigate inequality issues. To conclude, this paper contributes to the existing literature by a new perspective of economic welfare that enriches the current dialogue of mobility inequality among the geographical, transportation, sociological and psychological researchers. • Economic welfare is introduced to measure mobility inequality. • Economic welfare can echo Chinese sense of gain initiative. • Young elderly's bus fare increases would incur inequality. • City planners in Beijing are suggested to propose fare increase policies based on income to promote social inclusion. • More routes around the low-unit-house-price communities may be planned and suburban-city express routes may charge a premium.

A systematic review on whether regenerative agriculture improves animal welfare: A qualitative analysis with a One Welfare perspective.

The welfare of animals in food-production systems is a cause of concern to the public. Regenerative agriculture was first used by the Rodale Institute and proposes to regenerate degraded components ofecosystems, aiming to be more than just sustainable. However, despite animal welfare being pushed to be part of the SDG agenda for 2030, there is no clarity on how regenerative agriculture impacts animal welfare. It is challenging to determine regenerative agriculture impacts on animal welfare, since it is not entirely defined. One Welfare could help define entry points for future research by studying animal welfare in connection with human welfare and environmental conservation. We aimed to analyse the extent to which positive animal welfare outcomes characterise regenerative agriculture systems in peer-reviewed articles and whether the narratives of such articles support that regenerative agriculture promotes animal welfare directly or indirectly by improving human welfare and environmental conservation. We searched papers including 'regenerative agriculture' using PRISMA-P, selecting animal welfare, human welfare, environment conservation terms, developed themes, and carried out analysis using Atlas.Ti8 and Causal Loop Diagram. We found that papers mainly linked animal welfare to animal health, human welfare to financial farm status and farmer's self-awareness, and environmental conservation to soil improvement. Causal Loop Diagram indicated that regenerative agriculture had the potential to improve the health and nutrition components of animal welfare by enhancing financial farmers' status/self-awareness (human welfare), and the soil (environmental conservation), reflecting that the processes that affect human welfare and environmental conservation could also affect animal welfare. However, information in papers remains insufficient to determine how regenerative agriculture impacts on animal welfare and research into regenerative agriculture needs to extend its focus on animal welfare and elucidate the regenerative agriculture principles leading to animal welfare.

The Effectiveness Of Social Return On Investment (SROI) In The Kampong AMOI Program To Enhance Community Development: A Case Study Air Limau Village, Bangka Barat

From the beginning of a company’s existence, corporate responsibility for the common good can be exercised through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. CSR is a company’s commitment to moral awareness in transparent and ethical behaviour through strategies and social policies that follow the values and norms applied in society. This study measures efficacy using the evaluation SROI method in the KAMPONG AMOI Community Empowerment Program (KAMPONG Agro Mandiri Integrated) conducted by PT TIMAH Tbk Metallurgical Unit Muntok. The Empowerment Program has been implemented since 2020 in Tanjung Village and Air He Limau Village in Muntok District, West Bangka Province. This research aims to comprehensively evaluate, measure, and calculate the impacts of program implementation from environmental, economic, welfare, and social perspectives using the evaluative SROI method. The study also aims to provide information on the feasibility of implementing the program via the determined SROI values. The KAMPONG AMOI Community Empowerment Program (Kampong Agro Mandiri Integration) has an SROI score of 2.82. The results show a utility or impact value of IDR 2.82 for every IDR 1 invested. The results of the SROI study show that the KAMPONG AMOI program has a positive economic, social and environmental impact. Companies should therefore support groups developing alternative feeds using readily available raw materials. To increase the value of research and development of alternative feeds using readily available raw materials, capacity building of the KAMPONG AMOI program by increasing replication of the program in vulnerable communities, and other processing such as more modern dishes and inclusive markets.

Reforming Electricity Access and End-Use Efficiency Policies in India – A Social Welfare Perspective

Social welfare has been believed to be a trickle-down effect of power sector reform policies, and there have been extensive debates on whether the trickle-down happens in reality. Such perceived benefits are arguably not fully realised in an emerging economy like India, where distribution utilities are at the crossroads of financial instability and social obligations related to ensuring universal access and energy efficiency. Hence, this paper delves into existing empirical literature to identify analytical evidence that links electricity access, end-use efficiency, household welfare, the economics of supply, the environment, and regional endowment. Further, policy documents were examined to map the evolution of such interventions and their intended welfare outcomes. Since the existing studies lack a joint evaluation of the social impacts of access and efficiency interventions, we argue for analysing the nexus of electricity access, energy efficiency, and welfare and thereby bridging these disparate streams of literature. Even though there has been a deluge of electricity access and end-use efficiency policies implemented in India with the expectation of delivering societal welfare, there is a dearth of retrospective research examining analytical evidence on the realisation of such an expectation. This study contributes to the limited literature available on empirically established welfare outcomes of access and efficiency reforms in the Indian power sector and attempts to highlight the need for research on analysing the interdependencies between welfare outcomes of these reforms.

The collective welfare dimension of dark patterns regulation

AbstractDark Patterns are interface design elements that can influence users' behaviour in digital environments. They can cause harm, not only on an individual but also a collective level, by creating behavioral market failures, reducing trust in markets and promoting unfair competition and data dominance. We contend that these collective effects of Dark Patterns cannot be tackled by existent laws, and thus call for policy intervention. This article reviews how existing and proposed laws in Europe and the US, namely the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act as well as the U.S. DETOUR and AICO Acts, address these collective dimensions of welfare and add to existing protection. We find that the novel legislative measures attain that goal to varying degrees. However, the collective welfare perspective may prove useful to both support a risk‐based approach to the enforcement and provide guidance as to which practices should be addressed as priority.