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Large-scale mismanagement of natural resources emanating from lack of appropriate policies and regulatory framework is arguably one of the reasons that led to resource degradation and poor livelihoods in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Sustainable rangeland management practices (SRMPs) are considered to be a solution to feed shortages and rangeland degradation. However, the scope for SRMP adoption, has been a subject of debate. Using a case study from Syria and the application of the Minimum Data Analysis method (TOA-MD), this paper provides empirical evidence for ensuring wider adoption of SRMP. The paper argues that the introduction of financial incentives in the form of payments for agricultural-environmental services can increase the economic viability and enhance the adoption of SRMPs and is a better alternative to the unsustainable state subsidies for fodder purchases and barley cultivation on rangelands. Model results indicate that further investment in reasearch toward generating low cost technologies and tailored governance strategies including a financial incentive system would lead to better management of rangelands and improve livelihoods in the Syrian Badia . These findings are valuable for policy makers, donors as well as development and extension practitioners in the MENA region as they can better inform future courses of actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, landscape and its management has become a focus of policies and academic conceptualisation. Landscape is understood as a concept of interconnected natural and human systems. Its management must take into account the dynamic interdependencies and diverging interests of various stakeholders at different levels. Bridging organisations can provide an arena for trust-building, conflict resolution, learning and collaboration between relevant stakeholders. This paper draws on two strands of literature – landscape governance and co-management of social-ecological systems – to investigate the contributions of agri-environmental collaboratives (AEC) to sustainable landscape management. Based on data from 41 interviews with key informants and AEC members in Germany and the Netherlands, six fields of contributions were identified: policy implementation and service provision; coordination and mediation; awareness raising and behaviour change; care for ‘everyday’ landscapes; maintenance and protection of landscapes (including species and habitats); and income generation and economic benefits. Some of the contributions evolve around the specific role of AEC as bridging organisations, but other contributions such as economic benefits emerge beyond this analytical lens. The paper therefore emphasises holistic, bottom up assessment of AEC contributions and argues that governments should support such organisations through i) funding for facilitators and ii) funding for impact monitoring and data management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the responsiveness of renewable energy production (REP) to fluctuations in geopolitical risks, oil prices and economic policy uncertainty (EPU). It applies a cross-quantilogram framework to examine monthly data of the US economy for the period of 1986–2022. The findings illustrate the asymmetric effect of historical geopolitical risk (GPRH) on REP under long memory. The findings also hold after different subcategories of GPRH, including geopolitical threats and geopolitical acts, are considered. A positive shock in GPRH has the most decisive positive impact on REP when the policies are driven by both energy security and environmental commitments. A positive shock in GPRH can negatively impact REP when policies are driven by energy security causes only. EPU exerts strong negative effects on REP in bearish and bullish states of the market under medium and long memory across different measures of EPU. Dynamic connectedness analysis applying TVP-VAR method between pairwise variables indicates that net REP is a volatility receiver to the changes in GPRH, its subcomponents, oil prices and different measures of EPU. [Display omitted] • Application of cross-quantilogram approach to US monthly data during 1986–2022. • Responsiveness of renewable energy production to historical geopolitical risk. • A positive shock in GPRH has asymmetric effects on REP in long memory. • This nexus is sensitive to the motivation of energy policies in US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs) express attention to climate action. Even though a considerable number of papers have targeted this issue, the literature on the top five, "China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States" economies is uncommon. Therefore, this paper is targeted to examine the influence of renewable energy (RE), environmental technologies (ETs), and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on carbon emissions. By using the most recent data available from 1992 to 2020, results are estimated with robust econometric techniques, i. e. "cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) and augmented mean group (AMG)". Findings reflect the harmful role of EPU. However, RE and ETs have a supportive role in the transition towards a sustainable environment. The findings are also strong in terms of policy implications for the top five polluters. • Renewable Energy, Economic policy uncertainty, Environment-related technologies, and CO 2 emissions' nexus is empirically investigated. • CSD-test, CADF, CIPS, Westerlund co-integration, AMG, and CS-ARDL estimations are applied. • ERT and RE are found as a supportive for a sustainable environment. • Economic policy uncertainty is deteriorating the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper very briefly surveys current research on Asian economic development, and also discusses several recent papers on the contributions of economic history to understanding development. I then review the contributions of the papers in this special volume of Explorations in light of these two literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of electricity price reduction policy on the economic activities and carbon emissions of different industries. Since 2018, the Chinese government has advocated reducing electricity price for industrial customers in order to alleviate the non-tax burden on businesses. Using monthly electricity consumption and user data from 2016 to 2019, we find that the electricity price reduction has significantly increased the industrial electricity consumption and users. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effect is greater in heavy polluted industries and industries in low and medium GDP regions. The results of threshold impact analysis show that the threshold value of heavy pollution industries was lower than that of general industry and commerce, while heavy pollution industries are more sensitive to electricity prices than general industries. Moreover, the reduction of electricity prices results in a higher percentage of carbon emissions growth in heavy pollution industries. Our result can also help the policymakers access the costs and benefits of electricity price reduction for industrial customers more accurately. • Electricity price reduction contributes to increase industrial activities and users. • The effect on high polluted industries is larger than that of general industries. • The promotion effect is better in medium and low GDP regions. • A non-linear relationship exists between electricity price and consumption. • The electricity reduction policy causes carbon leakage risk among industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS) rely on market signals like price stability and predictability, which are affected by the volatility of the financial market and the energy market. Risk is an important indicator of price stability. Using a time-varying copula method, this study analyzes the extreme risk impact of uncertainties (including Economic policy uncertainty (EPU), financial market (VIX) and energy market uncertainty (OVX)) on carbon markets in China and the European Union (EU). This paper also measures the asymmetry of that risk spillover; that is, we identify the impact of increasing and decreasing uncertainties on ETS market risk (stability). Our results show that increased uncertainty in economic policies, financial markets and energy markets will lead to a decline in ETS prices in China and the EU. Chinese and European ETS market risks are most significantly affected by energy market uncertainty changes, and least affected by economic uncertainty changes. Although European ETS markets are riskier than Chinese ETS markets, European ETS prices are more stable. Downside and upside analysis show that risk spillovers to Chinese and European carbon markets are significantly asymmetric and dynamic. Specifically, the downward volatility of uncertainty has a stronger risk impact on ETS than the upward volatility does. Our research provides a useful reference for policy makers to improve ETS market price stability and guide expectations, providing investors with a reliable method to predict market risks. • Extreme Risk linkages between China carbon returns and three types of uncertainty are investigated. • Two types of ΔCoVaR are employed to explore the influence of extreme uncertainty movement on Chinese carbon returns. • The non-linear and dynamic dependence relationships are investigated using time-varying copula models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Extending the application of integrated environmental and economic accounts from the national to the local level of government serves several purposes. They can be used not only as an instrument for communicating on the state of the environment and reporting the results of policies, but also as an operational tool – for setting the objectives and designing policies – if made available to the local authorities who have responsibility over the administration of natural resources, land use and conservation policies. The aim of the paper is to test the feasibility of applying hybrid flow accounts at the intermediate and local government levels. As an illustration, NAMEA for air emissions and wastes is applied to a Region, a Province and a Municipality, thus covering the three nested levels of local government in Italy. The study identifies the main issues raised by multi-scale environmental accounting and provides an applied discussion of feasible solutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents new time series estimates of GDP, capital stock and education-adjusted employment, and uses a growth accounting approach to analyze GDP growth during 1880-2008. The growth of capital stock, employment and educational attainment explained almost all of GDP growth. During key growth periods 1900-29 and 1975-97, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth was on balance negative. TFP growth was substantial during some sub-periods, particularly 1933-41, 1951-61, 1967-74 and 2000-08. Each followed a major economic downturn that slowed capital stock growth and required a more efficient use of productive resources, supported by changes in economic policy that enhanced productivity and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though almost no postwar union contracts indexed wage rates to prices of the employer's products, union agreements linking wage rates to product prices, known as sliding scales, were common in some industries in the United States and Britain from the 1860s through the 1930s. This paper explains why sliding scales disappeared after the 1930s, and examines what practical experience with sliding scales revealed about fundamental constraints on wage indexation. Paradoxically, the history of sliding scales confirms that workers' information about product prices and materials costs is generally imperfect, in ways that would substantially constrain wage indexation in long-term contracts. Sliding scales were not indexed long-term contracts, but rather devices to forestall costly strikes in the absence of contracts by revealing employers' private information about product demand. In the postwar US, unions and employers failed to link wage rates to product prices because they had gained the ability to enter binding contracts, which could achieve the benefits of preventing strikes without incurring the extra negotiation costs and information problems associated with product-price indexation. I present a model to show how sliding scales could forestall strikes by revealing information, and how the introduction of binding union contracts reduced incentives to link wages to product prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two centuries, the reallocation of labor out of agriculture has been a dominant feature of structural change and economic growth in the United States. This paper uses an accounting framework founded in economic theory to decompose this reallocation into three components: a demand-side effect due to the low income elasticity of demand for agricultural goods (Engel effect), and two supply-side effects, one due to differential sectoral productivity growth rates (Baumol effect), and the other to differential capital deepening. The results show that the Engel effect accounts for almost all labor reallocation until the 1950s, after which the Baumol effect becomes a key determinant. Our framework provides a unified account of long-run structural change, and demonstrates that historical interpretations and theoretical models that emphasize only one dimension of this process cannot properly account for the dramatic history of labor reallocation in the United States. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Foreign influence on South China increasingly disrupted the economy from the late eighteenth century. Many scholars believe the standard of living fell, while others point to positive gains from increased integration with the world economy. The paper estimates the secular trend in the average height of the southern Chinese in the nineteenth century based on data from prison registers in colonial Australia. Contrary to the pessimist view, height began to decline obviously only from the 1850s, a product of the dislocation effects of revolts and rebellions. At 163–164cm, the Chinese were of similar stature to the military conscripts of some European countries in the early-to-mid nineteenth century. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The promotion of carbon-neutral investments is among the primary constituents of developing a carbon-neutral economy. This is even more important for emerging economies that have constrained financial markets. In this paper, using monthly data between 2011 and 2019, we study 6519 actively managed mutual funds in BRICS after sorting them into black, brown, and green categories based on their investment holdings. Our comparative performance shows that green funds outperform their counterparts for the entire sample and within-country assessment. We also document the volatility and market timing ability of green funds, mainly absent in high emission funds. The results remained robust for various definitions of performance. Our findings also indicate Chinese green funds perform better than those of other countries. This is attributed to the multiple ecologically friendly economic policies that China has adopted over the years. Based on the results, we propose various interventions that could foster the adaptability of a carbon-neutral investment landscape. [Display omitted] • We assess the performance of BRIC funds after segregating on carbon profiles. • The Green funds show better risk-adjusted performance than brown & black funds. • The low carbon funds exhibit market timing ability during the sample period. • We report strong evidence of volatility timing for green equity funds. • The results are encouraging for promoting a zero-carbon investment paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper conducts an econometric test of Diamond and Dybvig’s [Diamond, D., Dybvig, P., 1983. Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity. Journal of Political Economy 91, 401–420] theory of bank runs as interpreted by Chari [Chari, V.V., 1989. Banking without deposit insurance or banks panics: lessons from a model of the U.S. national banking system. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 13, 3–19] and Calomiris and Gorton [Calomiris, C., Gorton, G., 1991. Origins of banking panics: models, facts, and bank regulation. In: Hubbard, R.G. (Ed.), Financial Markets and Financial Crises. NBER and Univ. Chicago press, Chicago, pp. 109–173]. We test whether or not seasonal deposit drains on New York banks coincide with the bank panics of 1873 and 1893 in the United States. We use individual bank level data to illuminate the reason for withdrawals. The evidence reveals that the panic of 1873 could have included a seasonal interior drain. A seasonal interpretation of Diamond and Dybvig’s model cannot be applied to the bank panic of 1893. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Fixed exchange rate regimes can be regarded as a “rule with escape clauses,” allowing the monetary authorities to temporarily suspend convertibility and enact a discretionary policy only under well-understood contingencies, such as wartime emergencies and financial panics. Seen from this perspective, adherence to the specie convertibility rule enables peripheral countries to establish credibility of the nation’s economic policy and, thus, to obtain access to the core countries’ capital markets. An example of a peripheral country is Greece during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The evidence assembled in the paper suggests that Greece tried very hard to adhere to “good housekeeping rules.” [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the economic role of the merchant coalition (kabu nakama) in Japan during the 18th and the first-half of the 19th century. During this period, public sector enforcement of contracts was imperfect. Kabu nakama substituted for the public sector, using a multilateral punishment strategy. When the government (Bakufu) prohibited kabu nakama in 1841, the growth rate of the real money supply contracted, efficiency of price arbitrage declined, and the inflation rate increased. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]