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This research aims to initiate academic discussion on the European Union (EU) social taxonomy for the purpose of promoting sustainable economic activities that ultimately contribute to achieving the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the EU. The paper examines the historical evolution of the social taxonomy concept and presents the chronological order of the regulatory advancements that have paved the way for the establishment of both the EU environmental and social taxonomies. This study emphasizes the role of the EU environmental taxonomy as the frontrunner and highlights three fundamental distinctions between taxonomies in terms of objectives, foundations, and measurability. By defining the key performance indicators applicable to entities engaged in taxonomy-aligned economic activities, the paper offers a tabulated framework to understand the core focus areas, sub-objectives, and types of substantial contributions related to each of the three social objectives outlined in the EU taxonomy. Moreover, this paper aims to emphasize the contemporary challenges and the prospective avenues for future research in the field of social taxonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 2019 article published in this journal, Kyer and Maggs examined the frequency and characteristics of double-dip recessions and multi-dip recessions for 21 countries during the 1960:1 to 2014:4 period. A review of Kyer and Maggs generated a number of questions about a particular feature of their business cycle dating methodology. Specifically, they determined that a recession ends once real gross domestic product returns to or exceeds the previous peak level of real gross domestic product. To demonstrate the impact this nontraditional feature of their methodology has on their results and conclusions, this paper repeats their analysis where, in contrast to Kyer and Maggs, it is assumed that a recession ends once the economy reaches the trough quarter in a business cycle. The application of this more traditional feature of business cycle dating methodology to the same countries and sample period yields results that do not support their conclusions about either the frequency of double-dip recessions or the number of countries in their sample that experienced multi-dip recessions. This paper first shows that double-dip recessions represent just 7.2% of all recessions and, therefore, are not as common as Kyer and Maggs reported. Second, only five of the 21 countries experienced recessions with two or more additional dips in economic activity over the entire sample period. Finally, only six countries experienced a multi-dip recession during the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human economic activities drive the production and consumption of goods and services, contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the extent of economic growth's influence on the SDGs remains unclear. To fill this knowledge gap, here, we quantified the environmental effects of economic activities and explored correlations between environmental effect and achieving SDGs. We developed six Environmental Footprint Indices, with a higher score indicating better efficiency or lower burden. Here we show that the various Environmental Footprint Indices had synergistic and trade-off effects on most SDG targets indices, but the synergistic effects prevailed. As income increased, the correlation between Environmental Footprint Indices and SDG target indices gradually strengthened. improved production efficiency and consumption changes notably advance SDGs, especially in low-income group countries. Our work provides scientific insights into the impact and prospects of environmental regulation required for achieving the SDGs by 2030. Economic development and its interactions with the SDGs is an important focus for sustainable future growth. This paper develops six environmental footprint indices highlighting the synergies with human production and the SDG targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive spatial concentrations of populations and economic activities are problematic in many countries and regions. To solve these problems, decentralisation and other related policies are often considered and implemented. In this paper, we explore how these policies can be more effective by detecting their missing elements from the standpoint of location economics. The methodological framework used is as follows. For decentralisation to work effectively, it may be important that less hierarchically ordered regions attain sufficient comfort or amenities for local producers and households. However, those regions may face managerial problems with their infrastructure and cultural facilities in efficiency terms, which can be caused by changes in the situation, such as a decline in population size associated with ageing. In such a situation, policies intended to solve problems in cooperation with neighbouring regions will play an important role. However, as an economic zone expands, several existing administrative and economic-activity-related functions are dispersed or merged, which may raise problems associated with physical accessibility. A simple location model is built to investigate how rural areas can overcome these issues by employing a framework of central place theory as well as a transportation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the reallocation of economic activity across firms and whether this reallocation depends on the competition environment. The paper uses the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys COVID-19 Follow-up Surveys for about 8000 firms, including both small and large firms, in 23 emerging and developing countries in Europe and Central Asia, matched with 2019 Enterprise Surveys data. It finds that during the COVID-19 crisis, smaller firms were hit harder, and economic activity was reallocated toward firms with higher pre-crisis labor productivity. Countries with a strong competition environment experienced more reallocation from less productive to more productive firms than countries with a weak competition environment. The evidence also suggests that reallocation from low- to high-productivity firms during the COVID-19 crisis was stronger compared with pre-crisis times. Finally, the analysis shows that government support measures implemented in response to the crisis may have adverse effects on competition and productivity growth since support went to less productive and larger firms, regardless of their pre-crisis innovation. Plain English Summary: The COVID-19 crisis had a profound impact on firms. Firms which were more productive pre-crisis fared relatively better, particularly in countries with a more competitive business environment. Using survey data for about 8000 firms, including both small and large firms, in 23 emerging and developing countries in Europe and Central Asia, the paper finds that during the COVID-19 crisis, smaller firms were hit harder, and economic activity was reallocated toward firms with higher pre-crisis labor productivity. Countries with a strong competition environment experienced more reallocation from less productive to more productive firms than countries with a weak competition environment. The evidence also suggests that reallocation from low- to high-productivity firms during the COVID-19 crisis was stronger compared with pre-crisis times. Finally, the analysis shows that government support measures implemented in response to the crisis went to less productive and larger firms, regardless of their pre-crisis innovation. Thus, government support measures during the COVID-19 crisis may have had adverse effects on competition and productivity growth. As economies enter the economic recovery phase, it will be important for policymakers to phase out support measures as soon as appropriate and focus on fostering a competitive business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and the environment are complex components of the countries, influenced by several factors, especially transport, and economics. Thus, this paper assesses the role of transportation and economic complexity in the environment and public health for the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD) countries from 2001 to 2020. This study also focuses on the relationship between transport and economic complexity with environmental and healthcare expenditures. Precisely, transport and economic activities stimulate healthcare expenditures through multiple channels. The current study employs the STIRPAT model to investigate the association with transportation, economic complexity, transport–carbon intensity, and healthcare expenditure. Besides, the current research confirms the plausible cross-sectional dependency across countries, and it adopts a second-generation technique. Analytical findings suggest that transportation-carbon intensity is positively and significantly associated with healthcare expenditures. Healthcare and transport–household expenditures increase transport–carbon intensity (TCI) by 75% and 45%, respectively, in the long run. In the contrast, TCI and transport–household expenditures have also a remarkable impact on healthcare expenditures and are estimated approximately 95% in the long run. Moreover, economic growth also upsurges TCI and healthcare expenditures through multiple economic activities. Besides, transport–household expenditures (THE) drastically impact transport–carbon intensity and healthcare expenditures (HEX) through passenger traffic (PTF). Diagnostic upshots unveil that the joint effect of THE and PTF increases TCI and HEX by 4 and 3%, respectively. Finally, findings recommend some policy implications and future research directions for the countries based on empirical outcomes. Countries should regulate economic activities to reduce transport carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge is regarded as a key driver of entrepreneurial activity and economic performance. Nevertheless, empirical evidence suggests that the extent to which knowledge spills over and translates into entrepreneurial activity differs tremendously across different regions. These inconsistent results expose the knowledge spillover mechanism as a concept that is not well understood. This paper is one of the few studies to propose an explanation for the seemingly inconclusive results that we find in the literature by considering the role of infrastructure in knowledge spillovers. Using a dataset of 67 countries, we examine the impact of different types of physical and digital infrastructure on the knowledge spillover mechanism. Our empirical results reveal that the extent to which knowledge translates into entrepreneurial activity largely depends upon the development of specific types of digital and physical infrastructure. This paper provides valuable insights into the knowledge spillover mechanism by identifying certain factors that influence the extent to which knowledge translates into entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, it has important policy implications for countries to promote entrepreneurial activity and economic performance by developing certain types of physical and digital infrastructure. Plain English Summary: This study shows that the physical and the digital infrastructure of a country play an important role in knowledge spillover entrepreneurship. We identify certain types of infrastructure that have a pronounced impact on knowledge spillover entrepreneurship. Specifically, we identify the quality of the railroad infrastructure, the quality of electricity supply, and access to fixed broadband internet to be conducive to entrepreneurial activity. Understanding which factors encourage knowledge spillover entrepreneurship is important because knowledge spillover entrepreneurship contributes to the economic performance of a country. Our findings also provide policymakers with suggestions on how to increase the level of knowledge spillover entrepreneurship within their country by highlighting the importance of specific types of physical and digital infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper examines the impact of local economic activity on criminal behavior. We build on existing research by relaxing the identification assumptions required for causal inference, and estimate the impact of local economic activity on recidivism. Methods: We use the fracking boom as a source of credibly exogenous variation in the economic conditions into which incarcerated people are released. We replicate and extend existing instrumental variables analyses of fracking on how many released offenders return to state prison seperately from aggregate crime and arrests. Results: Our instrumental variables estimates imply that a ten thousand dollar increase in the value of per capita production is associated with a 2.8% reduction in the 1-year recidivism of ex-offenders at the county level. Improved labor market conditions, specifically an increase in wages for young adults, may explain a non-negligible fraction of the reduction in recidivism associated with economic booms. In contrast, we replicate existing work finding that fracking increased aggregate measures of crime and arrests. Conclusion: Increased economic opportunity appears to have a different impact of overall crime than on recidivism. This suggests that the relationship between economic opportunity and offending may be conditioned by local social ties. Further research examining how social connections and labor markets affect individual criminal behavior is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on CDS, stock returns, and economic activity in the US and the five European countries that have been most affected: the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The sample period covers the period from 11 March 2020 to 19 February 2021. In the empirical analysis, first, we estimate benchmark linear VAR models and then, given the evidence of parameter instability, TVP-VAR models with stochastic volatility, which are ideally suited to capturing the changing dynamics in both financial markets and the real economy. The linear VAR responses of CDS to the number of COVID-19 cases are positive and statistically significant, whilst those of electricity consumption are insignificant and those of stock returns vary across countries in terms of their sign and significance. The results from the TVP-VAR analysis indicate that the effects of shocks on the system variables was more pronounced during the initial stages of the pandemic and then decreased in the following months. Specifically, there was a positive impact of the number of COVID-19 cases on CDS and a negative one on stock returns and economic activity, the latter two being interlinked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of highways on the distribution of economic activities between urban agglomerations and peripheral regions in the European Union. In doing so, I use an empirical strategy based on the land use theory employing disaggregated economic and infrastructure data. To address endogeneity, I apply an IV strategy exploiting non-local highway construction as a source of exogenous variation. I find that highways contribute to the diffusion of urban economic activities into surrounding areas, reducing the income gap between European agglomerations and peripheries. Reduced-form estimations suggest that the gap would have been nearly 3% higher in 2020 if the highway networks of European countries had remained at the level of 1990. The study concludes that transportation infrastructure policies can alleviate regional income disparities, increasing economic convergence between urbanised and less urbanised areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persons with disabilities face substantial barriers that impede their integration and participation in social and economic activities. Households with disabled members may be vulnerable to poverty due to the extra cost of living with a disability. However, there exists a knowledge gap in the magnitude of the extra cost of disabilities in sub Saharan Africa. Using data from a nationally representative household survey, this paper estimates the extra cost of disabilities in Ghana. The paper further examines the welfare effects of households with persons with disabilities. Based on the standard of living approach, we estimate the extra cost to households with a person with disability to be 26% of annual household consumption expenditures. Adjusting for the extra cost of poverty, the incidence of poverty increases from 38.5 to 52.9% amongst households with a disabled member. Our findings suggest the need to improve the efficiency of support programs to persons with disabilities to mitigate the extra costs of disabilities and reduce their vulnerability to poverty. In addition, enhancing access to economic opportunities and social services for persons with disabilities will be imperative to improve their quality of life and dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seventeenth issue of Financial Innovation (FIN), Volume 5, No.4 (2019) presents twelve papers contributed by 36 authors and co-authors from thirteen countries and areas: China, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Nepal, North Cyprus, Pakistan, South Sudan, Turkey, Uganda, and USA. The sixth paper, "Assessing the spillover effects of U.S. monetary policy normalization on Nigeria sovereign bond yield", by Kpughur Moses Tule, Osana Jackson Odonye, Udoma Johnson Afangideh, Godday Uwawunkonye Ebuh, Elijah Abasifreke Paul Udoh and Augustine Ujunwa, reveals that domestic factors, such as exchange rate and inflation, rather than the U.S. 10-Year sovereign bond yield, are the key drivers of Nigeria 10-Year bond yield. The twelfth paper, "Impact of Risk Management Strategies on the Credit Risk Faced by Commercial Banks of Balochistan", by Zia Ur Rehman, Noor Muhammad, Bilal Sarwar and Muhammad Asif Raz, identifies risk management strategies undertaken by the commercial banks of Balochistan, Pakistan, to mitigate or eliminate credit risk. [Extracted from the article]

This paper employs a quantile vector autoregressive approach to compare the extent of connectedness between macroeconomic uncertainty and U.S. real activity in normal and extreme economic and financial conditions. Based on a database ranging from January 1960 to February 2023 and using the methodology of Jurado et al. (Am Econ Rev 105(3):1177–1216, 2015), we derive, first, eight real and financial uncertainty measures based on 134 macroeconomic indicators. Second, we examine the quantile connectedness among the eight estimated macroeconomic uncertainties and real activity. The results indicate that real activity is strongly (weakly) influenced by the extremely high (low) values of the real and financial uncertainty estimates, indicating asymmetric spillover effects of US macroeconomic uncertainties on real economic activity. Among the real and financial uncertainty estimates, the real output uncertainty blocks are the most important transmitters of shocks to real activity under looser economic and financial conditions. However, under tighter economic and financial conditions, higher output and income and stock market uncertainty blocks are the major spillover transmitters of shocks to real activity. Finally, connectedness between macroeconomic uncertainties and real activity exhibits the highest level during the recent COVID-19 pandemic outbreak at various quantiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study the usefulness of the water-energy-food nexus in assessing the sustainability of an economy. All economic activity depends on its surrounding physical environment, and especially on the interconnection between these three essential resources. As a result, the nexus is a useful tool for detecting the economic risk of resource scarcity, optimising investments or resource use, and assessing the effects of economic policies or shocks such as climate change. The nexus approach is also useful for guiding policies towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We show that both the objective of each study and the scale on which it is conducted are factors worth considering when choosing the most suitable research methodology. We detected important challenges relating to the heterogeneity of the methods, scales and variables used, and therefore necessary measures nare suggested in order to homogenise the studies for their comparability and/or integration, both horizontally and vertically, or over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ameliorate the efficiency of urban green innovation is the key to realizing green economic transition. This paper constructs a Super-NSBM model with green patents as the intermediate output, uses this model to assess and decompose the green innovation efficiency of 284 Chinese cities, and finally analyzes the spatiotemporal characteristics and influential factors. The research result showed the gap of urban green innovation total efficiency among various regions in China is narrowing, while the spatial differentiation of decomposition efficiency is deepening. This means that a spatial collaborative innovation division pattern of "Eastern Region R&D + Southwest and Northeast Region Transformation" has gradually formed. In the meantime, this paper also found that the spillover effects of the urban green innovation total efficiency and phased efficiency all can form a significant demonstration effect on the surrounding areas. Finally, financial agglomeration, industrial structure, knowledge sharing, economic activity, higher education, opening, and environmental regulations may affect urban green innovation total efficiency and phased efficiency, and this effect has regional heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global disaster, such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic, affects every aspect of our lives and there is a need to investigate these highly complex phenomena if one aims to diminish their impact in the health of the population, as well as their socio-economic stability. In this paper we present an attempt to understand the role of the governmental authorities and the response of the rest of the population facing such emergencies. We present a mathematical model that takes into account the epidemiological features of the pandemic and also the actions of people responding to it, focusing only on three aspects of the system, namely, the fear of catching this serious disease, the impact on the economic activities and the compliance of the people to the mitigating measures adopted by the authorities. We apply the model to the specific case of Spain, since there are accurate data available about these three features. We focused on tourism as an example of the economic activity, since this sector of economy is one of the most likely to be affected by the restrictions imposed by the authorities, and because it represents an important part of Spanish economy. The results of numerical calculations agree with the empirical data in such a way that we can acquire a better insight of the different processes at play in such a complex situation, and also in other different circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that the political and economic domains are analogous for distributive purposes. The upshot of this conclusion is that because we normally think that an unequal distribution of votes is objectionable even if these inequalities are strictly necessary to improve the lives of less informed voters, so we should conclude that an unequal distribution of resources might be similarly objectionable even if strictly necessary to make the worse off better off. Leveling down economic resources is therefore sometimes morally permissible. I consider and reject three types of objections to this view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automation is not a new phenomenon, and questions about its effects have long followed its advances. More than a half-century ago, US President Lyndon B. Johnson established a national commission to examine the impact of technology on the economy, declaring that automation "can be the ally of our prosperity if we will just look ahead". In this paper, our premise is that we are at a technological inflection point in which robots are developing the capacity to greatly increase their cognitive and physical capabilities, and thus raising questions on labor dynamics. With increasing levels of autonomy and human-robot interaction, intelligent robots could soon accomplish new human-like capabilities such as engaging into social activities. Therefore, an increase in automation and autonomy brings the question of robots directly participating in some economic activities as autonomous agents. In this paper, a technological framework describing a robot economy is outlined and the challenges it might represent in the current socio-economic scenario are pondered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic geographers have traditionally been reluctant to extend their analysis to illicit and illegal markets despite their being significant in their global economic extent and displaying highly uneven geographies. By contrast, the geographies of licit, legal industries have produced multiple traditions of empirically rich, theoretically diverse accounts. Our understandings of the spatialities of illicit and illegal 'industries' derive from a different set of intellectual traditions for whom space is a less explicit, central concern. This paper aims to advance our understanding of the geographies of illegal economic activities by exploring the spatialities of one illegal industry, cybercrime (online for-profit fraud), through the lens of economic geography. It considers the spaces within which cybercrime is embedded, exploring it as the product of factors operating at multiple scales. It reviews cybercrime scholarship focused, variously, at the local, national and transnational scales and examines factors salient to the production of cybercrime through case studies at these scales. It examines national level drivers of cybercrime, local cybercrime agglomerations in Europe and transnational asymmetries, connections and opacities and the production of cybercrime. In each case, it reflects upon the potentials for the development of more spatially informed readings of cybercrime specifically, and illegal economic activities more generally, and considers how this might be mobilised to inform anti-cybercrime policy. The paper speaks to both theme I of this special edition 'the interactions, the norms, the rituals, the behaviours of OCGs in physical spaces' and theme III 'the interactions between OCGs and institutions such as the political and economic field'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2015, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world committed to phasing out from all its products and processes worldwide any substances declared by the European Chemicals Agency to be of very high concern. Since then, extended practical experience was gained in the phasing out of substances of concern. Results: We report in detail on a company-wide programme to phase out substances of concern, the challenges of and the approaches to the phase-out. The paper provides concrete ideas of how to address the legitimate urge to remove substances of concern from economic activities in a holistic way, taking into account the broad diversity of aspects of sustainability. The present paper also reviews the regulatory and societal environment in which substances of concern are being phased out. The paper attempts to contribute to the ongoing discussion of how to improve the chemicals policy in Europe and beyond. Conclusions: Phasing out substances of concern, substance selection for new products and processes, and the avoidance of regrettable substitutions while maintaining the pace of genuine innovation will stay a major challenge for our industry in the years ahead whereby not only toxicological and ecotoxicological hazards have to be considered in the selection and deselection of substances, but also other sustainability criteria characterising the entire life cycle will play an increasingly important role. Legislators and industry need to pay more attention to how this is implemented while avoiding slowing down innovation, making essential products unnecessarily more expensive, and further pushing material production out of highly regulated countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to a fuller understanding of macroeconomic outcomes to financial market disturbances and the central bank's role in financial stability. Our two major contributions are conceptual and econometric. Conceptually, we introduce phases of the business cycle and econometrically we employ Bayesian VARs. We document that a shock that increases credit to non-financial sector leads to a persistent decline in economic activity. In addition, we examine whether the behavior of financial variables is useful in signaling the 2007–2009 recession. The answer is positive as our BVAR generates early warning signals pointing to a sustained slowdown in growth. We propose that the expansion phase of the business cycle can be subdivided into an early and a late expansion. Based on this distinction, we show that if the Fed had raised the policy rate when the economy moved from the early to late expansion, it could have mitigated the severity of the 2007–2009 recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the quantity of sustainability governance initiatives and systems has increased dramatically, crises persist over whether specific governance systems can be trusted as legitimate regulators of the sustainability of economic activities. This paper focuses on conceptual tools to improve our understanding of these crises as well as the facilitating factors and barriers for sustainability governance to play a role in transitioning to profoundly more sustainable societies than those that currently exist. Bioenergy is used throughout the paper as an example to aid contextually in understanding the theoretical and abstract arguments. We first define eight premises upon which our argumentation is developed. We then define sustainability, sustainability transition, legitimacy, and trust as a premise for obtaining effectiveness in communication and minimising risks associated with misunderstanding key terms. We proceed to examine the literature on "good governance" in order to reflect upon what defines "good sustainability governance" and what makes governance systems successful in achieving their goals. We propose input, output, and throughput legitimacy as three principles constituting "good" sustainability governance and propose associated open-ended criteria as a basis for developing operational standards for assessing the quality of a sustainability governance system or complex. As sustainability governance systems must develop to remain relevant, we also suggest an adaptive governance model, where continuous re-evaluation of the sustainability governance system design supports the system in remaining "good" in conditions that are complex and dynamic. Finally, we pull from the literature in a broad range of sciences to propose a conceptual "governance research framework" that aims to facilitate an integrated understanding of how the design of sustainability governance systems influences the legitimacy and trust granted to them by relevant actors. The framework is intended to enhance the adaptive features of sustainability governance systems so as to allow the identification of the causes of existing and emerging sustainability governance crises and finding solutions to them. Knowledge generated from its use may form a basis for providing policy recommendations on how to practically solve complex legitimacy and trust crises related to sustainability governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of protectionism and intellectual property right (IPR) protection in host markets on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CB M&As). CB M&As have become important vehicles for firms to expand into foreign markets and acquire strategic assets. In recent years, the topic has attracted significant scholarly interest. Recently, many countries have enacted protectionist measures to protect local firms and jobs. Consequently, the impact such measures have on economic activities is under debate in the literature. This study leverages the vital context of CB M&As undertaken by US multinational enterprises (MNEs) between 2011 and 2017 in 49 host countries. The findings indicate that host country IPR protection has a much more substantial and positive impact on CB M&A activities undertaken by USA MNEs than the protectionist policies of the host country by itself. The findings further suggest that, although local protectionism, by itself, does not play a significant role in CB M&As, its presence strengthens the positive effect of IPR protection on CB M&A activities in the host country, thereby supporting the contingent role of such protection. These findings have important implications for research, practice, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Recession led to a large decline in economic activity throughout the entire United States with significant variation in its severity across regions. Our paper examines the role of economic freedom in explaining these differences at the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) level. We use the Stansel (2013; 2019) MSA-level economic freedom index to analyze the relationship between institutional quality and economic outcomes throughout the crisis period. Using a panel dataset of 382 MSAs from 2002 to 2012, we find that economic freedom is associated with enhanced economic outcomes – lower unemployment rates, more employment per 100 persons, and higher income per capita. This holds true even when examining a cross-section of MSAs using data from the crisis period alone. We supplement these findings with a matching analysis where we find that MSAs that experienced meaningful increases in economic freedom in the five-year period before the Great Recession (2002–2007) had quicker recoveries – in terms of unemployment rates and income – than their matched counterfactuals from 2007 to 2012. Overall, our findings suggest that economic freedom did "lighten the blow" from the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the problem of estimating of Municipal-level of Mexican economic activity indicators (IAEM in Spanish) by using different data sources. We build on the preliminary estimations of López-Pérez and Corona (Real Datos Espac Rev Int Estad Geogr 1(3):102–123, 2020), however because of the shortcomings of standard data sources, such as national accounts and economic censuses, in terms of update frequency, this study enhances preliminary estimations with nighttime lights data. We rely on the statistic relation between economic activity with nighttime lights intensity, and the uncorrelatedness of the latter with the measurement error in the preliminary estimations to produce an estimate of true economic growth, as has been described, among others, in and Mendoza (Empir Econ 57(3):971–990, 2019). Our results are interesting in three ways: (i) develops a practitioner's guide for estimating IAEM for all Mexican municipalities since 1993, (ii) for users and analysts of economic information provides detailed results of economic activity evolution for some municipalities, (iii) represent a novel application pursuant Big Data in economics framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a simple simulation model to study the relation between the nature of knowledge and the architecture of economic systems. The market and the firm are different mechanisms for coordinating economic activity in a system where knowledge is widely dispersed. While the market solves coordination problems by decentralizing decision-making, the firm solves coordination problems by centralizing knowledge. The market incurs the cost of finding potential exchange partners and agreeing on terms of trade, while the firm incurs the cost of centralizing dispersed knowledge. The market therefore has an advantage over the firm in coordinating activities in which knowledge is difficult to centralize. The nature of knowledge involved in an economic activity influences not only the choice of the institution through which it is coordinated but also the internal structure of the institution. More specifically, the more hierarchical the firm, the better it is at using changing knowledge, but the worse it is at using knowledge which is difficult to transfer from one individual to another. Therefore, the number of layers in the hierarchy of the firm is influenced by the rate at which knowledge changes relative to the difficulty associated with communicating it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have attempted to study the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis at the individual sector level using more than one sector at once. This paper investigates the existence of the EKC hypothesis in the Iberian countries (Portugal and Spain) using thirteen economic activity sectors for each, analyzing each individual sector's cointegration and causality relationships considering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, sector gross value added and energy consumption. The findings of this paper using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach only validate cointegration in six Portuguese sectors and in five of the Spanish sectors. Results confirm both short- and long-run bi-directional and unidirectional causality between economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions, using the error correction model (ECM) and Toda and Yamamoto's causality approaches. Moreover, results for Portuguese and Spanish sectors indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship only for one sector each. In some sectors there was evidence of a U-shaped relationship and in others the EKC hypothesis could be verified but no statistical significance was obtained. The study has significant contributions for sector policy, including implications to curtail energy pollutants by implementing environmental friendly regulations to sustain economic development at the sector level in the Iberian market. It also allows inferences to be made about the existence of different behaviors in comparative terms for the same economic activity sectors of the individual countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanity inhabits a discursive landscape that stimulates our imaginations, guides and influences our behaviour, shapes our ideas of what is possible, and governs what we perceive as normal. The collective human imagination is currently dominated by a discourse of neoliberal capitalism that contributes to global sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss by framing nature as a resource to be exploited in service of perpetual growth in economic activity. Transformation towards flourishing, sustainable futures will not be possible without the transformation of this dominant discourse. Alternative discourses exist but little is known about how to proactively and ethically pursue the transformation of dominant discourses. In response, this paper develops a conceptual framework to guide an ethical practice of meaning-making towards discursive transformation. It introduces 'discursive entrepreneurship', defined as the practice of creating, performing, and transforming memes, stories, narratives, and discourses to promote a desired structure of the discursive landscape. Normative strategies for discursive entrepreneurship are identified from a systematic review of recent literature on how social-ecological stories, narratives, and discourses evolve and change. The paper clarifies the often-inconsistent terminology used to define these ideational concepts, arguing for a nested relationship between discourses, narratives, stories, and memes. Further, it shows how discursive entrepreneurs can engage in iterative strategies of deconstruction, reframing, construction, performance, connection, and collaboration to increase the chances that their meanings will reach audiences, be heard by them, be retold, and perhaps contribute to the emergence of inclusive, life-affirming discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically analyzes the non-linear effect of economic activities on ecological balance indicators that estimate the balance between economies' pressure on nature and the biologically productive resource areas affected by human activity and the earth's ecological carrying capacity. In measuring this balance, ecological balance sheet indicators are divided into four sub-components: cropland, fishing grounds, forest area, and grazing land. The sample of the study consists of the EU-15 countries over the period 1995–2016. To render the study robust with respect to econometric issues such as potential endogeneity bias, cross-country heterogeneity, non-linearity, and time instability, the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) method is adapted. The empirical findings reveal that up to a certain threshold level, economic activities do not affect the ecological balance as nature can compensate for the resulting externalities, but beyond this threshold, waste accumulation and pollution exceed nature's capacity to absorb. Consequently, these findings do not empirically support the EKC hypothesis with an inverted U-shaped curve and suggest that active environmental policies are needed to improve the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring the state of the economy in a short time is a crucial aspect for designing appropriate and timely policy responses in the presence of shocks and crises. Short-term confidence indicators can help policymakers in evaluating both the effect of policies and the economic activity condition. The indicator commonly used in the EU to evaluate the public opinion orientation is the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI). Nevertheless, the ESI shows some drawbacks, particularly in the adopted weighting scheme that is static and not country-specific. This paper proposes an approach to construct novel composite confidence indicators, focusing on both the weights and the information set to use. We evaluate these indicators by studying their response to the policies introduced to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in some selected EU countries. Furthermore, we carry out an experimental study where the proposed indicators are used to forecast economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies in promoting economic growth is not sufficiently examined at the empirical level for developing countries, including Egypt in particular. Hence, this paper is the first attempt to empirically examine the relative effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies in promoting Egypt's output growth utilizing a time-series data set over the time-period (1960–2019). The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds testing approach to cointegration to investigate the long run and short run effects of fiscal and monetary policies on Egypt's output growth under a modified version of the St. Louis equation model. The study finds that both monetary and fiscal policies have a positive impact on the economic activity in the long run. However, while monetary policy seems to be more effective than fiscal policy in stimulating the growth rate of nominal GDP, fiscal policy tends to have a larger, more predictable and faster impact than monetary policy on the real economic activity. Accordingly, Egypt's policymakers are advised to follow the Keynesian's prescription in terms of increasing the reliance on fiscal policy compared to monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability in both the short run and long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal Cross Border Trade (ICBT) is a viable economic activity for many people, in Zimbabwe, who have depended on it for survival during economic hardships. Due to climate change, agriculture cannot be depended upon for survival and people are increasingly depending on ICBT for a livelihood. Despite a crucial role in providing for many, ICBT has been negatively affected by changes in the fiscal economy, specifically, the adoption of virtual cash in a time of cash crisis. This paper examines the impact of the virtual cash economy on the livelihood of participants in ICBT in Gweru, Zimbabwe. Qualitative data was collected and subjected to inductive analysis. Results revealed a positive livelihood outcome for traders prior to the virtual cash economy, followed by a negative outcome when virtual cash payments increased. The paper presents a framework that highlights the importance of cash, to ensure the success and sustainability of ICBT in the city of Gweru. The paper concludes with the recommendation that ICBT should be integrated into policy to address identified issues that affect economic benefits of ICBT, to ensure its sustainability in the provision of essential livelihood needs in line with Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palm Oil industry is one of the major contributors to Malaysia's economic activity. Accounting for 39 % of the world palm oil production and 44 % of world exports, Malaysia holds an important niche in fulfiling the growing global needs for oils and fats sustainably. This industry has high potential for further improvements especially in terms of energy saving as a major contributor to cost and emission reduction. An analysis of the refining process of palm oil in Sahabat Oil Products, Lahad Datu has been performed and presented in this paper for scoping potential energy and cost savings using heat integration. A first stage optimisation of the minimum temperature difference, ∆ T , of a heat exchanger network (HEN) has been performed. The goal has been to evaluate the maximal possible heat recovery as well as the appropriate placement of utilities. The HEN design is presented in both grid diagram and shifted retrofit thermodynamic grid diagram (SRTGD). SRTGD representation has been illustrated in this paper as a useful tool for guiding eventual future retrofit. The capital-energy trade-off of the heat recovery targets indicates optimum ∆ T of 12.3 °C. The hot and cold utility targets at ∆ T = 12.3 °C are 1419 and 1649 kW, indicating potential saving of 3.5 and 3.1 % as compared to the existing utility consumption and emissions. Future work could proceed further to seek potentially viable retrofit of the existing heat recovery network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper backtests a nowcast of Japan's real GDP growth. It has three contributions: (i) use of genuine real-time data, (ii) implementation of a new method for the revision analysis that relates the revision of the nowcast to not only new observations but also data revisions, and (iii) a benchmarking of the nowcast to a market consensus forecast at monthly forecasting horizons. Our nowcast's forecast accuracy is comparable to that of the consensus at most, but not all, monthly horizons. Our revision analysis of the March 2011 earthquake finds the nowcast reacting to a steep post-quake decline in car production. In contrast, the consensus hardly budged, most likely because the decline was correctly viewed as temporary. The onset of COVID-19 triggers the consensus to take a precipitous descent. The nowcast, despite timely red flags from "soft" (i.e., survey-based) indicators, does not respond immediately in full, because it took a month or more for "hard" (i.e., non-survey-based) indicators to register sharply reduced economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development (SD) strives to protect the environment and promote an inclusive prosperity. However, achieving this partly rests on the effectiveness of financial development (FD) among other factors. On the one hand, FD fosters eco-friendly investment, financial inclusion and economic growth and thus leads to SD. On the other hand, FD may result in financial instability, social inequality and environmental degradation by fueling unsustainable economic activity and deter the achievement of SD. Given the quandary, this study attempts to investigate the causal effect of FD on SD for 143 countries during period 1990–2020, where SD is represented by adjusted net savings (ANS), and a new index, using the principal component analysis, is constructed to measure FD. Results of the panel vector autoregression method reveal that FD has a causal relationship with SD, which is unidirectional in general; however, the causality between financial market index and ANS is bidirectional. In general, the results also suggest that FD is essential for SD; nevertheless, policymakers must monitor the possible downside of FD that may undermine its contribution to sustainability. The study bears important policy implications, and as far as the knowledge goes, this is the first paper that explains the comprehensive FD–SD causality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To comprehend city-level driving mechanisms of carbon emissions, this paper utilizes spectral cluster and two-layer LMDI (logarithmic mean divisia index) method to systematically assess the contribution values of correlative factors from each cluster to Henan's carbon emissions increments, and accordingly comes up with more strategies about how to reduce carbon emissions for each cluster on the basis of driving forces of carbon emissions. The results of clustering and the decomposition are as follows: (1) the 18 prefecture-level cities in Henan were divided into five categories by spectral clustering, and there are similar development patterns within each category, so they can learn from each other to improve their own defects of development; (2) this paper utilizes the two-layer LMDI method to divide the factors affecting each cluster of carbon emissions into four types, which includes energy structure, energy intensity, per capita GDP, and population, and calculates the contribution value of each factor. It was concluded that the contribution value of per capita GDP dominantly drove up carbon emissions, while energy intensity played a significant role in offsetting them. Therefore, it is important for Henan's low-carbon development to control the expansion of economic activity and improve energy efficiency in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation of unintended residuals when producing intended outputs is the key factor behind our serious problems with pollution. The way this joint production is modelled is therefore of crucial importance for our understanding and empirical efforts to change economic activities in order to reduce harmful residuals. Estimation of efficiency and productivity when producing both intended and unintended outputs has emerged as an important research strand. The most popular models in the field are based on weak disposability of the two types of outputs together and null-jointness introduced by Shephard. The purpose of the paper is to show that these model types are built on some questionable assumptions. An alternative model based on the production theory of Frisch introduces technical jointness for the case when the unintended output is unavoidable. The materials balance based on physical laws tells us that when material inputs are used unintended outputs are unavoidable. The modelling of joint production must therefore reflect this. The production of the two types of outputs occurs simultaneously. It is the maximisation of intended outputs for given inputs that engineers are striving at to achieve. The production functions for intended and unintended outputs are linked through common use of inputs. However, separate functions for the two types of output can be estimated because the intended outputs are independent of the unintended ones and vice versa, facilitating calculating separate efficiency and productivity measures using non-parametric DEA methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data for Italian banks over the 2001–2012 period, we assess the existence of a nonlinear relationship between finance and growth, through the application of alternative measures of financial development. We show that both branch density and aggregate credits over GDP positively contribute to economic performance. While the relationship between branch density and economic activity is shown to be monotonic, an inverted U-shape is found once aggregate credits to GDP are employed as the main measure of financial development. Evidence presented in this paper further reveals that concentrated markets, that is, monopolistic and oligopolistic markets, facilitate economic growth, especially when credits to GDP are employed. Several robustness checks confirm our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on urban vitality tends to focus on the built environment. This paper argues that some important processes in shaping vitality may be overlooked without examining the intensity and diversity of economic and human activities. Using newly developed spatial big data and adopting the methods of multi-indicator measurement and spatial analysis methods, we analyzed the pattern of urban vitality in Chongqing, a provincial city in western China and, on this basis, evaluated the creation and maintenance of urban vitality from the economic and human activities perspective. Our findings indicate that the impacts of economic and human activities are positive and significant. Among the three intensity and diversity indicators, economic intensity and population density show an effect on urban vitality stronger than that of economic diversity. However, economic diversity has the strongest superposition or interactive effect, and is thus an important foundation dynamic. The positive effect of population density on urban vitality is largely a result of Chongqing's jobs-housing balance. The case of Chongqing highlights the importance of topographic features, historical inheritance, large-scale migration, and cultural activities in shaping the distinctive vitality pattern of a city. This study contends that the creation and maintenance of urban vitality can not be fully explained without incorporating the impacts of economic and human activities. It contributes to a comprehensive measurement of urban vitality and enriches its connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale of the rise in personal wealth following the Black Death calls the life-cycle hypothesis of consumption into consideration. Based on price level evidence, this paper shows for the first time that the wealth effect of the Black Death on economic activity continued in England for generations, up to 1450. Indeed, in the absence of consideration of the wealth effect, other influences on the price level do not even appear in the econometric analysis. The shift in tastes toward higher quality goods, luxuries and imports stemming from the per capita windfall for the survivors in the mid-fourteenth century plays a substantial part in the analysis. So does England's little influence on the relative prices of its imports relative to home goods. The separate effects of coinage, population, trade, wages and annual number of days worked for wages on the price level all also receive major attention and new results follow for adjustment in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is frequently assumed that the inheritance of wealth undermines economic activity. If such an assumption is valid, the expected wave of bequests may have a negative impact on labour market activity of heirs, what might further weaken the financing of state pension systems. This paper provides a detailed review of the empirical findings on the associations of inheritances with labour market activity, that is labour force participation status and working hours, and presents own analyses based on the survey of health, ageing, and retirement in Europe. We find that the receipt of an inheritance is not related to labour force participation in general. Inheritance expectations even have a small, but statistically significant positive effect on remaining in the labour force for men. Women who expect an inheritance tend to reduce working hours, but the effect of having received an inheritance is not significant, neither for men nor for women. We conclude that the receipt of an inheritance will not affect labour market decisions, so that the expected wave of bequests will not undermine active ageing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PM2.5 is a bad output of China's improved industrialization and rapid economic development, which seriously threatens people's health and greatly hinders the sustainable economic development. Studying the socio-economic driving factors of PM2.5 emissions is of great significance for reducing air pollution and realizing green development. Therefore, based on the simultaneous consideration of space technology differences and time technology progress, this paper constructs an index decomposition analysis-production-theoretical decomposition analysis decomposition model under the global meta-frontier-production theory. Then, we decompose the PM2.5 emission concentration of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2018 into nine driving factors and discuss the impact of different factors from the national, regional, and provincial levels. The results reveal that economic activity is still the main factor to promote the increase of PM2.5 emission, but its effect decreases, while the inhibitory effect of catch-up effect on PM2.5 concentration increases gradually. In addition, economic activities have the greatest impact on the East China, while the time catch-up effect has a more significant impact on the Central and Western China. Moreover, the influence of energy intensity effect, space technology catch-up effect, and time technology catch-up effect is gradually increasing, which have become important factors to inhibit the PM2.5 emission. Based on the above results, we put forward relevant policy suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the costs of monitoring of a distributed multi-agent economic activity in the presence of constraints on the agents' joint outputs. If the regulator monitors agents individually she calculates each agent's optimal contribution to the constrains by solving a constrained welfare-maximisation problem. This will maximise welfare but may be expensive because monitoring cost rises with the number of agents. Alternatively, the regulator could monitor agents collectively, using a detector, or detectors, to observe if each constraint is jointly satisfied. This will ease implementation cost, but lower welfare. We define the welfare difference between each regime of monitoring for a fairly inclusive electricity generation model and formulate some predictions. The behaviour of two generators in a coupled-constrained, three-node case study reproduces these predictions. We find that the welfare loss from collective monitoring can be small if the constraints are tight. We also learn that, under either regime, the imposition of transmission and environmental restrictions may benefit the less efficient generator and shift surplus share towards the emitters, decreasing consumer surplus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most debated questions in alternative macroeconomics regards whether demand policies have permanent or merely transitory effects. While demand matters in the long run in (neo-) Kaleckian economics, both economists operating within other Keynesian traditions (e.g. Skott 1989) as well as Classical economists Duménil and Levy (Manchester School 67(6):684–716, 1999) argue that in the long-run output growth is constrained by an exogenous natural growth rate. This paper attempts to bridge the gap by analyzing the role of firm beliefs about the state of the economy in a labor-constrained growth and distribution model based on Kaldor (Review of Economic Studies 23(2):83–100, 1956) and Goodwin (Journal of Evolutionary Economics 1(1):29–47, 1991) that is also compatible with the evolutionary perspective on coordination (or the lack thereof) within markets by Metcalfe et al. (Cambridge Journal of Economics 30:7–32, 2006). The main innovation is the inclusion of beliefs about economic activity in an explicitly dynamic choice of capacity utilization at the firm level. We show that: (i) the relevance of such beliefs generates an inefficiently low utilization rate and labor share in equilibrium, but (ii) the efficient utilization rate can be implemented through fiscal policy. Under exogenous technical change, (iii) the inefficiency does not affect the equilibrium employment rate and growth rate, but expansionary fiscal policy has positive level effects on both GDP and the labor share. However, (iv) with endogenous technical change à la Verdoorn (1949), fiscal policy has also temporary growth effects. Finally, (v) the fact that the choice of utilization responds to income shares has a stabilizing effect on growth cycles, even under exogenous technical change, that is analogous to factor substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes time-varying parameters Bayesian vector auto-regression model with stochastic volatility approach to investigate the time-varying dynamic relation between FDI, growth and trade partisan conflict in the US. The empirical results confirm that an increase in trade partisan conflict will deter FDI inflows to the US and discourage economic activities. Besides, we also examine the responses of equity investment, intra-company loans and reinvestment earnings given trade partisan conflict shock. In a robustness check, we consider different measurements on FDI and other control variables. The negative role of a trade partisan conflict shock is not altered, indicating the robustness of the findings. Moreover, trade partisan conflicts like GATT, Omnibus Bill Veto, NAFTA, Bush versus Kerry, the financial crisis and TPP are key factors which affect the dynamics. The US government should remedy the negative impacts of trade policy conflict on FDI inflows and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the meta-philosophies of Nominalism and Realism are compared, it is often said that Nominalism is motivated by a methodology of ontological economy, while Realism would be motivated by an appeal to Common Sense. In this paper, I argue that this association is misguided. After briefly comparing the meta-philosophy of Common Sense and the meta-philosophy of economy, I show that the core motivation in favour of Realism relies in fact in a principle of economy which violates the methodology of Common Sense. I conclude that Common Sense philosophers should endorse Nominalism (and more precisely Ostrich Nominalism). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of cyber-physical and similar systems depends on prevailing social and economic conditions. It is here argued that, if the effect of these technologies is to be benign, the current neo-liberal economy must change to a radically more cooperative model. In this paper, economy change means a thorough change to a qualitatively different kind of economy. It is contrasted with economic change, which is the kind of minor change usually considered in mainstream discourse. The importance of language is emphasised, including that of techno-optimism and that of economic conservatism. Problems of injustice, strife, and ecological overload cannot be solved by conventional growth together with technical efficiency gains. Rather, a change is advocated from economics-as-usual to a broader concept, oikonomia (root-household management), which takes into account all that contributes to a good life, including what cannot be represented quantitatively. Some elements of such a broader economy (work; basic income; asset and income limits) are discussed. It is argued that the benefits of technology can be enhanced and the ills reduced in such an economy. This is discussed in the case of cyber-physical systems under the headings employment, security, standards and oligopoly, and energy efficiency. The paper concludes that such systems, and similar technological developments, cannot resolve the problems of sustainability within an economy-as-usual model. If, however, there is the will to create a cooperative and sustainable economy, technology can contribute significantly to the resolution of present problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon the renowned media reports-based “Economic policy uncertainty” (EPU) index and analyzes its Granger-causal interrelationships with consumer confidence and aggregate economic activity. Employing a heterogeneous panel Granger causality test on data from 13 world countries, the authors find that: (1) the analyzed countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of the found causality patterns; (2) the EPU index does not Granger-cause the overall economic activity in the vast majority of the analyzed economies; (3) consumer confidence is confirmed as a significant predictor of aggregate output in all countries; (4) news media uncertainty and consumer confidence largely represent two distinct psychological transmission channels. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that consumer confidence (i.e. first moment, expectation) is considerably more important for the aggregate economic activity than economic uncertainty (i.e. second moment, variance). Two robustness checks are provided (an alternative lag structure of the Granger causality test, and the usage of monthly (industrial production) instead of quarterly (GDP) economic activity data). The obtained inferences are quite robust to both model alternations. Additionally, the leading characteristics of EPU index are found to be less pronounced than those of GARCH uncertainty and forecast disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to the article entitled “Fifty years after the Social Indicators Movement: Has the promise been fulfilled?” by Ken Land and Alex Michalos (2015) which constitutes a careful review of the historical development of the Social Indicators Movement, utility of social indicators in shaping the concept of quality of life and subjective well-being, and issues deserving social indicators research in future. In this response paper, we join in the discussion by highlighting five issues—progress, paradigms, puzzles, promise, and potential research directions of social indicators research. In terms of progress, while we have accomplished many tasks proposed by Solomon et al. (The quality of life, Sage, London 1980), some of them are yet to be achieved. Regarding research paradigms surrounding social indicators, researchers have primarily used positivistic or post-positivistic orientation to conduct and interpret social indicators research, with relatively fewer studies using interpretive, constructionist or critical theory perspective. There are also several puzzles deserving consideration. These include (a) the use of “other types of evidence”, particularly qualitative data; (b) evaluation of social programs; (c) feasibility of assessing “social progress”; (d) choice of social indicators; (e) interpretation of findings; (f) methodological debates; and (g) explanations for social change. Finally, the promise of social indicators research to promote quality of life and potential future research directions of social indicators research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]