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Within the current context of state governments searching for roles in the response to terrorism, we explore the nature of state policy response to recent domestic threats to government operations. We employ a general model of state diffusion of innovative policies in an effort to understand state adoption of laws against the use of frivolous liens. The use of such liens by right-wing Patriot groups grew in the 1990s, leading us to focus on key issues related to policy diffusion—the extent of the problem or threat, and the characteristics of regional response. To test specific hypotheses we use Event History Analysis on a state-level dataset from 1995 to 1999. Our results suggest that state adoption of lien laws is mostly driven by regional forces, including the regional threat posed by Patriot groups and the adoption of lien laws by other states in the region, rather than national forces or factors internal to a state. We conclude that previous research has been too limited in its conceptualization of regional influences and that these same forces will likely drive future state-level response to the threat of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of what ends up in our landfills is recyclable material, exposing the urgent need to understand the psychological processes behind recycling behavior. Results from four studies suggest that consumers often trash well-known recyclable products due to the product being erroneously categorized as trash after it has been distorted (e.g., paper after it has been cut, torn, or crumpled). However, this categorization error can be somewhat mitigated by the presence of signage depicting the different distorted forms the recyclable product can take. Through prompting, consumers are able to correctly categorize a recyclable product when disposing of it, regardless of the level of distortion. These results provide an explanation for, and potential solution to, the issue of recyclable materials making their way into our landfills every day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, Indigenous scientific frameworks and methods have been damaged and derided by 'western' science, a strategy of the colonial project. Contemporary Australia is no exception, with the transmission of the suite of scientific values and practices formed over millennia in and for this place being actively prevented by legislation, government policies and colonial opprobrium. This paper shows how two crucial Indigenous science(s) frameworks, used alongside two Indigenous research methods, can transform hegemonic scientific research and fieldwork priorities and practices. This transformation occurs because of the focus of each framework. The first, centring country, requires decentring the human to bring forth the needs of the web of relationships that is country. The second framework, relational accountability, is about tending to a broad range of relationships, are often kin-based and including the other-than-human, with yindyamarra (or local equivalent). Relational accountability also offers an inbuilt ethic of care superior to institutional ethics protocols. By describing these frameworks and methods and discussing how and when to use them, this paper supports their greater understanding and more widespread use, particularly by Indigenous practitioners, so we may continue to (re)build what colonisation has damaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public debt is a key issue for government institutions, both because of the amount of its revenues, which partly compensate for the possible shortfall in tax collection, and because it is an essential instrument of fiscal policy for the government. This paper reviews the literature on the determinants of public debt in order to identify the explanatory variables of public debt according to the main theoretical and empirical studies. This work will support policy makers who have to obtain financial resources to cover essential and very necessary expenditures nowadays, such as health, education, or infrastructure investment, by controlling debt levels and fiscal pressure. The main policy implication we can derive from these results is that governments should use some of these instruments to reduce general government debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editorial Board of I Public Finance Review i ( I PFR i ) is delighted to announce that Shu Wang, David Merriman, and Frank Chaloupka are the recipients of the annual "Outstanding Paper Award", awarded among manuscripts published in I PFR i in the year 2019. Dr. Wang, Dr. Merriman, and Dr. Chaloupka contribute to this literature by constructing and leveraging a national U.S. sample of littered cigarette packs that have potentially identifying tax-jurisdictional information on the packs (tax stamps). However, Dr. Wang, Dr. Merriman, and Dr. Chaloupka also find that although increased noncompliance is associated with higher cigarette tax rates, the increased noncompliance is still low enough such that total tax revenues collected by jurisdictions can increase with increases in tax rates. [Extracted from the article]

This paper explores how China's assistance to countries in the Western Balkans during the pandemic boosted their reputation in the region, through the case studies of Serbia, Macedonia, and Albania. The COVID-19 crisis has tested EU's reputation of solidarity and partnership to the Western Balkans, with Balkan political leaders accusing the bloc of selfishness due to its decision in 2020 to restrict exports of medical equipment to candidate states and the perceived neglect of the region during the vaccine distribution in early 2021. Simultaniously, China sent planes containing tonnes of medical supplies, respirators, medical personnel, and later vaccines, that would be received with great pomp and live media coverage, in a powerful public diplomacy and vaccine diplomacy offensive. This paper argues that this helped improve public opinion and reshape narratives on China in the Western Balkans. Still, attitudes vary between states, with Serbians having the most favourable views on China as a foreign partner. On the other hand, while public perceptions on China have seen a positive shift in Macedonia and Albania, this has not translated in a change in their pro-EU stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The number of accidents due to distracted pedestrian is on the rise and many governments and institutions are enacting public policies which restrict texting while walking. However, pedestrians do more than just texting when they use their mobile devices on the go. Objective: Exploring pedestrian multitasking, this paper aims to examine the effects of mobile device task type on pedestrian performance outcomes. Method: We performed two studies in lab simulations where 78 participants were asked to perform different tasks on a mobile device (playing a game, reading, writing an email, texting one person, group texting) while performing a pedestrian visual discrimination task while either standing or walking on a treadmill. Behavioral performance as well as neurophysiological data are collected. Results: Results show that compared to a no-phone control, multitasking with any of the tasks on a mobile device leads to poor performance on a pedestrian visual discrimination task. Playing a game is the most cognitively demanding task and leads to the greatest performance degradation. Conclusion: Our studies show that multitasking with a mobile device has the potential to negatively impact pedestrian safety, regardless of task type. However, the impacts of different mobile device tasks are not all equivalent. More research is needed to tease out the different effects of these various tasks and to design mobile applications which effectively and safely capture pedestrians' attention. Application: Public policy, infrastructure, and smart technologies can be used to mitigate the negative effects of mobile multitasking. A more thorough understanding of mobile device task-specific factors at play can help tailor these counter-measures to better aid distracted pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, there has been a growing trend towards the use of 'big qualitative data' in applied health research, particularly when used as part of mixed methods evaluations of health policy in England. These 'big qualitative' studies tend to be longitudinal, complex (multi-site and multi-stakeholder) and involve the use of multiple methods (interviews, observations, documents) and large numbers of participants (n = 100+). Despite their growing popularity, there is no methodological guidance or methodological reflection on how to undertake such studies. Qualitative researchers are therefore faced with a series of unknowns when designing large qualitative studies, particularly in terms of knowing whether existing qualitative sampling and analysis methods are appropriate in this context. In this paper, we use our experience of undertaking a big qualitative study, as part of a national mixed methods evaluation of a health policy in England to reflect on some of the key challenges that we faced in our qualitative study, which broadly related to: sample size, data analysis and the role of patient and public engagement. Underpinning these difficulties was the challenge of being flexible and innovative within the largely positivist research climate of applied health research and being comfortable with uncertainty relating to the three issues outlined. The reflections we present are not to be viewed as a method 'how to' guide, but rather as a platform to raise key issues relating to the qualitative methods that we found challenging, in order to stimulate discussion and debate amongst the qualitative community. Through this paper, we therefore hope to demystify what it is like to undertake such a study and hope to spark much needed discussion and innovation to support the future design and conduct of qualitative research at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite varying conceptions of what co-production entails, there is a growing consensus in research, practice and public policy discourse that co-production is a preferred strategy for leveraging resources to deliver basic infrastructure services in low-income settlements. Using largely qualitative data, this paper explores the adaption of co-production in the low-income settlement of Hanna Nassif in Dar es Salaam, implemented 20 years ago by state actors, international agencies and grassroots actors, with attention to basic infrastructure and local employment. The findings reveal that co-production engendered partnerships and platforms and transformed sociocultural norms and values that made inroads toward urban equality in the settlement, although it failed to address inequalities among the partners, or to be replicated subsequently. The paper argues that meaningful co-production of basic infrastructure services in low-income settlements of the global South requires a focus on the context-specific pro-poor concerns and priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of I Environment and Urbanization i is looking for papers that address these and other relevant issues. Discounted Prices and Electronic Access to Environment and Urbanization All papers published in I Environment and Urbanization i since its first issue in 1989 are available at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/eau, and all but those published during the last two years are open access and so available electronically free of charge. With regard to electronic access, there are schemes that allow access to I Environment and Urbanization i for universities and research centres in low- and middle-income nations - see Research4Life (http://www.research4life.org). [Extracted from the article]

The research domain Industry Studies and Public Policy ( IS& PP) seeks to further our understanding of industrial practices and managerial challenges by explicitly considering contextual details in the design and interpretation of research studies. These details can be vital considerations when shaping public policies. This article reviews a sample of IS& PP publications and analyzes the content of 180 selected papers-85 papers published in the Production and Operations Management ( POM) journal and 95 papers published in related journals between 1992 and 2014. Our analysis of the sample dataset and examination of exemplar papers provide four findings. First, studies in different industries emphasize different themes of operational decisions. This difference in emphasis reveals potential research opportunities, especially for conducting inter-industry studies. Second, our analysis reveals a shift in focus over time. Earlier studies contain a mix of benchmarks and inter-industry comparisons, while later studies tend to be context-specific, intra-industry studies. Third, we report on empirics → analytics → empirics cycles that reveal gaps for building novel theories. Finally, we observe that the relationship between POM decisions and public policy is bi-directional. This highlights the need to jointly examine operational decisions with policy considerations, especially in information goods, healthcare, sustainable operations and high-tech manufacturing industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new concept, entrepreneurial political activity based on corporate political activity to understand when an entrepreneur, representing both the firm and the individual simultaneously, will engage in political activity. The case of petty traders in Kumasi, Ghana generates grounded theory of entrepreneurial political activity. Faced with an existential threat, informal entrepreneurs had to decide whether to try to influence government policy by engaging in political activity. Findings from over 200 interviews demonstrated entrepreneurs carefully considered the state's willingness to allow for the extra-legal economic activity in the informal economy to continue, and if they had trust in the leadership of the collective action before engaging in political action. Policy saliency motivating action was determined by growth orientation and dependency on the venture for household survival, both driven by the entrepreneur's social role in the social system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the People's Bank of China (PBC) together with multiple departments issued the Guidance on Building a Green Financial System (the Guidance), which marked a great breakthrough in China's green finance policy. Aiming to clarify the actual impact and underlying mechanisms of green finance policy on Chinese listed companies' ESG disclosure quality, this study employs the difference-in-differences (DID) model and examines the impact of the Guidance on ESG disclosure practices of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) during the period 2006 to 2022. This study reveals a positive correlation between the Guidance and listed companies' ESG disclosure. Upon further examination, it becomes evident that the Guidance has a more noticeable positive impact on the quality of ESG disclosure among listed companies that operate in industries with high levels of pollution, state-owned enterprises, and regions that exhibit greater levels of economic development. This paper provides essential insights to policymakers, facilitating a deeper understanding and more thorough assessment of the economic implications of green finance policies. Additionally, it acts as a strategic resource for listed companies, guiding the enhancement of corporate ESG disclosures and the implementation of ESG strategies influenced by green finance policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of the asset-based community development (ABCD) approach, thus, local resources, asset mobilization, and citizens' participation on rural poverty alleviation in the northern part of Ghana by employing the moderating role of government policies. A total of five hundred fifty (550) questionnaires were administered in three (3) regions of the northern part of Ghana (Upper West, Upper East, and Northern); however, five hundred twenty-two (522) accurately filled responses were retrieved and used for the analysis. More robust structural equation modeling techniques are used to uncover accurate and reliable results. The results prove that local resources, asset mobilization, and citizen participation boost rural poverty alleviation. Also, the moderation role of government policies between asset mobilization and rural poverty alleviation is positive and significant. However, the moderation role of government policies on local resources and rural poverty alleviation nexus, and citizens' participation and rural poverty alleviation nexus are statistically insignificant. Based on the study's findings, policy recommendations applicable in Ghana and other developing regions have been proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which contemporary mobility dynamics in Mexico have changed over the last decade, leading to protracted displacement. It focuses on three populations: (1) the internally displaced due to violence; (2) Mexican nationals returning from the United States, both voluntarily and due to deportation; and (3) populations seeking asylum in Mexico and the United States. These three populations are not usually analyzed together and do not squarely fall under the traditional legal definitions. The paper outlines ways that situations of protracted displacement and insecurity present challenges in four interconnected arenas of life: housing, legal status, employment, and emotional well-being. For governments and local communities, protracted displacement requires immediate humanitarian responses and the development and implementation of public policies focused on integration. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations based on its findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central and Eastern Europe has become a ripe target for disinformation and malign narratives propagated by foreign actors. A deluge of propaganda deployed by hostile states is aimed at polarizing societies, undermining the decision-making capabilities of governments, and influencing public policy. Against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the stakes are enormous. Heeding research on debunking and pre-bunking strategies recognizing the limitations and potential of these approaches in inoculating populations against disinformation, this paper examines how several tactics deployed in the CEE region can both speak to and draw from this literature. While certain segments of CEE populations may be vulnerable to disinformation, the region also boasts civically engaged publics that want to take an active part in fostering societal resilience. The rise of digital elves (volunteer information warriors taking the fight to online trolls), the outsourcing of counter-disinformation activities to popular public institutions (like the police and military), and the use of crowdfunding to support news literacy education and independent media outlets present compelling alternative strategies towards responding to foreign influence. These activities show promise in overcoming obstacles faced by conventional approaches to disinformation and addressing CEE-specific issues related to media distrust and state capture of the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conference Notes in this issue cover presentations from three workshop sessions at the SRA conference. Behavioural economics has become a key feature of government policy, and Gutmann provides an overview of the presentations in this session. The presentation by Bob Erens provides further interesting evidence to that presented at the Royal Statistical Society Symposium, 'Web surveys of the general population: a robust alternative to current methods?', held in June 2014, which I covered in my Editorial in IJMR Vol. 56 Issue 4. That note includes details of where the full paper on which the presentation was based can be found. The notes by Fu and Clay (TNS-BMRB) and Pereira and Perry (Ipsos MORI) describe innovative uses of mobile technology for real-time data collection, an increasingly important field for methodological development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the alteration in health care model for elderly people in Great Britain. The need for the change in treatment approach emerged due to diminishing younger workforce and rapidly growing number of elderly people. The effectiveness of all advances in care for the elderly is undermined by government policies and particularly due to the ways of spending money.

Despite dramatic gains in school enrolment globally, with most countries reaching almost universal primary enrolment, studies from around the world continue to show high numbers of urban poor children lagging behind.([4]) Where access to state schools is the issue, an all-too-common scenario is the emergence of a private-sector response to education, with those who cannot afford sufficiently high-quality private schools being left behind, or settling for informal solutions that are under-resourced and unable to ensure a transition into higher levels of schooling. As in the case of education for migrant children, this trend has had unintended consequences in the face of government policies to promote educational equity. In urban areas, where both disparities and diversity can present particular challenges, education is a primary means for promoting inclusive development, and one of the more effective mechanisms by which social exclusion and growing gaps in equity can be addressed. It is still early days, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge, but Dodman's research suggests that the new hybrid school has been able to retain an emphasis on quality and values, while building on the strengths of the state system, with its greater resources and range of programmes for underprivileged students in an especially violent urban neighbourhood. [Extracted from the article]

Internal migration presents many challenges for governmental coordination due to the extensive and immediate action required to address this problem. However, it also poses opportunities regarding education, employment and living conditions, if the government creates pull factors to distribute migration away from primary to secondary cities. This process will require a rights-based approach, whereby the rights of internal migrants are mainstreamed in government planning to enable sustainable migration to Bangladesh's secondary cities. In this paper, the current international human rights and internal migration laws will be analysed, alongside the domestic laws and policies relevant to internal migration in Bangladesh. In doing so, this paper will explore how government policy and action can employ a rights-based approach to incorporate internal migration within the government's overarching development framework. A rights-based approach is necessary to effectively prepare for, and adapt to, the increase in internal migration in an equitable way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world where machines replace unskilled work, an active labor market policy—represented by the combination of an optimal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and income maintenance for the unemployed—provides incentives to increase participation in the labor market and depresses wages for unskilled employees. In this paper, this policy is tested against the alternative of allowing unskilled workers to receive a means-tested basic income (MTBI), as recently adopted by Spain. For a liberal social planner (i.e., includes consumption and leisure in individual utility), the MTBI dominates the active labor market policy. For a conservative social planner (i.e., evaluates social welfare based on individual utility from consumption), the active labor market policy dominates the MTBI. The potential dynamic effects of active labor policy on labor supply were considered in a simulation using updated empirical estimates; it shows that this policy becomes preferable for both types of the social planner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to facilitate the use of grounded theory (GT) methodology by novice researchers and PhD students of public policy discipline. The GT is widely used in social sciences research. This methodology has different variations, while Strauss and Corbin's systematic approach is more pragmatic than others due to the introduction of a staged process known as axial coding. Regarding the fact that applying this method is largely dependent on the context of the research area, the main question is, what would be the elements of a systematic approach specifically customized for the public policy research domain? This paper is an analytical review of the research literature in 3 areas: variants of grounded theory approaches, soft systems models in social science, and public policy subsystem elements. This research suggests the use of 6 categories of context and discourse, content and ideas, participants, structure, policy process, and outputs and effects as a substitute for the three categories of Strauss and Corbin's axial coding paradigm of GT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To me, this is a very exciting paper because it takes on directly and powerfully what I would describe as the "epistemology" of public policy analysis, evaluation, and decision-making. We learn that public policy decision makers and public policy making processes should rely on "humility, discourse, and compromise.". [Extracted from the article]

Have U.S. oil market policy interventions succeeded in lowering the price of crude oil? This paper uses a structural vector autoregression model of the U.S. oil market to estimate the effect of purchases and releases by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Unanticipated releases from the SPR have no measurable impact on oil prices, but unanticipated purchases for the SPR raise oil prices by about 1 percent. These results are robust to identification using external instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results from the experiment show how the public good of accurate reports of information about the unknown state of nature is affected by differing incentives for truthful reporting. Returning to the concept of public and private policy in the public square, the Nobel Laureate for the founding principles of experimental economics, Vernon L. Smith, in a seminal (1982) article on the methodological underpinnings of laboratory experiments, argued that "microeconomic systems" provide structures that are inherently amenable to laboratory experimental exploration. [Extracted from the article]

To protect soil quality for sustainable development and raise farmers' incomes, agricultural firms are increasingly developing green and efficient raw materials (GRMs) that can improve crop yields and reduce soil damage compared to TRMs. However, farmers have heterogeneity in both the trust in agricultural information and sustainable development attitudes, leading to underestimation of the value of GRMs. This paper explores the optimal subsidy policy of the government to promote GRMs considering the effect of farmer heterogeneity using a government‐firm‐farmer Stackelberg game. Our analysis reveals that the government should subsidize both farmers and the GRM firm when the GRMs' effectiveness is not high enough; otherwise, it is more effective to subsidize farmers but not the GRM firm. Such a government subsidy policy can bring a win–win–win outcome for farmers, the GRM firm, and social welfare under certain conditions. Although higher farmers' trust in agricultural information or sustainable development attitudes can increase their subjective willingness to adopt GRMs, counterintuitively, the total farmer surplus will decrease because in this situation: (1) the government will reduce the subsidy to farmers or (2) the GRM firm will increase the GRM price. In addition, compared with considering two‐dimensional heterogeneity of farmers, considering only one‐dimensional heterogeneity or no heterogeneity of farmers will cause the government subsidy to deviate from the goal of promoting GRMs, resulting in a 59.3% reduction in GRM market demand, a 17.3% decrease in the profit of GRM firm, and possibly even making the GRM firm "die out." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on livelihoods everywhere, but especially in the informal economy where crucial forms of protection and security are often absent. A detailed understanding of the impacts for informal workers, the public policy approaches that could most effectively respond to their needs, and the barriers to such policy, is urgently needed. This paper discusses the results of a 2021 street vendor survey in Cali, Colombia, focusing on (1) vendors' socioeconomic circumstances and (2) their political engagement and attitudes on key policy and governance issues. It argues that while the pandemic and the government responses to it negatively impacted street vendors, there are steps that government could have taken, and can still take, to address vendors' needs and priorities. To ensure a just, equitable, sustainable recovery, and to protect economically marginalized groups from future crises, informal workers must be more meaningfully included in decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice on government policy and entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurship is an important engine of growth. Government policy, in turn, shapes the institutional environment in which entrepreneurial decisions are made. Thus, government policy is important for entrepreneurship. But what policies are more conducive to productive entrepreneurship? In spite of a significant amount of work on this and related topics, there is still much we do not know about this important relationship. After reviewing recent literature on entrepreneurship policy, this paper summarizes the contributions included in this volume and puts them in the context of the ongoing research debate. The goal of the special issue is to address important unanswered questions and trigger a constructive debate among diverging views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For policymakers, an important long-run question related to the development of renewable industries is how government policies affect decisions regarding the scrapping or upgrading of existing assets. This paper develops a dynamic structural econometric model of wind turbine owners' decisions about whether and when to add new turbines to a pre-existing stock, scrap an existing turbine, or replace old turbines with newer versions (i.e., upgrade). We apply our model to owner-level panel data for Denmark over the period 1980-2011 to estimate the underlying profit structure for small wind producers (who constitute the vast majority of turbine owners in the Danish wind industry during this time period), and evaluate the impact of technology and government policy on wind industry development. Our structural econometric model explicitly takes into account the dynamics and interdependence of shutdown and upgrade decisions, and generates parameter estimates with direct economic interpretations. Results from the model indicate that the growth and development of the Danish wind industry were driven primarily by government policies as opposed to technological improvements. We use the parameter estimates to simulate counterfactual policy scenarios in order to analyze the relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Danish feed-in-tariff and replacement certificate programs. Results show that both of these policies significantly impacted the timing of shutdown and upgrade decisions made by small wind producers and accelerated the development of the wind industry in Denmark. We also find that when compared with the feed-in-tariff; a declining feed-in-tariff; and the replacement certificate program and the feed-in-tariff combined, the replacement certificate program was the most cost-effective policy both for increasing payoffs of small wind producers and also for decreasing carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present the analysis results on the feasibility and assessment of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) implementation across the seven Federal States of Somalia. Specifically, the research leads to defining the most important criteria used to evaluate different locations to establish SEZs, understanding the priorities and perceptions of different groups of stakeholders. Moreover, it allows quantitatively assess States' conditions to reduce the risk of wasted investment or unsuccessful development. Finally, it ranks alternatives based on the stakeholder perspectives and territorial realities. The analysis is based on a multi-criteria decision-making methodology, specifically on the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution. On a national basis, the most relevant criteria, in the view of stakeholders, are the availability of a skilled workforce. The "economic prosperity" and "financial investments and external aid" are the most critical gaps commonly perceived in all the States. The most applicable State to locate a Special Economic Zone is Banadir Regional Administration, which is perceived to be relatively better off concerning Environmental Conditions, Workforce Skills, Finance and External Aid, and Government Policies and Security. Moreover, the discrepancy between Banadir Regional Administration, but also Somaliland, and the other States is alarming, showing that the more advanced States are the ones that have a higher level of security, population, and also more reliable infrastructure. This information is vital for government and policymakers to support less developed countries' economic and social growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how aspects of national culture may shape the design and implementation of public policy, using the example of energy policy in China. It focuses on cognitive style and on political and legal culture. China’s energy policies display a combination of pragmatism, incrementalism, internal contradiction and ambiguity. This is consistent with evidence from experimental psychology and history that the development of Chinese and East Asian cognitive styles have taken a path distinct from those of Western civilizations with their Greek philosophical heritage. These variations of cognitive style between cultures are reflected in brain function and genes. Policy implementation also bears features from imperial times in the political culture of China’s Communist Party and the contemporary legal system. These arguments reinforce existing calls for caution when seeking to transfer energy or other public policy approaches between countries with different cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unauthorized immigrants and immigration enforcement are once again at the center of heated public debates and reform agendas. This paper examines the importance of applying a subject-centered approach to understanding immigration noncompliance and to developing effective, ethical, and equitable immigration policies. In general, a subject-centered approach focuses on the beliefs, values, and perceptions of individuals whose behavior the law seeks to regulate. This approach has been widely used in non-immigration law contexts to produce a richer and more nuanced understanding of legal noncompliance. By contrast, the subject-centered approach has been an overlooked and underappreciated tool in the study of immigration noncompliance. This paper argues that a subject-centered understanding of why people obey or disobey the law has the potential to generate new insights that can advance public knowledge and inform public policy on immigration in a number of important ways. Specifically, the paper considers how the use of this approach might help us: (1) recognize the basic humanity and moral agency of unauthorized immigrants, (2) appreciate not only direct and immediate costs of immigration enforcement policies, but also their indirect and long-term costs, and (3) develop new and innovative strategies to achieving desired policy goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The distributional impact of the low-carbon transition is an increasingly important topic both for academics and policymakers. Quantifying where the costs and benefits fall can provide greater insight into the equity and cost-effectiveness of government policies, and improve our understanding of household investment decisions. This paper provides new evidence on the distribution of returns from energy efficiency measures both over time and across household-type. A range of econometric techniques are applied to a database of over four million households over an eight year period to quantify heterogeneity, persistence and how these factors impact the relative cost-effectiveness of measures. Results suggest that more deprived households experience lower energy savings, the difference persists over time, and that significantly heterogeneity may be present across levels of deprivation and income deciles that can not be explained by differences in baseline consumption. Measures have been largely cost-effective but savings are much lower than previous policy evaluations using ex-ante estimates would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is at present one of the most dynamic continents. It will play a key role in the next decades in relation to the growth of cities, and environmental conditions will be of primary importance. The structural lack of water and sanitation infrastructure affects the development of growing African cities. This paper analyses the status of the sanitation and drainage systems of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), a city with a structural lack and general deterioration of the existing infrastructure, and with high annual growth, which has contributed to increasing water demand and strained the water and sanitation system. In particular, the paper describes the water and sanitation conditions of the city, and examines three areas in the city that highlight the relation among the evolution of the city’s growth, sanitation system, and type of settlement. The analysis leads to three main findings. Firstly, urban planning and water management must find common ground and work closely together. Secondly, both on-site (boreholes, wells, on-site latrines, etc.) and off-site (pipes) systems should be considered for the provision and safe discharge of water. Finally, local governments need to take a major step in the water and sanitation sectors in relation to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanitation interventions routinely overlook the implications of secure tenure for investment on the part of households. Drawing upon primary field research in Dakar, this paper presents a citywide sanitation planning framework that combines existing sanitation planning approaches with householders’ investment logic as a function of their tenure security and status. The resulting framework, the Sanitation Cityscape, maps what is happening to faecal material on a citywide scale and why, thus providing a snapshot of the sanitation status of the city and a rationale for targeted interventions along the sanitation service chain. The paper offers an approach for policymakers and practitioners to narrow the decision-making process for citywide sanitation service provision. It aims to target urban sanitation interventions that are appropriate to the urban tenure mix, including non-networked systems, and a greater emphasis on widening the scope of sanitation service provision to include tenure-neutral operational activities, such as faecal sludge management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sanitation in India faces many challenges. Nearly 60 million people in urban areas lack access to improved sanitation arrangements, and more than two-thirds of wastewater is let out untreated into the environment, polluting land and water bodies. To respond to these environmental and public health challenges, urban India will need to address the full cycle of sanitation, i.e. universal access to toilets, with safe collection, conveyance and treatment of human excreta. This paper outlines these concerns, and highlights the need for focusing on access to water and the full cycle of sanitation for the urban poor, as fundamental to addressing the sanitation challenge. Priorities for policy and financing for urban sanitation in India are discussed, and the paper concludes with an examination of key policy initiatives in the last decade, assessing the extent to which these priorities are gaining attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NGO-firm partnerships have been well studied in the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Marano and Tashman 2012; Dahan et al. 2010; Oetzel and Doh 2009). However, these studies have generally limited their focus to Western multinationals and Western NGOs and, moreover, not by-and-large examine in depth the institutional settings under which either the firm or the NGO operates Building on recent institutional approaches to CSR (Brammer, Jackson, and Matten 2012; Kang and Moon 2012; Matten and Moon 2008), this paper examines how the institutional dynamics of several partnerships between Chinese firms and NGOs affect the manifestation of CSR (e.g. "implicit" vs. "explicit"). The paper also looks into how CSR and NGO-firm collaboration plays out within a changing state-corporatist framework in Chinese context (Unger and Chan 1995, 2008; Hsu and Hasmath forthcoming). The paper then argues 1) that the involvement of an NGO in the partnership reflects a changing institutional setting in China, and 2) that type and level of involvement of Chinese government institutions affects whether a given firm takes an "implicit" or an "explicit" approach to CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing concern about climate change and rising prices of fossil fuels has prompted governments to stimulate the development of renewables. The most common instrument is a feed-in tariff (FIT). This paper empirically tests whether or not FIT policies have been effective in encouraging the development of photovoltaic solar (PV), explicitly taking into account the structure and consistency of FITs. Panel data estimations are employed for 30 OECD member countries in the period 1990-2011. We find a positive effect of the presence of a FIT on the development of a country's added yearly capacity of PV per capita. This is in line with the results found in the existing literature. However, our study shows that the literature underestimates the potential impact of FITs, as the effect of a welldesigned FIT is much larger than the average effect of the currently applied FITs. Not only the height of the tariff is important, but also the duration of the contract and the absence/presence of a cap have an impact. We also show that consistency greatly affects the effectiveness of FITs. Consistency is especially important when the tariff of a FIT is low. The total effect of a FIT can be seven times larger if it is well designed. Our results are robust for differences between countries with respect to the availability of other policy instruments, the use of nuclear or hydro power and the level of CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity industry restructuring is only now beginning to focus on the role of utilities in distributed generation (DG). This paper examines whether, as restructuring unfolds, regulators may permit investor-owned distribution companies to own DG, and if so, under what terms. Concomitantly, the paper explores how ownership of DG by distribution companies impacts electricity restructuring. The paper concludes that regulated utilities should readily obtain approval to install DG on utility sites as long as the utility remains vertically integrated. Approval is also possible for vertically integrated or restructured utilities to provide DG at customer sites if it is shareholder-funded and connected on the customer's side of the meter. However, distribution company ownership of DG at utility sites or on the utility's side of the meter conflicts with electricity industry restructuring. Regulatory approval under restructuring is therefore highly problematical. Should regulatory approval be granted, the need to mitigate vertical market power is likely to precipitate the disaggregation of the distribution company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand what government mechanisms have allowed China's wind industry to grow as fast as it has over the past ten years. Instead of formal rules and regulations, this paper focuses on specific sets of institutional conditions that have been crucial in the process of high-speed implementation of wind energy in China. Specifically, fragmentation and centralisation, together with policy experimentation and policy learning, have been fundamental for policy flexibility and institutional adaptability. The paper illustrates that there are benefits and disadvantages to these characteristics, and that inherent qualities of China's governing system that lead to rapid growth overlap with those that lead to challenges in terms of quality and long-term performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities with their innovative capacity are key places to address critical climate, environmental and health challenges. Urban experimentations, such as Living Labs, can represent a starting point to reintroduce resources into the production cycle and reduce environmental impacts, embracing the paradigm of the circular economy (CE). According to recent studies, Living Labs at a city scale could generate significant environmental benefits, improvements in quality of life and positive impacts on citizens’ health.1 This paper aims at presenting the case of the Torino Living Lab on Sharing and Circular Economy (LLSC) to point out possible future scenarios of urban sustainable policies. The case study is analysed in five sections: (1) the description of the new permanent laboratory proposed by the City of Turin; (2) the past experiences of Living Labs in Turin; (3) the birth of LLSC and the involvement strategy; (4) the introduction of the eight admitted experimentations. In the light of the results collected, the last paragraph (5) came up with the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Treaths (SWOT) analysis in the LLSC. Eventually, it deals with the research question by offering a common ground for global and local policies focused on sustainability and CE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to study the changing relationship between news and public policies. It would address the changing modes of reporting along with changes in different strands in public policy, its instruments and actors. Conventional literature in the field provides a broader perspective related to news and public policy. It is claimed that "relationship between news coverage and the evolution of public policy is extremely circular," especially in regard to "who influences whom". The journalistic field may presume public policy as function of news, whereas, policymakers may assume otherwise, public policies make news. Finally, the paper argues that impact of media "matter, not just at the beginning but throughout the policy process." Hence, the study merits attention both at theoretical as well as substantive levels to problematize the relationship in Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how large youth populations in low- and middle-income countries, particularly those living in urban areas, are being demonized as potential threats to stability and development (the “youth bulge”). This negative perception is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as by neglecting or mistreating youth, they may become the very threats the proponents of the status quo fear most. In most of Africa, the majority are no longer in school, are unable to get jobs, often live in informal settlements and are out of touch with any organization at all. Meanwhile, national efforts to address their issues are confined to a ministry with minimal budget and influence. Usually, only small groups of the most educated, mainly male and older youth are reached, who are then hailed in international meetings as the creative resourceful leaders of tomorrow (or today). This paper argues that new, creative, holistic and youth-led programmes are needed to enable the majority of youth to participate as full citizens in the development of their communities and society as a whole. Young people need to have their own institutions at community level that provide a focus for their education, recreation and entrepreneurial activities, as well interaction with other organizations and involvement in and activism on issues that matter to them at local, national and international level. Such youth institutions should be supported by local as well as national governments, with sufficient funding and authority to ensure that youth are integrated and involved in all sectors. Africa’s development depends on it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]