Policy Tools Research Articles

A review of global carbon emission management studies

<p>Under the background of climate warming, the importance of global carbon emission management has become more and more significant. This article reviews and organizes the existing literature on carbon emission management, focusing on the research status from the perspectives of economic instruments for carbon reduction and international cooperation. It explores the economic effects of different policy tools and the emission reduction measures of various countries. This article intends to see the progress and shortcomings of global climate governance through the organization of past research results and provide directions for future research.</p>

Social mix and social interaction: evidence from Los Angeles County

Research shows that policy tools to reduce residential segregation are also effective to reduce economic inequality and, for decades, achieving the adequate level of 'social mix' has been an important policy goal in housing and community policy fields. Yet whether social mix creates social interactions, thus producing favourable social outcomes, is still disputed. This study aims to expand the empirical record on the modus operandi of social mix and its policy viability, and to provide useful information on relevant contextual factors to prescribe effective social mix policies to improve social interaction. We fit interactive linear models to data from Los Angeles County in California, USA, to test the hypothesis that social mix (measured via residential income mix) promotes social interactions (in the form of civic, daily-life, and political activities and group memberships), and to examine whether arts and recreation centres (i.e. the places where social interactions occur to produce social mix) moderate the effect of residential income mix on favourable social outcomes. Results show that while residential income mix is negatively associated with social interactions, recreation centres help income-mixed communities increase social interactions among their residents. We also find evidence that communities with higher income mix levels manifest higher social interaction as there are more arts and recreation centres in their communities. Our findings shed light on why social mix policy works in some communities but does not work in others, elucidating why previous research displays conflicting claims.

Currency Exchange Rate Volatility: Consequences on International Trade in Pakistan

This study investigates the impact of currency exchange rate volatility on international trade in Pakistan utilizing annual time series data from 1990 to 2022, collected through World Development Indicators (WDI) and Economic survey of Pakistan. The Correlation, ADF unit root test, ARDL bound test and ARDL model techniques have been used to attain the results. The outcomes indicate that there exists strong and moderate correlation between the variables used in the study. Variables used in the study have mixed order of integration and ARDL results portrays that volatility of exchange rate adversely influences international trade in Pakistan. Whereas, the impact of economic growth, population growth rate, inflation rate, and industrialization, appear to be positive statistically significant and expenditures on research and development came out to be insignificant. It is concluded that volatility of exchange rate badly impacts international trade in Pakistan; therefore, policymakers should make the exchange rate stable by using monetary policy tools.

Exploring causal interactions between macroprudential policy and financial cycles in South Africa

This study investigated the causal interactions between macroprudential policy, measured by the Macroprudential Policy Index (MPI), and financial cycles represented by the Aggregate Financial Cycle (AFC) and the Credit and Asset Prices Financial Cycle (CAFC) in South Africa from 1970q1 to 2023q2. Additionally, the study explored the effects of macroprudential policy during different phases of financial cycles. Using the time-varying Granger-causality model, the study found that the MPI Granger-caused financial cycles during the 2003/07 credit boom in South Africa, while the AFC and CAFC Granger-caused macroprudential policy during the Covid-19-induced collapse of financial markets. The results suggest that macroprudential policy is employed more proactively during financial booms and more reactively during financial busts in South Africa. The Markov switching dynamic regression model used to assess the MPI's effects revealed that macroprudential policy's effectiveness is stronger during financial busts and weaker during financial booms in South Africa. This is because financial institutions in South Africa tend to resist stricter regulations during boom phases due to heightened optimism about future prospects. Conversely, they are more receptive to stimulatory interventions during bust phases. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the South African Reserve Bank and the Prudential Authority use macroprudential policy more assertively during financial booms to enhance its effectiveness. This could involve setting more stringent parameters upon activating macroprudential policy tools or complementing macroprudential policy with monetary policy during financial booms.

Fostering Academic Integrity in the Digital Age: Empowering Student Voices to Navigate Technology as a Tool for Classroom Policies

Digital technology has transformed classrooms, enabling new teaching methods. With widespread personal technology, students’ devices can enhance learning but also cause distractions. This research amplifies secondary students’ voices, exploring how they use technology and how it should be managed. The study addresses the question: What considerations are needed for school policies on personal, digital technologies? Conducted in an Ontario secondary school with Grade 11 students, data was collected through observations, conferences, focus groups, and journaling. Findings highlight that while technology is vital for learning, it can distract users and classmates. Students want clear directives on device use and training on managing distractions. This research underscores the role of teachers in promoting responsible technology use. By involving students in policy development and providing guidance, educators can empower them to use technology effectively while maintaining academic integrity in the digital era that now includes artificial intelligence.Keywords: digital technology, school policy, student perspectives, secondary school, Ontario

Spillover effects of structure-adjustment pollution reduction measures in China's iron and steel industry

The iron and steel industry (ISI) is a significant source of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter pollution in China. Existing research on regional environmental regulation or ISI emission reduction strategies tends to overlook spillover effects and the enterprise perspective. During the heating season, production limitations in ISI are potential policy measures for achieving structural emission reductions in heavily polluted cities in China's Jing-Jin-Ji and surrounding regions. We adopt a bottom-up modeling approach, incorporating effective production time to describe enterprise behavior and establishing a quantitative trade model based on trade theory. By modeling three types of production restriction policies outlined in policy documents, we evaluate the emission reduction effects of structure-adjustment measures using the example of reduced effective production time for steel-producing enterprises in the air pollution transmission channel in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. The results indicate the following: (1) Reducing the effective production time of ISI enterprises can help decrease domestic production value and total factor productivity in pollution-intensive industries, including but not limited to ISI. It also leads to reduced emissions of various pollutants in the implementation regions. (2) Due to interprovincial trade and input-output linkages, structural reduction measures in certain regions have implications for almost all other provinces' industrial structures. Differences in initial industrial structures, factor endowments, and geographical locations contribute to varying directions and magnitudes of industrial structural changes. Pollution-intensive industries' share tends to increase higher in less developed regions. (3) Our estimated pollution reduction is smaller compared to the literature evaluating clean air policies in similar regions using top-down strategies. This discrepancy arises because we analyze a single policy tool rather than modeling industry-wide emission fluctuations from the top down. Additionally, our modeling approach allows us to examine dynamic changes in comparative advantages. The increase in production scale for certain industries in policy-affected regions partially offsets the decline in pollution emissions. These findings enhance our understanding of structure-adjustment reduction measures' role and highlight their potential advantages and limitations.

Achieving social inclusion for vulnerable urban residents through community gardens: a case of Bulawayo city, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and this proportion is projected to reach 70% by 2050. This increased urbanisation has fuelled a growing divide among urban dwellers, bringing with it complex exclusions in terms of employment, social and political status within the cities. There is a growing need to transform urban environments into socially inclusive societies that prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable people. Many stakeholder attempts have been made to create more inclusive cities that promote social justice and equity through community gardens in urban areas. This study surveyed community garden farmers to assess the effectiveness of community gardens in addressing social inclusion in Bulawayo city. The results showed that community gardens in urban areas are an important policy tool for achieving social inclusion. The results will be significant to the academia, policymakers, local authorities, and community-based organisations.

How do donors integrate climate policy and development cooperation? An analysis of the development aid policies of 42 donor countries

ABSTRACT This article assesses how donor countries integrate climate action into their development aid policies. An analytical framework is developed for the systematic comparison of development aid policies along three dimensions: hierarchy of policy objectives, types of measures the donors implement, and linkages to international climate negotiations. Analyzing the development aid policies of 42 donors, we find that only three have redesigned their development aid policies to fully integrate climate policy concerns. Instead, donors treat climate change as a thematic priority area. This includes several donors that are currently not obliged to provide climate finance under the UNFCCC. Furthermore, five major donor countries emphasize the use of diverse foreign policy tools to support climate action in developing countries. Importantly, we identify how other development goals (poverty, gender) are integrated with climate policy goals. Only two donor countries clearly separate development aid and climate finance. Luxembourg states that its climate finance pledge is additional to development, while New Zealand has a separate climate finance strategy where the allocation of funds is based on climate mitigation effectiveness concerns.

Organic farming is more related to topography than to soil characteristics in extensively and intensively managed grasslands in Switzerland

Organic farming and other agri-environmental schemes (AES) are important policy tools to support environmental-friendly agriculture. Often, AES require a direct reduction of actual management intensity to sustain biodiversity and non-marketable ecosystem services. In addition to lower management intensity, differences in topography and soils between AES and non-AES land can occur, driven by the targeted placement of AES in the landscape. Many of the latter effects of an AES are, however, widely unknown and frequently ignored, limiting a comprehensive understanding of how organic farming and other AES deliver environmental outcomes. We analysed pedological, topographical and other spatial characteristics of parcels under two grassland AES, i.e., organic farming (vs. conventional) and extensive management (vs. intensive). Thus, this study assessed whether organic farming is related to differences in topography and soil conditions in both extensively and intensively managed grasslands in the study region in the north of Switzerland. Therefore, we combined a regional-scale spatial analysis of permanent grassland parcels and a soil survey. Both AES were tested not only in interaction with each other but also within the two main harvest types, i.e., meadows (mainly mown) and pastures (mainly grazed), resulting in eight distinct grassland types that were studied. Results show both AES to be linked to differences in soil nutrients as well as topographical and other spatial characteristics. We found interactions of the two AES with the harvest type, i.e., meadow versus pasture. This was particularly pronounced for extensively managed conventional meadows, which were frequent at low elevation and on land potentially suitable for arable farming. Extensively managed pastures and all organic grasslands exhibited reduced production conditions (i.e., higher elevation, steeper slope, lower soil phosphorus concentrations). Yet, differences between organic and conventional grasslands were by tendency more pronounced in intensively than extensively managed grasslands. Our results show that farmers preferentially adopted both AES on land not ideal for intensive production, with the exception of many extensively managed meadows in low elevations. Our study therefore demonstrated that an assessment of the ecological outcomes of an AES must not only account for direct effects via management restrictions but also for indirect effects via spatial targeting by farmers. More research is still needed to assess and compare direct and indirect effects of AES to support evidence-based policymaking and improve spatial targeting of different land-use types.

Simulation of smallholder farmers’ adaptation to irrigation-induced landslides: An ABM application in human-land-policy interaction

Understanding the dynamic interaction between smallholder farmers' adaptation decision-making behavior and the policy environment in the context of human-induced disasters is vital for developing effective policies to enhance farmers' participation in disaster risk reduction (DRR). From the perspective of bounded rationality theory, this study constructs the farmer-land-policy interaction (FLPI) model, taking Heifangtai in Loess Plateau, China, as a case study. Based on first-hand micro data, this study combines static econometric model analysis with dynamic simulation techniques, achieving a combination of micro decision-making and macro policies to understand the interaction between farmers and the policy environment. The FLPI model simulates farmers' future adaptations under multiple policy scenarios (baseline, mandatory policy, and subsidy policy scenario with a combination of different policy tools) from 2021 to 2030. Compared with the simulation results of the baseline scenario, the results indicate that mandatory and subsidy policies are effective interventions incentivizing farmers’ adaptation behavior for effective DRR. Mandatory policies rely on policy intervention to ensure that farmers adopt drip irrigation and to promote the generation of long-term behavior of farmers. And the results also propose a suitable subsidy range of 700–900 yuan and with a period of more than 2 years for subsidy policy. This study enriches the research on the interaction simulation between farmer behavior and policy environment under the background of human-induced disasters. And the FLPI model uses survey data as input, which could provide behavior rules closer to real situations than that of simplifying assumptions. The research indicates that the “bottom-up” approach of the FLPI model proven more appropriate to presenting micro-level adaptation and dynamic changes than traditional statistical models.And the agent-based model is very suitable for simulating the behavioral decision-making changes of farmers in policy environments.

Unpacking the multilayered nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems: A conceptual complex adaptive system model

The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) is gaining increasing attention from academics, professionals, and policymakers because of its potential as a policy tool for promoting economic growth. However, the theoretical foundation for analyzing EE needs further development to comprehensively capture its systemic, complex, and adaptive nature. Although recent studies have made progress in this area by incorporating complexity theory into this field of literature, the multilayer characteristics of an EE have been overlooked in those conceptualizations. We therefore build upon those papers by introducing an understanding of EE as a multilayer network from the perspective of complexity theory. Building upon this understanding, we provide a representative example to illustrate the practical application of our conceptual model via agent-based modeling while outlining a research agenda that suggests new directions for future studies in this field.

Vaccine Mandates for Health Care Workers—An Effective Policy Tool for Past and Future Pandemics

Vaccine Mandates for Health Care Workers—An Effective Policy Tool for Past and Future Pandemics

The transformation of 20-year social participation policies of older people in China: Network analysis and text analysis.

Social participation of older adults is a crucial component of China's aged care services and an important strategy for actively addressing the aging population. Analyzing policy texts on older people's social participation can inform future policy formulation and the development of relevant programs. This study aims to quantitatively analyze the transformation of China's social participation policies for older people from 1999 to 2023, employing institutional network analysis and policy text analysis. A two-dimensional policy analysis framework was constructed based on the perspective of "policy tools and social participation stages." Using Rost Content Mining 6.0 and Nvivo 11.0 Plus software, 55 national-level policy texts were coded. Structural analysis of policy-issuing subjects and topic words was conducted to visualize the findings. The analysis revealed that the policy-issuing subjects demonstrated strong authority but weak coordination, with a lack of communication and cooperation across subjects. The use of policy tools was imbalanced, with an over-reliance on supply-type tools and insufficient use of demand-type tools. Additionally, the lack of effective policy tools to support various social participation stages has limited policy implementation. With technological advancement and changing needs of the elderly population, there is a need for a more systematic and forward-looking top-level design of elderly social participation policies: accelerating the systematization and precision of technological elements in policies for elderly social participation, integrating social organizations via technological platforms to mobilize diverse stakeholder engagement, and addressing the digital divide between the elderly and new technologies is imperative.

Effect analysis of government intervention on scale-heterogeneous farmers' behavior of groundwater exploitation.

Government intervention has become an important measure to restrain groundwater overexploitation. This paper analyzes the effect of three types of government intervention measures, namely, guidance, incentive and constraint, on farmers' groundwater utilization behavior, from the perspective of scale-heterogeneity, using general quantile regression model, by survey data of 1122 households in well irrigation area of north China. The results showed that: (1) the incentive and guiding measures have negative effects on farmers' groundwater usage, while the effect of restrictive measures is not obvious. The guided policy is superior to the incentive measure as to governance effect. (2) With the increase of farmers' land scale, the influence of incentive measures shows a trend of weakening, and the effect of guided measures on groundwater demand reduction of farmers is stronger. When it comes to the different point of water consumption, when at the point level of 0.25, the incentive measures have the most obvious inhibitory effect. With the increase of water consumption of farmers, the guided measures begin to play a core role. The effect of restrictive measures is not obvious with the increase of water consumption. (3) In addition, farmers' irrigation water consumption also is affected by gender, cognition of water resources shortage, ecological cognitive level, acquisition ability of disaster information, village rain conditions, the degree of water rights market development, feelings of water fee increase, irrigated disputes in the village, collective economic level of village. The selection of policy tools is flexible according to the farmers' land scale for groundwater over-extraction control.

The impact of energy supply side on the diffusion of low-carbon transformation on energy demand side under low-carbon policies in China

In order to promote the synergistic green and low-carbon development of energy supply-demand sides, this paper uses the complex network evolutionary game to explore the impact of supply side decision-making on the diffusion of low-carbon transformation on demand-side under low-carbon policies. The result shows that: (1) It is feasible for the government to use carbon trading as a policy tool to promote synergistic low-carbon transformation on supply-demand sides, but it is constrained by the carbon price trend. (2) Relying only on the direct supply of clean energy from the energy supply to demand side is not enough to promote synergistic development, and the government needs to guide the both sides to cooperate in the construction of renewable energy power plants. (3) When carbon price is on an upward trend, the government needs to push forward the low-carbon transformation process on supply side, and form the low-carbon transformation of demand side driven by supply side. (4) When carbon price is on a downward trend, the government needs to guide the supply side to bear part of the transformation cost pressure on the demand side, and at the same time give more transformation subsidies.

Comparing the hedge and safe haven properties of individual commodities for China and United States equity sectors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the safe haven benefits of 13 individual commodities for the USA and Chinese equity sectors during the financial turmoil period. Therefore, sectoral investors in the USA and China could invest in those specific commodities that provide stable returns during the health crisis and financial turmoil periods.Design/methodology/approachThe daily data spans from February 1, 2015, to July 28, 2022. The present study applies several different approaches to analyzing the data set. The author apply the cross-quantilogram (C.Q) methodology to capture the lead-lag bivariate quantile interdependence between two stationary time series variables during the bearish, bullish and normal periods. Then the study used the hedging effectiveness (HE) and conditional diversification benefits (CDB) approaches to capture the hedging and diversification benefits of commodity classes and individual commodities.FindingsThe noteworthy findings of the quantilogram methodology reveal that livestock and agriculture commodities serve as better refuges as compared to the precious metals and energy index in both countries. On average, precious metals failed to serve as safe haven investments for the USA and Chinese equity market sectors. All energy commodities except soybean oil had strong comovements with China and the US equity sectors during bearish, bullish and normal periods. Lean hogs, fiddler cattle and live cattle are perfect hedging assets for both countries due to the presence of blue color at normal and bullish periods in all C.Q heat-maps. The HE table depicts that commodity indices and individual commodities failed to serve as hedging assets for the Chinese equity sectors. But commodities are semistrong hedging assets for the US equity sectors and the S&P 500 due to the average HE values being 0.7 and above. The CDB values depict that precious metals provide diversification benefits in both equity markets.Practical implicationsThe present study results have important implications for equity sector investors of the USA and China in suggesting particular commodity during the financial turmoil period. During the bearish market condition, risk averse equity sector investors can invest in livestock commodities and agriculture commodities, due to their relatively stable returns. In addition, policymakers can use the analysis insights to formulate policy tools and monitoring mechanisms, effectively mitigating the unfavorable effects arising from asymmetric dependence between commodities and equity sectors during the upper tail, middle and lower tail. Policymakers can suggest equity investors to invest in which commodity during extreme conditions.Originality/valueThe current study has the following points of originality. First, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the individual commodities’ roles as safe havens taken from all four major commodity classes. More importantly, it is also noticeable that the safe haven abilities of commodities are usually tested for the stock market, but the equity sectors are ignored. Therefore, the present study used both stock market and sectoral indices data.

Rental subsidies and take‐up barriers in an era of expensive rents: An extended version of the theory of planned behaviour

AbstractDespite increasing rent price burdens throughout Europe, many eligible households for rental subsidies do not use them. Understanding determinants of low take‐up is crucial for evaluating program effectiveness and anticipating fiscal implications. To identify those determinants, we built an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour, incorporating dimensions from the claiming costs scale. In an online survey, participants comprising renting households likely eligible for the housing subsidy from Germany (n = 862) and Spain (n = 1032) completed measures of behavioural intention, rental cost burdens, theory of planned behaviour constructs (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and past behaviour), and claiming costs constructs (information costs, process costs, and stigma). Results supported a multi‐group model, showing different paths for Germany and Spain. Several similar paths were identified for both countries, such as the indirect association of stigma with intention to apply for rental subsidies via attitude, the positive and strong association of subjective norms, and the positive association between perceived behavioural control and intention. The indirect relationship involving information costs was observed for Spain but not Germany, and rental cost burdens operated differently as well. These findings suggest that multiple dimensions, both psychological and policy‐related, should be considered when investigating claiming behaviours for rental subsidies, while emphasizing the need to acknowledge the unique characteristics of each country. This evidence is also relevant to policymakers, offering insights into leveraging established policy tools. Please refer to the Supplementary Material Section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

The Impact of Some Monetary policy Tools on the Net Flow of Foreign direct investment in Iraq for the Period 2003 - 2019

The Impact of Some Monetary policy Tools on the Net Flow of Foreign direct investment in Iraq for the Period 2003 - 2019

Estimation of the Impact of Government Spending on Industrial Sector Development: A Case Study of Iraq for the Period (1990-2020)

The research mainly attempted to find out the impact of the public expenditure on the development of the Iraqi industrial sectors according to the period (1990 to 2020), as well as several other control variables. The analysis of available data suggested that the indicators of industry sector and fiscal policy tools in Iraq underwent great changes not only because of economic and political instability experienced by the country throughout the study period but also the new-emerged situations that followed, like the cases of wars, economic sanctions, and changes in governance systems that contributed significantly in creating a halt in fiscal policy. Empirically, the study ascertained several outcomes from the analysis. In this case, the empirical test of the hypothesis showed that there was a negative correlation between current expenses and manufacturing output, significant at a level of confidence (10%). On the opposite side, the standard correlation between capital outlay and industrial output is of a positive sign (0,05). Moreover, a current expenditure with an industrial output would make a negative relationship and would become significant at the level of significance of 10%, whereas investment expenditure and industrial output making a positive relationship with a level of significance of 5%. As part of study, it recommended the re-organization of public expenditure structure, enhancing discipline of budget formulation. This, in turn, will support the development of budgetary programs for the economy, particularly, the industrial sector.

Three-dimensional analysis of China's fisheries insurance policy: A tool-direction-subject perspective

ObjectiveInsurance for fisheries ensures the stability of fishing areas and stabilizes fishermen's lives. This research, derived from a numerical examination of 374 documents on China's fishery insurance policies, delves into the emphasis and limitations of current policies, offering guidance for developing and refining future fishery insurance strategies for both China and the globe. MethodsThe research develops a 3D analytical model encompassing policy instruments, directions, and stakeholders, examining how China's fishery insurance policies are distributed and utilized via classification of policy tools, coding of text content, statistical analysis, and complex interactions. ResultsRegarding policy instruments, those based on environmental considerations were the most commonly employed, while those based on demand were the least utilized. In terms of policy direction, it is biased towards supporting strategies such as organizing and implementing work and optimizing insurance operation mechanism. In terms of policy stakeholders, it is mostly reflected in the characteristics of policy implementation under the leadership of the government, while the initiative and participation of fishermen, fishery management organizations and insurance management institutions is not high enough. ConclusionGoing forward, both China and the global community ought to focus on these three aspects when developing fishery insurance policies. First, it's essential to broaden the impact of policy instruments that are based on demand and supply. Second, refine the policy tool guidance measures based on policy direction. Third, it is necessary to stimulate the vitality of policy-driven multi-agent participation.