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Bicycle infrastructure can increase the comfort of bicyclists, grow bicycle mode share, and reduce bicycle-vehicle crashes. With worldwide goals to increase non-motorized vehicle travel and decrease traffic fatalities, successful bicycle infrastructure implementation is a key component to safer and more comfortable bicycling environments. Yet, transportation planners and engineers often face difficulties in implementing bicycle infrastructure. This study examines the state of bicycle infrastructure and the barriers to implementation encountered in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. A two-stage survey was deployed to transportation planners, engineers, and other government personnel at the town, city, county, regional, and state levels to collect information about their experiences with bicycle infrastructure implementation. Survey results indicated that the majority (77%) of jurisdictions intended to improve bicycle infrastructure in the next five years. However, despite this anticipated progress, those surveyed cited substantial barriers towards actually implementing the infrastructure. Lack of funding was the most commonly cited barrier, with 61% of respondents reporting this barrier at all levels of government. At the local level, lack of public support was cited as the most common barrier. Yet less than half of the respondents indicated their jurisdiction had an established process for residents to provide input for bicycle infrastructure improvements. Additionally, 21% of respondents encountered right-of-way acquisition as a difficulty. In summary, this study presents a framework for assessing the state of bicycle infrastructure development and identifies specific barriers at various government levels, which may help policy makers and transportation planners to target barriers specific to their governing units for more effective bicycle infrastructure implementation.

Pregnant people's exclusion from COVID-19 vaccine research highlights both the harms of excluding pregnant people from clinical trials and the growing public support for their equitable inclusion. Protectionary tendencies must be challenged for the sake of progress. The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to translate recognition of an unjust paradigm into action.

This study investigates whether R&D intensity has a moderating effect on the links between international firm activities (viz. exports, trade in imported inputs and capital goods, and foreign direct investment) and productivity. We also explore whether the moderating effect of R&D intensity vis-a-vis the underlying relationships differs for firms in high-tech versus low-tech sectors. The results show that, unlike low-tech firms, high-tech firms with higher R&D intensity in the previous period derive substantial productivity gains from FDI and the utilisation of imported inputs and capital goods. Furthermore, compared with internationally active high-tech firms, domestic high-tech firms have lower productivity gains from higher R&D intensity in the previous period, while the impact of higher R&D intensity on domestic low-tech firms is insignificant. Policies that create an enabling environment for public support for R&D, including the provision of R&D tax incentives targeted at internationally active high-tech firms, would help in enhancing productivity.

Congestion charging is generally regarded as an effective tool to manage the ongoing growth in road use and to abate congestion. However, public support is typically very low and therefore very few charging schemes have been implemented. The concept of tradable peak credits (TPC), which is based on the cap-and-trade principle, has characteristics that are believed to lead to more public support. First, a TPC system is revenue-neutral since the money circulates within the user group. Also, the expected effectiveness, and thereby support, may be higher because, in a TPC system, the operator has more control over the inflow of cars due to the firm cap. Lastly, the allocation of free credits provides the opportunity to address equity issues. This paper aims to quantify the levels of support for TPC among the public and to explore what the influence of scheme design, personal characteristics and attitudes is on these levels of support. To that end, a stated choice experiment has been conducted in which respondents were asked whether they would vote for the implementation of different TPC schemes. The discrete choice model shows that 32%, and up to a small majority of 52%, would support different TPC schemes. Most people, however, like or dislike TPC regardless of the scheme design. It is attitudes, and to a limited extent also socio-demographics, that relate to someone’s level of support, rather than the scheme characteristics. Support is especially higher among people who find TPC fair and effective, who live outside the borders of the municipality and are lower educated. Although the results indicate that a small majority would support a TPC scheme, directions for future research are given to supplement this study.

Introduction This study examines whether differences exist by sex in support for specific gun policies aimed at reducing gun violence. Methods Investigators combined 2 waves of the National Survey of Gun Policy administered in January 2017 and January 2019. Data were analyzed in 2020. Opinions on 21 gun policies were examined. Respondents rated their support on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly favor to strongly oppose. Somewhat favor and strongly favor were combined to create a dichotomous measure to indicate the proportion in favor of each policy. Respondents were categorized by their answer on the demographic profile as male or female and whether they personally owned a gun. Results Women had higher levels of support than men for 20 of 21 policies, with 7 policies having a ≥10 percentage point difference in support. Differences in support between women and men who own guns were less pronounced. Only 3 of 21 policies had a ≥10 percentage point difference in support. Among women and men who do not personally own guns, 4 of 21 policies had a ≥10 percentage point difference in support. Conclusions This survey is the first to explore differences in public support for specific gun policies between women and men. Policy support was substantially higher among women than men and higher among gun owners who are women compared with men. These findings provide important context for understanding differences in public opinion and suggest the need to tailor messages that will resonate within demographic groups.

This article explores the utilization of public policies aimed at supporting industrial innovation, and, in particular, enterprises involved in industry-science cooperation. The aim is to investigate whether firms cooperating with universities or R&D organisations are more likely to be supported by the state and demonstrate higher innovation performance. The empirical analysis is based upon the results of a 2018 specialised survey on innovation-active high-tech and medium high-tech manufacturing enterprises in Russia and relies on the concept of ‘additionality’. Although the study results indicate that enterprises interacting with R&D performing organisations are more likely to be publicly supported, the recipients claim that the provided support rarely causes significant changes in their performance. Cooperating with R&D organisations and universities appears associated with mainly a general boost in the competitiveness of the enterprise. The paper provides evidence to suggest that support allocation in Russia is following a ‘picking-the-winner’ strategy. Combined with possible crowding-out effects, such strategy may prove to be counterproductive for a country with a less well developed national innovation system.

Imminent death donation (IDD) is described as living organ donation prior to a planned withdrawal of life-sustaining care in an imminently dying patient. Although IDD was ethically justified by United Network for Organ Sharing, the concept remains controversial due to presumed lack of public support. The aim of this study was to evaluate the public's attitudes towards IDD. A cross-sectional survey was conducted of US adults age >18 years (n = 2644). The survey included a case scenario of a patient with a devastating brain injury. Responses were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale. Results showed that 68% - 74% of participants agreed or strongly agreed with IDD when posed as a general question and in relation to the case scenario. Participants were concerned about "recovery after a devastating brain injury" (34%), and that "doctors would not try as hard to save a patient's life" (33%). Only 9% of participants would be less likely to trust the organ donation process. In conclusion, our study demonstrates strong public support for IDD in the case of a patient with a devastating brain injury. Notably, participants were not largely concerned with losing trust in the organ donation process. These results justify policy change towards imminent death donation.

We assess public support for three supply-focused transport regulations: vehicle emissions standards (VES), low-carbon fuel standards (LCFS), and zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) sales mandates. We implemented a survey across several regions with varying policy experience, using representative samples from Canada (n=1,552) and the US state of California (n=484). The survey evaluated respondents’: (1) awareness of each policy, (2) support and opposition for these policies, and (3) associations with personal characteristics. We find that policy awareness is similarly low in all regions, with fewer than 5% mentioning any of the policies in an open-ended question. Once prompted with multiple-choice style questions, stated awareness is higher for a VES (33–53%), followed by a LCFS (19–38%), and then a ZEV mandate (6–17%). In some cases, awareness is higher in regions that actually had a given policy in place, or for a longer period. Support for strong VES and LCFS is similarly high across regions (around 60–80% support) and support for a strong ZEV mandate is lower (34–55% support) – though all have higher support than strong carbon pricing (22–30%). Regression analyses indicate that policy support is most strongly associated with respondent values and trust in government, with only a minor role for demographic factors. Interaction effects indicate that policy support in the province of Quebec and California is associated with a lack of trust in the federal government but greater trust in provincial or state governments. Conclusions indicate that policymakers may want to focus on policies that are both effective and acceptable to the public.

Summary We report findings from a new survey of US public attitudes toward human-animal chimeric embryo (HACE) research, designed to compare with recently reported Japanese survey data. We find that 59% of the US public can personally accept the process of injecting human induced pluripotent stem cells into genetically modified swine embryos and having human tissues produced in a pig's body transplanted into a human. This is greater acceptance than in Japan, and there is even strong acceptance among those with strong religious affiliations and who self-identify as conservatives. We argue that strong public support for HACE research, as well as the emerging literature suggesting that humanization of research animals is very unlikely, should compel the NIH to lift its current moratorium on HACE research., Highlights • 430 US participants in a national survey on human-animal chimeric embryo research • 83% of respondents can personally accept research on human-animal chimeric embryos • Self-identified political conservatives accept human-animal chimera research • Individuals opposed to animal research also accept human-animal chimera research, In this report, Crane and colleagues report findings on US public attitudes toward human-animal chimeric embryo research. A majority of survey respondents personally accept the process of injecting human stem cells into genetically modified swine embryos and transplanting human tissues produced in a pig's body. Strong public support should compel the NIH to lift the moratorium on human-animal chimeric embryo research.

Background Surveillance of AEFI is fundamental for improving safety and maintaining public support for vaccination. In SEAR, billions of doses of vaccine are given annually. The objective of the 2019 SEAR AEFI training workshop was to further strengthen in-country vaccine safety, assess capacity compared to 2014 and to better integrate communication into the AEFI causality assessment program. Methods A 3 ½ day workshop with AEFI experts from all 11 SEAR countries. Participants outlined each county’s AEFI data, critiqued their AEFI program, reviewed and critiqued causality assessment of 23 anonymized serious AEFI cases and proposed communication plans for each. Results Between 2016 and 2018, over 2.9 billion doses of vaccine were given in SEAR. Compared to 2014, AEFI detection and causality assessment skills had improved. AEFI experts’ communication planning skills markedly improved during the workshop. Good concordance was found between country causality assessment findings and the workshop critiques. A list of targeted recommendations (country, regional and global levels) arose from the workshop. Conclusions SEAR countries have much improved their AEFI detection and causality assessment expertise since 2014. Given the high volume of doses administered and the AEFI technical expertise, SEAR countries can well monitor safety of regionally produced vaccines. Integration of AEFI communication into AEFI causality assessment can help mitigate potential negative impacts of serious AEFIs.

Background Effective interventions for reducing the consumption of products that harm population and planetary health often lack public support, impeding implementation. Communicating evidence of policies’ effectiveness can increase public support but there is uncertainty about the most effective ways of communicating this evidence. Some policies have multiple benefits such as both improving health and the environment. This study assesses whether communicating evidence of multiple versus single benefits of a policy increases its support. Method Participants (n = 4616) nationally representative of the British population were randomised to one of 24 groups in an online experiment with a 4 × 3 × 2 between-subjects factorial design. The messages that participants viewed differed according to the evidence they communicated (no message, effectiveness for changing behaviour, effectiveness for changing behaviour + one policy benefit, effectiveness for changing behaviour + three policy benefits), type of policy (taxation, availability) and the target behaviour (consumption of energy-dense food, alcohol, or meat). The primary outcome was policy support. Results In a full factorial ANOVA, there was a significant main effect of communicating evidence of effectiveness on policy support, which was similar across policies and behaviours. Communicating three benefits increased support relative to communicating one benefit (d = 0.15; p = 0.01). Communicating one benefit increased support compared to providing evidence for changing behaviour alone (d = 0.13; p = 0.004) or no message (d = 0.11 p = 0.022). Conclusion Communicating evidence of a policy's benefits increases support for policy action across different behaviours and policies. Presenting multiple benefits of policies enhances public support.

In this paper I use a tax and benefit micro-simulator of the U.K. welfare system to study the demographic challenges this country faces in relation to household formation. Specifically, I estimate to what extent the marriage penalties created by the welfare state can affect the divorce rate. The welfare system in the U.K subsidises the lone parenthood and the marriage penalties created by the system are found to be higher among low earning households. With the help of the tax and benefit simulator, I impute the counterfactual effect of divorce on the net benefit entitlements of a sub sample of working families. The traditional economic model of marriage implies that increasing public support for unmarried mothers generally increases the prevalence of single-headed households. My findings suggest that £100 weekly increase in marriage penalties increases the probability of divorce by around 7%.

This article uses a survey amongst students at European universities to explore whether Russia's invasion of Ukraine has affected attitudes towards European integration. Some respondents completed the survey just before Russia's assault on 24 February 2022, and some did so just afterwards, thus delivering a quasi-experimental design situation, which we exploit. Our results suggest that the ominous news about the Russian attack increased the participants' interest in EU politics, consolidated their attachment to the EU and made them more mindful and appreciative of the benefits of deeper European integration. In effect, the war so close to the EU Eastern border provoked a rally around the supranational EU flag, with convergence of public opinion towards shared European values.

BACKGROUND: Substantial evidence indicates that patient outcomes are more favourable in hospitals with better nurse staffing. One policy designed to achieve better staffing is minimum nurse-to-patient ratio mandates, but such policies have rarely been implemented or evaluated. In 2016, Queensland (Australia) implemented minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in selected hospitals. We aimed to assess the effects of this policy on staffing levels and patient outcomes and whether both were associated. METHODS: For this prospective panel study, we compared Queensland hospitals subject to the ratio policy (27 intervention hospitals) and those that discharged similar patients but were not subject to ratios (28 comparison hospitals) at two timepoints: before implementation of ratios (baseline) and 2 years after implementation (post-implementation). We used standardised Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data, linked with death records, to obtain data on patient characteristics and outcomes (30-day mortality, 7-day readmissions, and length of stay [LOS]) for medical-surgical patients and survey data from 17 010 medical-surgical nurses in the study hospitals before and after policy implementation. Survey data from nurses were used to measure nurse staffing and, after linking with standardised patient data, to estimate the differential change in outcomes between patients in intervention and comparison hospitals, and determine whether nurse staffing changes were related to it. FINDINGS: We included 231 902 patients (142 986 in intervention hospitals and 88 916 in comparison hospitals) assessed at baseline (2016) and 257 253 patients (160 167 in intervention hospitals and 97 086 in comparison hospitals) assessed in the post-implementation period (2018). After implementation, mortality rates were not significantly higher than at baseline in comparison hospitals (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1·07, 95% CI 0·97–1·17, p=0·18), but were significantly lower than at baseline in intervention hospitals (0·89, 0·84–0·95, p=0·0003). From baseline to post-implementation, readmissions increased in comparison hospitals (1·06, 1·01–1·12, p=0·015), but not in intervention hospitals (1·00, 0·95–1·04, p=0·92). Although LOS decreased in both groups post-implementation, the reduction was more pronounced in intervention hospitals than in comparison hospitals (adjusted incident rate ratio [IRR] 0·95, 95% CI 0·92–0·99, p=0·010). Staffing changed in hospitals from baseline to post-implementation: of the 36 hospitals with reliable staffing measures, 30 (83%) had more than 4·5 patients per nurse at baseline, with the number decreasing to 21 (58%) post-implementation. The majority of change was at intervention hospitals, and staffing improvements by one patient per nurse produced reductions in mortality (OR 0·93, 95% CI 0·86–0·99, p=0·045), readmissions (0·93, 0·89–0·97, p

This paper examines two policy instruments — a matching grant and import tariffs — for encouraging research and development (R&D) in product innovation by a domestic firm when it faces foreign competition. We do so by developing a theoretical model of product innovation where R&D effort is endogenous and its outcome uncertain. We examine the effects of a reduction in import tariffs on private expenditure on R&D, on public support for such R&D, and on total R&D expenditure. We find that in response to a reduction in import tariffs, the domestic firm always reduces its private R&D investments, but the total level of R&D expenditure (i.e., including public support) might go up depending on the level of tariffs. In particular, we find that it will go up if the initial level of tariff is higher than a critical level. When tariff is endogenous, we find that the socially optimal level of tariffs is positive. One finding that is of particular interest is that supporting private attempts to product innovate in the form of a matching grant program leads to a socially optimal level of product R&D.

Conservation science has rapidly adopted citizen science to engage the public in knowledge generation, developing environmental policies, solving localized environmental issues, and generating public support for environmental management. For conservation benefits to be just and equitable, it is important to ensure underserved groups have the opportunity to contribute to citizen science, but the barriers and drivers for their participation are poorly understood. This study explores the perspectives of young adults (18–50 years) who feed wild birds. Their cohort is underrepresented in Project FeederWatch, a large-scale North American citizen science project. Interviews with 72 young adults who do not participate in Project FeederWatch, reveal their motivations to feed birds to be primarily for the benefits it provides for themselves (such as experiencing nature, joy and relaxation) and helping the birds survive. An additional motivation, previously undetected, is to share their feeder bird experiences with others in their social networks. The interviewees hold positive attitudes towards involvement in, and outcomes of Project FeederWatch, although some concerns and barriers to participation are particular to their age group. Most notably, limits on their time and financial resources typical for their life-stage present substantial challenges to their involvement. Project design elements including simple instructions and protocol, a mobile app, and reminders will enable their participation. Social norms related to participation in citizen science are found to be weak. This exploratory work is essential for further research on young adults' involvement in knowledge generation to inform conservation science and practice.

Activist organizations use issues management when pressuring corporations to alter practices and policies that these groups find problematic. Throughout this process, activists must establish legitimacy for their issue concerns, organizations, and proposed solutions to gain public support for their activities. This study qualitatively analyzes the communication practices of 21 activist organizations to understand the strategies that these unique groups harness as they seek to build legitimacy as part of the issues management process. The findings contribute to a growing body of public relations research on activist communication by introducing a new legitimation strategy that underscores the importance of ongoing issues monitoring for activists and illustrates how activist organizations can co-opt extant narratives to build legitimacy for their existing issue arguments.

Allocation of scarce livers for transplantation seeks to balance competing ethical principles of autonomy, utility, and justice. Given the history and ongoing dependence of transplantation on public support for funding and organs, understanding and incorporating public attitudes into allocation decisions seems appropriate. In the context of the current controversy around liver allocation, we sought to determine public preferences about issues relevant to the debate. We performed multiple surveys of attitudes around donation and evaluated these using conjoint analysis and clarifying follow-up questions. We found little public support that allocation decisions should be based solely on risk of waiting-list mortality. Strong public sentiment supported maximizing outcomes after transplantation, prioritizing US citizens or residents, keeping organs local, and considering cost in allocation decisions. We then present a methodology for incorporating these preferences into the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (or MELD) priority score. Taken together, these findings suggest that current allocation schemes do not accurately reflect public preferences and suggest a framework to better align allocation with the values of the public.

Legitimacy is typically given to an authority by a subject. In most cases, the state. However, different governance structures alter the role of the state and the support of some policy decisions rests on the actions of others. In mine development, government sits in an interesting position. As the permitting authority, government holds the responsibility for determining the paths companies must travel to open and operate a mine. At the same time, mining companies engage in extra-legislative activities to build public support and move the process forward. Therefore, the state may no long control the legitimacy of the mine development process. Conducting interviews with state officials in two jurisdictions, Saskatchewan, Canada and Norrbotten, Sweden, this study investigates whether legitimacy issues exist from the perspective of the authority. Focusing on participation, influence, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness, the study determines first if shared conceptions of these factors exists amongst officials and then whether they viewed the process operating in a manner that matches these shared conceptions. The most significant differences in views occurred in Norrbotten where the results on throughput legitimacy pointed to legitimacy issues from the perspective of the state, particularly with other government agencies.

Hydraulic fracturing, a process in which oil and gas is produced from unconventional sources using frac sand has made the U.S. the world’s leading producer of natural gas. Since 2003, the sand mining industry has grown exponentially. In 2013, the number of sand mining facilities increased more than two-fold in Wisconsin. This raised contentions between those for and against sand mining activities. This study investigated underlying reasons and factors indicative of public support/opposition in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin. Data were collected from mail surveys (n = 269) and in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 22). Overall, there is opposition to frac sand mining development. Four categories of respondents were identified - support (17%), undecided but support (23%), oppose (38%), and undecided but oppose (22%). Perceptions of environmental and health risks, costs and benefits were indicative of support/opposition. Also, use of sand in hydraulic fracturing has influenced public perceptions.

Governments and energy operators are often confronted with local residents’ protest against the construction of new high-voltage overhead transmission lines, negative risk expectations, and a lack of public support. A frequently discussed strategy for dealing with these issues is to build underground cables instead of overhead lines. So far, however, there is not much empirical evidence of whether substituting overhead lines by underground cables actually reduces protest or affects public risk expectations and attitudes. This study contributes to filling this gap by comparing residents’ risk expectations, attitudes, and protest behavior observed at two grid expansion sites in Germany by means of a quasi-experiment. At the time when the data were collected, both grid expansion projects–an overhead line project in Lower Saxony and an underground cable project in Hesse–were at the same stage of the legally defined planning and approval procedure. After controlling for various potential confounders, we obtained results revealing that there are no differences in the risk expectations, attitudes, and protest behavior of residents interviewed at the two project sites, or only marginal ones. Hence, our findings do not support the assumption that building underground cables necessarily improves the situation with regard to risk expectations, attitudes, and protest behavior.

Many tuna stocks are being depleted, and the bluefin tuna stock is of particular concern because it has been designated endangered or severely overexploited. Japan's actions are pivotal in protecting bluefin tuna stocks because high volumes are caught for sushi/sashimi. However, the efforts of the Japanese government to conserve these valuable stocks have been limited or even counterproductive, as the government currently seems to prioritise the short-term interests of the domestic fishing industry. In this study, public preferences are revealed, potentially affecting the position of the Japanese government in the long run by quantifying the extent to which public support could be generated with changes in specific features of the international agreement on the conservation and management of tuna resources. With a choice experiment that focused on the catch limits, target species, and parties who would be responsible for the expenses of monitoring, this paper finds that a fishery closure is the scenario least likely to inspire public support for tuna conservation. Japanese consumers favour a prompt management response to the overfishing of tuna fisheries beginning immediately when the exploitation of the stocks reaches an unsustainable level. Atlantic/Pacific bluefin tuna, compared to other tuna species, is a top conservation priority for Japanese consumers. These results indicate that although the current movement towards conserving bluefin tuna is publicly supported, conservation actions should have been initiated sufficiently early to avoid a drastic catch reduction before the stock was overfished or the population became endangered.

A large literature examines the use of recipient contribution requirements in social programs to target people who most need and value aid. Yet little is known about public support for such requirements. In a field experiment with a nationally representative sample, we examine the effect of recipient contributions on charitable donations to a food aid program. The response to recipient monetary contributions is non-monotonic: donations increase when recipients make small monetary contributions and return to baseline under large recipient contributions. Recipient time contribution requirements also increase program support. Results from additional treatments suggest that individuals use contribution requirements to increase both allocative efficiency (screening recipients who most value the good) and targeting efficiency (screening recipients most in need). Our work informs the design of social programs, which must respond to the preferences of voters and donors who provide political and financial support.

Despite sometimes promiscuous claims by President Trump's critics, controversy about America's commitment under Article 5 dates back seven decades. If largely quiescent through the Soviet Union's collapse, it was because the core Article 5 commitment thankfully went untested. Controversy reemerged with NATO enlargement eastward. In a strange inversion, what c.1949 was a prime objection to its commitment to use force—what Senator Forrest Donnell called the illusory discretion of the “such action as it deems necessary” condition added by George Kennan and other proponents to rescue the Washington Treaty in the Senate—is now embraced, ahistorically, by Article 5 hawks: that the commitment is mechanical, not discretionary. It is substantially a unilateral American one, too. Chronic European underspending and anemic public support across the continent challenge whether most NATO countries could—or would—rally to an ally's defense.

Lack of public support is regarded as a major barrier for implementing restrictive transport policy instruments. Recent studies have therefore analyzed factors explaining variations in public support and examined strategies to increase support of restrictive policy measures. However, few have analyzed whether there is an actual relationship between transportation policies and political legitimacy. This article thus makes two main contributions to the literature. First, it explores whether there is a relationship between support of restrictive instruments and political legitimacy to study the political implications of introducing such instruments. The results show that citizens opposing restrictive measures, such as local road tolls, are more dissatisfied with the performance of local democracy. The effect also appears to be mediated through citizens evaluation of politicians’ and how they evaluate governmental performance at the local level. Second, the article analyzes the importance of transportation policies in particular for local political legitimacy. The results show that citizens dissatisfied with the quality of services within the transport sector are also more dissatisfied with the performance of local democracy.

Voters often support increased spending for public transportation, but the motivation behind this support is as hard to discern as it is substantively important. Why do voters support transit? We use a survey-framing experiment (n = 1200) to evaluate the persuasive effects of common arguments for public transit. We study how different arguments change not just people’s attitudes toward transit, but also their willingness to become politically active on its behalf. Our findings are twofold. First, arguments that transit will reduce congestion or improve environmental outcomes (specifically, mitigate climate change) make people more supportive of public transportation, while arguments about making travel more convenient, helping the poor, or satisfying other people’s desire for transit do not. Second, congestion-based arguments are self-undermining with respect to activism: they make people more likely to support transit, but less likely to become activists for it. Congestion-based arguments are persuasive because they remind people of wasted time, but in reminding people of time-scarcity they reduce people’s willingness to become involved. Overall, our results suggest that the common reasons people use transit are not powerful political arguments for supporting it, and that one powerful political argument for supporting it, in addition to being inaccurate, might undermine efforts to organize on its behalf.

Highlights • Worries about the impact of COVID-19 on the country’s finances reduce support for aid while worries about its impact on personal finances do not. • Messages emphasizing that aid to developing countries helps weaken the next wave of the pandemic at home significantly increase support for aid. • Messages stressing how COVID-19 might harm developing countries barely change attitudes toward aid., Global pandemics are a serious concern for developing countries, perhaps particularly when the same pandemic also affects donors of development aid. During crises at home, donors often cut aid, which would have grave ramifications for developing countries with poor public health capacity during a time of increased demand for health care. Because the major donors are democracies, whether they renege on promises would depend intimately on how donor citizens respond to the specific crisis. We conduct two survey experiments with 887 U.S. residents to examine how the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic influences their attitudes toward aid. We demonstrate that citizens’ concern about the impact of COVID-19 on their country’s financial situation reduces their support for aid. If they think that aid can help curb the next wave of the disease at home by first alleviating its impact in developing countries, they become substantially more supportive of giving aid. In contrast, merely stressing how COVID-19 might ravage developing countries barely changes their aid attitudes. Our findings have implications for what to expect from donors during global pandemics as well as how advocates may prevent aid from being cut.

We study the impact of battlefield casualties and media coverage on public demand for war termination. To identify the effect of troop fatalities, we leverage the otherwise exogenous timing of survey collection across 26218 respondents from eight members of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Quasi-experimental evidence demonstrates that fatalities increase coverage of the Afghan conflict and public demand for withdrawal. Evidence from a survey experiment replicates the main results. To estimate the media mechanism, we leverage a news pressure design and find that major sporting matches occurring around the time of battlefield casualties drive down subsequent coverage and significantly weaken the effect of casualties on support for war termination. These results highlight the crucial role that media play in shaping public support for foreign military interventions.

French Abstract: Nous mobilisons un modele de micro-simulation s’appuyant sur un jeu de donnees individuelles particulierement riche pour evaluer l’impact de la crise sanitaire sur la situation financiere de plus de 645 000 entreprises francaises en 2020. Nous montrons que la quasi-stabilite de la dette nette au niveau macroeconomique masque de fortes disparites au niveau individuel. L’heterogeneite est marquee entre secteurs (avant et apres dispositifs de soutien public) mais egalement au sein de chaque secteur. L’occurrence et l’intensite des chocs negatifs de tresorerie a fin 2020 sont par ailleurs correlees a la qualite de credit de l’entreprise (cotation Banque de France) avant crise. Nos simulations montrent egalement que les mesures de soutien reduisent la dispersion des chocs de tresorerie et ramenent a une distribution a peu pres identique a celle d’une annee normale, sauf aux deux extremites de la distribution. English Abstract: Using rich granular data for over 645 000 French firms in 2020, this paper builds a micro-simulation model to assess the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on corporate liquidity. Going beyond the aggregate picture, we document that while net debt has been fairly stable at the macroeconomic level, individual heterogeneity is widespread. Significant dispersion in changes in net debt prevails both between and within industries, before as well as after public support. We show that the probability to experience a negative liquidity shock − as well as the intensity of this shock − are negatively correlated with the initial credit quality of the firm (based on Banque de France internal ratings). Our model also finds that public support dampens significantly the impact of Covid on the dispersion of liquidity shocks and brings back the distribution of liquidity shocks closer to its pre-crisis path but with fatter tails.

Public surveys suggest that the majority of citizens in most democratic countries is in favor of more ambitious action on climate change. Yet, policymakers still hesitate to propose ambitious but costly climate policies because they fear public backlash. Randomly sampled citizen assemblies are promoted as a way to increase the political feasibility of ambitious but costly climate policies. To test this claim, we conducted a representative survey (n = 1,252), survey-embedded conjoint experiment (n = 624), and semi-structured interviews with a survey sub-sample (n = 41) in Germany. Our key finding is that, in Germany, a citizen assembly can increase public support for climate policies. However, this positive effect is strongly dependent on how the citizen assembly is designed and on the degree of public awareness and informedness about the assembly. We provide recommendations for informing about and designing citizen assemblies to enhance the political feasibility of ambitious climate policies.

Using newly collected and so-far unpublished public opinion data on differentiated integration (DI), the research paper analyses the dimensionality of this concept, which has become increasingly prominent in the study of European integration. Factor analyses show that citizens care about two dimensions of differentiation. The first is linked to integration, the second to safeguarding national autonomy or sovereignty. Moreover, to validate previous findings on the Eurobarometer’s ‘two-speed Europe’ item, we run regression analyses on public support for different types or models of DI. Our analyses underline that citizens evaluate different types of DI differently – thus none of the classic models (e.g. ‘two-speed’, ‘core Europe’, or ‘a-la-carte’) allow for generalisation. As a practical implication, our study highlights that citizens’ support of DI strongly hinges on a fair design of DI.

The authorization and use of pesticides in the European Union (EU) have become increasingly controversial and politically salient over the past decade. In particular the European Commission’s decision to re-authorize the use of glyphosate, the active substance in Bayer/Monsanto’s Roundup, after it had been classified a ‘probable human carcinogen’ by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), was highly controversial and triggered a lively debate on how to reform EU pesticide regulation. In this policy report, we assess whether and how specific reforms to decision-making procedures could impact public support for EU pesticides regulation, including acceptance of authorization decisions on controversial substances such as glyphosate. To do so, we first identified the main challenges of European pesticides regulation exposed by recent developments, including (but not limited to) the glyphosate controversy, as well as the actual and potential reforms proposed by the EU institutions, civil society organizations, academic commentators, and other stakeholders. We grouped these challenges and related reform proposals into four dimensions, namely: 1) the organization of the decision-making process; 2) the factors considered when authorizing pesticides; 3) sources of evidence and potential conflicts of interest; and 4) post-market monitoring and review of authorized pesticides. We then conducted a pair of linked online survey experiments on public attitudes toward reform of EU pesticides regulation in June 2020 among a representative sample of the adult population in six Member States (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, n=9022). Our results show that the introduction of systematic post-authorization monitoring and review, and consideration of all relevant scientific studies in the authorization decision are the two most promising reforms to increase public support for pesticides regulation. Moreover, if a hypothetical glyphosate authorization decision is taken under a decision-making procedure that citizens (strongly) support, they are more likely to accept it even if they previously opposed this outcome. Our findings are particularly relevant given that glyphosate is currently again undergoing a renewal procedure in the EU.

We study how nonprofit profitability affects external funding. Using a sample of over 273 thousand U.S. nonprofit organization (NPO) observations between 1999-2019, we find that profitability is associated with greater public support; however, when NPOs are excessively profitable, they receive fewer subsequent donations. We find a similar relationship, but to a smaller degree, between NPO profitability and government grant funding. We infer that funders desire moderate but not overly high profitability. We also find that donors are more tolerant of normal and excessive profitability for NPOs in the healthcare industry, smaller NPOs, and NPOs with shorter planning horizons. The relationship between profitability and external funding is weaker during recession periods, with funders not penalizing excessively profitable organizations during economic downturns.

In the past decade, the world has witnessed increased climate change impacts with many countries experiencing more frequent and more severe climate extremes. With public support being fundamental in scaling up climate action, here, we analyze the impact of exposure to climate extremes on environmental concern and Green voting for a large panel of European countries. Combining high-resolution climatological data with regionally aggregated and harmonized information on environmental concern (42 Eurobarometer surveys, 2002-2019, 34 countries) and European Parliamentary electoral outcomes (7 elections, 1990-2019, 28 countries) at the subnational level, we find a significant and sizeable effect of temperature anomalies, heat episodes and dry spells in the previous 12 months on green concern and voting. The effects differ significantly by region and are most pronounced in regions with a cooler Continental or temperate Atlantic climate, and weaker in regions with a warmer Mediterranean climate. The relationship is moderated by regional GDP suggesting that climate change experience increase public support for climate action only under favorable economic conditions. By empirically documenting the important role of contextual influences and regional differences on green concern and voting, our findings have important implications for the current efforts to promote and implement climate actions in line with the Paris Agreement.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Successful tax incentive interventions rely on effective programme design, yet designing an effective programme is highly challenging. We draw on the policy design and tax incentive literature to shed light on how two policy design choices – the nature and targeting of the incentive - shape the innovation effectiveness of a high- and new-technology enterprise tax incentive programme in China. We first find evidence that, on average, the programme can stimulate increases in firm R&D and patenting. Not all firms benefit equally, however. Second, we find that firms with larger incentives experience greater innovation impacts, but that high incentive values may crowd out R&D. We also find multiyear incentives to be effective for stimulating firm innovation in all years, but only in the initial years for R&D. Finally, for targeting, following a ‘picking winners’ strategy may enhance programme effectiveness as we find stronger innovation impacts for firms with greater programme experience, certification likelihood, and innovation experience. Our study contributes by helping resolve the theoretical ambiguity about how policy design choices about tax incentives' value, duration, and targeting can impact innovation effectiveness, by providing insights on the effectiveness and heterogeneity of the innovation impacts of tax incentives in emerging economies, and by providing more explicit guidance on how to design tax incentive programmes to raise R&D and innovation.

Reefer Madness is often credited for spreading anti-marijuana sentiment across the country. Could modern movies depicting marijuana have the opposite effect? This paper asks whether film can influence our opinions on marijuana use and legalization. If movies do have a persuasive effect, the marijuana industry may seek to utilize film as a way to build public support. One method for doing so would be product placement. This paper discusses potential strategies the industry could use to implement product placement, as well as the legal and industry barriers that could prevent or minimize the industry’s ability to engage in the practice. However, a measured approach to product placement could be a viable persuasive tool for the industry.

How do voters in a developed economy react to political violence at the ballot box? Most of the current literature suggests that violent clashes dampen public support of the movement. Using novel geocoded data and an instrumental variables approach, we examine whether violent confrontations, proxied by the frequency of police shooting tear gas rounds at protesters, affected Hong Kong’s 2019 municipal election. Contrary to expectations of delegitimation, we find that violent confrontations decreases support for the regime. We estimate the presence of such conflicts increases the constituency-level antigovernment vote share by up to 6%, and we offer evidence that they de-mobilize proregime voters. We discuss two possible explanations behind our findings and the implications for understanding the role of violence in protest movements.

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy—or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. First, across three data sets, we replicate Chudy’s finding that racial sympathy and resentment are empirically distinct constructs. Second, based on a national-level 2019 YouGov survey (n = 760 White respondents) and consistent with Chudy’s thesis, racial sympathy is then shown to be significantly related to the race-specific view that capital punishment is discriminatory but not support for the death penalty or harsher courts. Racial sympathy also is positively associated with advocacy of rehabilitation as the main goal of prison. Notably, in all models, racial resentment has robust effects, increasing punitive sentiments. Taken together, the results suggest that racial sympathy is a concept that can enrich criminologists’ study of how race shapes crime policy preferences in the United States and beyond.

Many important policy challenges like climate change, pandemics or digitalization require transformative policy responses that take the form of complex policy packages. Nevertheless, most public opinion research has studied public support for single policy instruments, while it remains unclear to what extent citizens evaluate isolated and combined policies differently. In this study, I argue that both the increased complexity of policy designs and the packaging of costly and compensatory measures can substantially affect public opinion. I employ a novel two-stage conjoint-based experimental approach in the United States and Germany to test this argument. In contrast to my expectations based on framing theory, the results show that policy packaging can increase support for climate policies, but that the complexity of policy designs per se does not substantially shift public opinion. Facing complex policy packages, respondents still make rational choices and compensatory policy designs are key to explaining shifts in public support.

This paper studies the impact of different resolution policies on the choice of banks to expand abroad. The regulator can choose to resolve banks through bail-in or bail-out or a combination of the two. The choice of the regulator affects the cost of funding of banks, endogenous in the model. We study the relative profitability of alternative bank corporate structures, either multinational (large and diversified) or domestic (small and non diversified) for different levels of public support. Our model allows us to identify the potential impact of the resolution policy on the structure of the banking system. Lower levels of public support increase the cost of funding for all banks, in line with recent empirical evidence. We show that a reduction in the level of public support (from bail-out to bail-in) induces banks to expand abroad in search for alternatives to save on their funding costs. Finally, we are able to identify the optimal resolution mix by taking into account the reaction of banks to the policy.

Direct public support for business RD they trigger faster growth in assets, employment and revenues; they lead to higher likelihood of receiving follow-on equity financing and lower failure chances. These effects tend to be larger for firms that are smaller and younger, or operating in sectors characterized by higher financial frictions. Furthermore, responses are stronger in countries and regions with lower economic development. The paper provides extensive evidence that the beneficial effects of R&D grants materialize through funding rather than certification effects.

We investigate whether the impact of direct support for business investment in RD whether the impact of support is smaller in recessions than in expansions, and whether effects vary with the treatment pattern. Using firm-level data from Spain during the period 2005 to 2014, we combine propensity score matching and difference-in-differences methods to estimate firms’ response. We find that (i) while the impact of support on monetary investment in innovation is pro-cyclical, it is counter-cyclical in terms of the employee-time allocation to innovation activities; (ii) the additionality of a one-year treatment is smaller than that of a longer treatment. Direct public support may have thus prevented a decline of the firms’ knowledge capital during the recession.

Under what conditions do mass publics support military aid abroad? Specifically, does the American public support extending or ending military aid to a state’s military differently from extending or ending military aid to a non-state armed group? I propose that a statist bias underpins the American public’s attitudes on military aid. I argue that the public prefers the US government develop and maintain ties to state militaries over non-state armed groups and posit a number of instrumental assumptions about these actors that could drive this preference. Namely, because the public considers states more responsible, accountable, and capable actors than non-state armed groups, individuals are more likely to support providing state militaries than non-state armed groups with military aid, but also are more likely to oppose the removal of that aid from states while seeing aid to non-state armed actors as more expendable. I find support for this statist bias in two survey experiments on samples of the American public run in December 2019 and June 2020. A statist bias matters for a variety of dynamics in international security, from secrecy in foreign policy, to audience costs, to ways rival states might be constrained by their publics in competing with one another on the world stage.

How much is support for vote by mail (VBM) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, partisanship, and recent efforts by partisan elites to politicize discussions about expanding the use of VBM in November 2020? Using surveys of registered voters conducted in April and May 2020 we characterize how changing concerns about COVID 19 and increased partisan messaging affects public support for VBM. We show that the bipartisan support for VBM in April 2020 falls sharply after just six weeks because: Republicans became less worried about catching COVID-19, and unconcerned Republicans also became more opposed to VBM. The pandemic originally increased public support for expanding VBM to help combat the spread of COVID-19 - creating a relative unique opportunity to examine the public’s willingness to reconsider how elections are administered - but decreasing COVID-19 concerns among Republicans and increased opposition among unconcerned Republicans (perhaps due to increased partisan messaging) has combined to increase partisan divisions in otherwise historically high levels of public support for VBM.

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of green securitization’s rationale, potential and pitfalls. It does so by first describing what green securitization is, and, identifying the diversity of asset-backed securities’ types used. The specificities of green securitization are illustrated with examples and two deeper case studies. A critical assessment on benefits, risks, costs and limitations of green securitization in fostering green finance is then provided. Before concluding, the paper also engages with public incentives and general public support measures that could sustain the growth of green securitization.

Big data algorithms are becoming more common in the criminal justice system: they are used to provide more effective allocation of police resources, to notify police of potentially dangerous individuals at specific locations, to guide efforts to intervene with individuals before they engage in criminal activity, to advise judges making decisions about pre-trial detention, and to provide guidance to judges at sentencing. The debate about the propriety of using these algorithms has primarily focused on whether they are fair to the defendants they are evaluating. However, those in favor of using these tools in the criminal justice system must also consider another potential hurdle: whether these new tools will be accepted by the general public. For centuries, decisions in the criminal justice system have been made by individuals: police officers, judges, bureaucrats, and legislators. The general public is accustomed to these decision-makers and, for the most part, accepts their legitimacy. However, the public may not be as comfortable with the idea that critical criminal justice decisions are made or heavily influenced by computer programs instead of human beings. This question is a critical one for big data supporters: even if these tools can provide predictions that are more fair, efficient, and accurate than the clinical judgments made by human beings, they will never become widespread if they cannot gain public support.

Simple correlations and even more complicated regression-based estimators examining flood mitigation spending and flood damages counterintuitively reveal a positive relationship. This result makes accurately formulating or analyzing flood mitigation policy problematic. Using a unique longitudinal survey of U.S. counties from 1989 to 2017, this paper employs a dynamic feedback model which relaxes the “strict exogeneity” assumption in previous models, allowing flood damages to “feed back” and influence future mitigation. After accounting for feedback, the paper finds a 100% increase in mitigation spending reduces the financial consequence of flood damages by approximately 9%. The modeling approach and results can be used to perform cost-benefit analysis on public flood mitigation investment, as well as inform the efficient level of future public support.

Over the past few decades, renewable energy has received considerable public support through subsidies. However, its reliance on governments inherently induces policy uncertainty through the possibility of retroactive policy changes, i.e., ex post subsidy adjustments, which, in turn, impact private investors’ appetite for renewable energy investments. We empirically investigate the effect of retroactive policy changes on investment decisions by considering common support mechanisms in the EU for the period 2000–2017. To quantify the impact, we estimate a regression model utilizing a difference-in-difference approach, which allows us to identify the impact stemming from retroactive policy changes. The results show that a retroactive subsidy change decreases the investment rate by approximately 45% for PV and 16% for onshore wind. Hence, our results indicate that once the seed of mistrust is sown, it is likely to have a lasting impact. Consequently, our results suggest that a stable policy environment with credible policy commitments is crucial for incentivizing investments made by private firms. We find that that sudden unexpected policy changes deter further investment activity in affected countries suggesting that a stable policy environment is crucial to incentivize investments by private firms. This effect was greater for solar investments than onshore wind.

In the U.S., the estimated food waste at the household level is 32% of purchased food, translating to $240 billion in economic losses. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency set the first-ever national food waste reduction goal of a 50-percent reduction by 2030. Under this policy environment, this study assesses public support for nine food waste solutions: changes in food packaging, changes in portion sizes, standardization of date labeling terms, selling imperfect produce in retail stores, making donations easier, using uneaten food to feed animals, implementing composting in communities, consumer education campaigns on food waste, and taxing food waste. An online survey was sent to a nationally representative sample of U.S. respondents that asked about support for and perception of the effectiveness of each food waste solution. This study finds that making donations easier and the standardization of date labels were the most supported food waste solutions. Different food waste solutions appealed to different demographics of people based on their personal food waste experiences. Results are similar for the perception of the effectiveness of each food waste solution. Nevertheless, the percentage of respondents that considered each food waste solution to be effective was almost always less than the share of respondents who supported the solution. Thus, it is important to be cautious about this divergence when assessing public opinion on potential solutions, which may be enacted as policies designed to mitigate food waste.

Policies to conserve sharks have generally struggled to gain broad public support. Ecotourism programs have been suggested as a way to promote support for conservation by increasing participants’ knowledge of ecology, fostering positive environmental attitudes, and driving increases in conservation behaviour. Yet the evidence is mixed, and some argue that its effectiveness is constrained by the “ceiling effect”, i.e., people attracted to ecotourism programs are already environmentally minded, thus their participation does not result in meaningful conservation gains. Surveys of 547 tour participants in a cage free shark diving ecotourism program and 488 members of the general public were conducted in Hawaii to test whether the program resulted in conservation benefits or whether it was constrained by the ceiling effect. The results show evidence of the ceiling effect, suggesting that the program is attracting more environmentally minded participants. Despite this, tour participants reported a significant increase in knowledge regarding the ecological role of sharks and improved attitudes towards sharks after the tour compared to before. Critically, once responses from tour participants and the general public were pooled and previous engagement in conservation was controlled for, participation in the tour still had a significant positive effect on intentions to engage in shark conservation in the future, suggesting that the program does result in meaningful conservation gains. The usefulness of the information provided on the tour in addition to participants’ age, gender, and satisfaction with the tour all played a role in determining its effectiveness as a conservation strategy.