Welfare-based Approach Research Articles

Maximizing public welfare for the net-metering scheme using prosumer charges – vertically integrated utility case

Recent cost development of Photovoltaic system has pushed for increasing penetration of distributed roof-top application. This increased penetration has been supported by different policy schemes. This paper proposes an approach to quantify the impact of the net-metering scheme in addition to a new implementation strategy of net-metering that balances public welfare, utility cost recovery and renewable energy targets. It uses the GAMS and MATLAB software in modelling all actors including consumers, prosumers and the utility itself. It further proposes a mechanism to increase the public welfare in the electricity sector to accommodate solar PV investments driven by net-metering scheme. The proposed public welfare-based approach takes into consideration maintaining a balance between maximizing the solar PV investments while guaranteeing cost recovery of vertically integrated utilities. A model is developed to investigate the performance of prosumer charges in maintaining the required balance. Results show that assigning prosumer charges using the proposed model will have minimum impact on tariff hikes. In addition, the modelling results confirms the similarity of the performance of both implementation of prosumer charges either based on generated energy or contracted capacity and their superior performance compared to the one based on observed capacity. It further recommends increasing the efficiency of the prosumer charges on two levels. The first is to differentiate it based on location as to integrate the network benefits namely reducing losses at the distribution level. The second is to complement it with a monetized certificate of origin that values the environmental value of the net-metered PV energy.

Thirty years of the CRC: Child protection progress, challenges and opportunities

The CRC has a challenging and ambitious agenda in relation to the protection of children from all forms of violence, particularly the large and increasing numbers of children affected by natural disasters, armed conflict, trafficking, poverty and increasing inequality, displacement and trafficking. In this article, we outline some of the issues in the implementation and understanding of the Convention and highlight three major international developments over the last decade: the adoption of General Comment No 13, the work of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence Against Children, and the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the UN General Assembly in 2005. We also identify four broad domains in which the Convention can and is being used to enhance efforts to ensure the protection of children based on a rights framework - advocacy and litigation, policy design, service delivery and research and monitoring methodology - rather than a welfare-based approach. The key to a rights-based approach in efforts to protect children is a focus on children's right to be involved in decision-making - and in research - that affect their lives.

UAV Virtualization for Enabling Heterogeneous and Persistent UAV-as-a-Service

In this paper, we propose an architecture for UAV virtualization with the primary aim of providing virtualized UAV services to multiple users by envisioning the concept of UAV-as-a-Service. In contrast to traditional UAVs, which are resource-constraint in nature and exhibit shorter flight times, our proposed UAV virtualization overcomes the limitations of short flight time of traditional UAVs, in turn allowing them to provide persistent and ubiquitous services. We achieve the virtualization of a UAV through multiple collaborating real-life UAVs performing various tasks in tandem. In this work, we focus on the placement and selection of UAVs to achieve virtualization. We use a social welfare-based approach to select suitable UAVs, from the available ones, and map the UAV to a virtual one. This work enables the provision of different UAV services to multiple end-users, without actual procurement of the UAVs by the end-users. We compare the results for optimal placement, normal maximum energy-based UAV selection, and Atkinson-based selection method. We also compare the virtual model and simple UAV-to-task model to physical UAV usage, task completion ratio, and residual energy of the system. Our proposed model outperforms the traditional model with a task completion efficiency of 94.26%. The residual energy of the system also increases with an increase in the number of tasks.

Teknik Penanganan Kendali Hewan Sesuai Kaidah Kesejahteraan Hewan Meningkatkan Akurasi Pengukuran Profil Hemodinamika Tikus Laboratorium

Chronic discomfort potentially occurred during a hemodynamic measurements in a rat-tail blood pressure chamber due to the animal is restrained in restricted space for a long period – it took 10 repetitions each at approximately 1.5 minutes for a session of hemodynamic measure. Procedures related to the animal welfare methods are required to improve the accuracy of the measurement which would altered from the discomfort to comfort state of the animal. Welfare procedures are represented by humane handling and habituation of the subject (rats) to the operator and the hemodynamic apparatus. Seven rats were subjected in this study and measured for hemodynamic value in three times point: before (T0), after humane handling (T1) and after human handling and habituation to the measurement apparatus (T2), respectively. Six out of seven subjects showed a significant lowering deviation for all variables of hemodynamic measurements, and that deviation followed by a declining trend from T0 to T2, i.e T0>T1>T2. The results indicated that welfare-based approach would benefit the animals from feeling discomfort and yet improving the accuracy and quality of the outcomes.

Measuring Costs and Benefits of Non-Tariff Measures in Agri-Food Trade

This paper provides a systematic welfare-based approach to analyze the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on trade and welfare in presence of market imperfections. We focus on standard-like measures such as technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. The approach overcomes the shortcomings of the mainstream approach based on the analysis of forgone trade caused by trade costs. The latter ignores market imperfections: welfare increases when NTMs are removed and trade expands. We explain how to account for external effects and market failures in trade-focused welfare analysis, leading to a more balanced overall assessment of measures despite a potential reduction of trade flows. We show that the relationship between trade, welfare, and NTMs is complex. The optimum NTM is often not zero. An application to shrimp trade illustrates the feasibility of the proposed approach. The illustration shows that the reinforcement of a food safety standard can be socially preferable to the status-quo situation, both domestically and internationally.

Rights-Based Approaches to Ensure Sustainable Nutrition Security.

In India, a rights-based approach has been used to address large-scale malnutrition, including both micro- and macro-level nutrition deficiencies. Stunting, which is an intergenerational chronic consequence of malnutrition, is especially widespread in India (38% among children under 5 years old). To tackle this problem, the government of India has designed interventions for the first 1,000 days, a critical period of the life cycle, through a number of community-based programs to fulfill the rights to food and life. However, the entitlements providing these rights have not yet produced the necessary changes in the malnutrition status of people, especially women and children. The government of India has already implemented laws and drafted a constitution that covers the needs of its citizens, but corruption, bureaucracy, lack of awareness of rights and entitlements and social discrimination limit people's access to basic rights and services. To address this crisis, Welthungerhilfe India, working in remote villages of the most backward states in India, has shifted from a welfare-based approach to a rights-based approach. The Fight Hunger First Initiative, started by Welthungerhilfe in 2011, is designed on the premise that in the long term, poor people can only leave poverty behind if adequate welfare systems are in place and if basic rights are fulfilled; these rights include access to proper education, sufficient access to adequate food and income, suitable health services and equal rights. Only then can the next generation of disadvantaged populations look forward to a new and better future and can growth benefit the entire society. The project, co-funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, is a long-term multi-sectoral program that involves institution-building and empowerment.

Non-Tariff Measures When Alternative Regulatory Tools Can Be Chosen

Abstract This paper analyzes whether or not different non-tariff measures (NTM) like a standard or a mandatory label can be considered as protectionist in presence of market imperfections. From a welfare-based approach, protectionism occurs when the instrument maximizing domestic welfare is different from the alternative instrument maximizing international welfare inclusive of foreign profits. A framework taking into account different tools shows the complexity for characterizing protectionism related to different NTM. When the standard impacts variable costs, the mandatory label can be protectionist. When the standard impacts sunk costs, the standard can be protectionist. The framework is also useful for empirically characterizing the impact of NTM related to a specific product. An application to shrimp trade illustrates the feasibility of the welfare measure, for an ex ante evaluation of possible environmental regulations that could be implemented in the future. This application confirms that the tool maximizing domestic welfare does not systematically correspond to the tool maximizing international welfare.

Limits to relational autonomy—The Singaporean experience

Recognition that the Principle of Respect for Autonomy fails to work in family-centric societies such as Singapore has recently led to the promotion of relational autonomy as a suitable framework within which to place healthcare decision making. However, empirical data, relating to patient and family opinions and the practices of healthcare professionals in Confucian-inspired Singapore, demonstrate clear limitations on the ability of a relational autonomy framework to provide the anticipated compromise between prevailing family decision-making norms and adopted Western led atomistic concepts of autonomy. Evidence suggests that despite a growing infusion of Western influence, there is still little to indicate any major shift to individual decision making, particularly in light of the way society and healthcare are structured. Similarly, the lack of employing a shared decision-making model and data that discredit the notion that the complex psychosocial and cultural factors that affect the decision making may be considered "content neutral" not only prevents the application of relational autonomy but questions the viability of the values behind the Principle of Respect for Autonomy. Taking into account local data and drawing upon a wider concept of personhood that extends beyond prevailing family-centric ideals along with the complex interests that are focused upon the preservation of the unique nature of personhood that arises from the Ring Theory of Personhood, we propose and "operationalize" the employing of an authoritative welfare-based approach, within the confines of best interest decision making, to better meet the current care needs within Singapore.

Linking Food Security with Coral Reefs and Fisheries in the Coral Triangle

Maintaining ecosystem services of coral reefs, sustainable fishing, and improved food security are the three higher level outcomes of the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF). Food security is an obvious concern of the CTI-CFF because of 130 million people dependent on fish resources for food, income, and livelihoods, and also because it provides 11.3% (19.1 million tons) to global fisheries production from capture fisheries and aquaculture. Yet, anthropogenic stressors, especially overfishing, threaten the ecosystems that support food production. Fish supply deficits and undernourishment are observed in varying degrees across the CTI-CFF countries to be further exacerbated by increasing populations, increasing demand for fish from developed economies, unabated coastal development, and climate change. Short-term and urgent strategies to improve food security focus on arresting continued deterioration of coral reefs and fisheries to improve availability of fish, stabilize ecosystem services, and improve incomes at the local level. Wealth-focused and welfare-based approaches to achieve food security at various governance levels are proposed.

Divergence of the sustaining and marginalizing communities in the process of rural aging: a case study of Yurihonjo-shi, Akita, Japan

This study examines the marginalization process of rural communities, which is caused by the decline of community-based autonomy and various activities in relation to the decline and aging of their populations, based on the frameworks that describe the process in three stages. A field survey was conducted in five rural communities in Yurihonjo-shi in Akita Prefecture, Japan. These communities were selected based on their locations, population decline and aging rates, and population sizes and were categorized into two groups, the remote and the central communities. This survey was composed of two sections: (1) a questionnaire-based survey to households and (2) an interview survey with the chairperson of each community. In order to capture the multidimensionality of residents’ daily lives, sustainable development indicators, which are originally designed to capture the well-being of nations, were utilized to develop the questionnaire. The results demonstrated significant differences between the two groups of communities mainly on four aspects: (1) farming type, (2) visits and roles of out-migrated family, (3) self-evaluation of living conditions, and (4) residents’ future concerns. These findings suggest the current state of the remote community can be seen as that of the “marginalizing” community, for which a welfare-based approach is recommended to secure the living conditions of the residents. On the other hand, the current state of the central community is considered as that of the “sustaining” community for which a revitalization approach is recommended in order to rejuvenate the diminishing community functions.

Welfare costs and benefits of non-tariff measures in trade: a conceptual framework and application

AbstractThis paper provides a systematic welfare-based approach to analyze the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on trade and welfare in the presence of market imperfections. It focuses on standard-like measures such as technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. The approach overcomes the shortcomings of the mainstream approach based on the analysis of foregone trade caused by trade costs. The latter ignores market imperfections, and welfare is found to increases when NTMs are reduced and trade expands. We explain how to account for external effects and market failures in trade-focused welfare analysis, leading to a more balanced overall assessment of measures despite a potential reduction of trade flows. The relationships between trade, welfare, and NTMs are complex, and generalizations are best avoided. Very often, the optimum NTM is not the absence of regulation. An application to shrimp trade illustrates the feasibility of the proposed approach. The illustration shows that the reinforcement of a food safety standard can be socially preferable to the status-quo situation, both domestically and internationally.

Fiscal rules in a volatile world: A welfare-based approach

It is widely agreed that a fiscal rule should boost discipline and credibility. A rule should also reduce macroeconomic volatility and be easily understood. Toward such ends, a government may run structural surpluses. In so doing, the government accumulates a precautionary cushion of assets on behalf of agents who do not enjoy access to capital markets. As an additional criterion, that level of assets should be bounded. We provide an example of a structural surplus rule that satisfies all such criteria. In our general equilibrium simulations, we show that such a rule benefits credit-constrained consumers but may hurt others.

Fiscal Rules in a Volatile World: A Welfare-Based Approach

It is widely agreed that a fiscal rule should boost discipline and credibility, reduce macroeconomic volatility, and be easily understood. To support such goals, a government may run structural surpluses and accumulate a precautionary cushion of assets on behalf of agents who do not enjoy access to capital markets. As an additional criterion, that level of assets should be bounded. We provide an example of a structural surplus rule that satisfies all such criteria. In our general equilibrium simulations, we show that such a rule benefits credit-constrained consumers but may hurt others.

Fiscal Rules in a Volatile World: a Welfare-Based Approach

Fiscal Rules in a Volatile World: a Welfare-Based Approach

A Welfare-Based Approach to Aggregating Growth Rates Across Countries

Aggregating per capita gross domestic product growth across countries has always been a technical problem because of the complexities in the relative movements of exchange rates, economic output and populations. As such, the conventional approach to aggregating growth across countries suffers from sensitivity to exchange rates, as well as from the possibility of aggregate growth rates not being convex combinations of individual growth rates. This article introduces a new methodology in aggregating per capita growth rates that does not suffer from the drawbacks of the conventional approach. Using a welfare‐based approach, it is shown that the proposed methodology is robust w.r.t. exchange rates and generates weights that always add up to unity, thus avoiding the anomalies that are inherent in the conventional approach. The methodology proposed in the article is applied to calculate aggregate growth rates of 33 developing member countries as well as five regional groupings, and the results are compared with those arising from the conventional approach. A number of insights arise that were previously hidden or inaccessible.

When does financial integration matter for fiscal policy in a currency union? A welfare-based approach

We use a two-country new open economy macroeconomics model describing a currency union with imperfect financial integration. We assume that household preferences are biased towards the goods produced within the country. We use this setup to show how the degree of financial integration and the home bias affect the welfare efficiency of fiscal policy. This is particularly important for the implications of a fiscal policy launched by a member of the euro zone where the home bias is in a decreasing trend due to higher goods market integration and where there are explicit efforts to enhance financial integration. The results show in particular how the effects of an increasing financial integration on the impact of a fiscal policy can be mitigated or amplified by a decreasing home-product bias. Moreover, under certain conditions, the degree of financial integration has no effect on the welfare efficiency of fiscal policy despite its non-negligible effects on the components of welfare.

Belonging to a community‐based football team: An ethnographic study

This study considered the benefits derived from participation in a community-based Australian Rules Football league in Melbourne, Australia. The RecLink league deliberately tackles the social and occupational disadvantages associated with mental illness, addictions, unemployment and homelessness. An ethnographic methodology was used to study one team from the RecLink football league throughout an entire season. Fieldnotes were written following participant observation at training, games and events, and five in-depth interviews were conducted and transcribed. A constant comparative approach to data analysis was adopted. Three major themes were identified: a spirit of inclusion, team-building and meaning of team involvement. The first describes how members were accepted, welcomed and given the opportunity for team involvement, with the expectation that they 'had a go', and 'tried their best'. The second illustrates how the team collectively fostered a culture of friendship, cooperation and support. The third examines the significance of being part of the team, incorporating personal contributions and gains, and meanings attributed to team involvement. These findings demonstrated how football can be used as non-clinical, community-based occupational therapy: enabling participation in a personally meaningful and culturally valued occupation. Occupational therapists are challenged to explore further how such community-based sports programs may complement existing clinical and welfare-based approaches to social disadvantage.

More Haste, Less Speed? An Evaluation of Fast Track Policies to Tackle Persistent Youth Offending in Scotland

In 2003 the Scottish Executive introduced a new `Fast Track' policy on a pilot basis, which was intended to speed up the processing of persistent youth offending cases and reduce rates of persistent offending. Additional resources were provided to promote access to dedicated programmes, as well as quicker assessment, report delivery and decision making. This paper, based on a multi-stranded comparative evaluation, describes how the policy was welcomed by a wide range of practitioners, decision makers and managers involved with children's hearings who mostly thought it was a positive innovation consistent with the hearing system's commitment to a welfare-based approach. `Fast Track' cases were handled more quickly than others. After two years, however, the policy was discontinued, largely because of negative evidence about re-offending.

The Revolution in Welfare Economics and Its Implications for Environmental Valuation and Policy

Two research programs are brought together to contribute to the growing body of work on alternatives to standard welfare-based approaches to environmental valuation and policy. The first is the theoretical literature undermining the “new welfare economics.” The second is the growing body of work on endogenous preferences. Both these research programs point to the necessity of interpersonal comparisons in welfare economics. This paper focuses on (1) the theoretical flaws in the use of Potential Pareto Improvements as a policy guide, (2) the “filtering” of expressed preferences through the axioms of consumer choice, and (3) the role of endogenous preferences in a reformulation of environmental valuation and policy.

Safeguarding the welfare of children: part two

This is the second part of a series of articles that explores current national policy relating to the protection of children and specifically examines the implications of its application to midwifery practice. Part one (Chapman, 2002) examined the contraindications arising from the social constructs of motherhood, childhood and abuse and described how intrinsic tensions, coupled with a lack of any objective tools are likely to give rise to conflict in the midwife-mother relationship. This second part explores how the governmental Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (Department of Health, 2000) could be adapted for utilization by midwives, to assist them in making objective social assessments and identifying the needs of individual women and their families, supporting a welfare-based approach to the provision of care and services. Midwives will then be in a position to work in partnership with women, and to articulate explicitly and advocate more effectively for vulnerable women and children who may be at risk of harm in the future.