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Abstract The need to invest in education becomes evident during difficult economic periods. Nevertheless, the lack of sufficient financial resources leads educational institutes to form competitive cost strategies. Despite the [...]

Process management has become one of the most discussed areas in business and academics. Porter (Competitive strategy, 2004) defined a company as a set of activities forming a value chain. [...]

Byline: Richard Eckersley (1) Keywords: Social indicators; Subjective wellbeing; Happiness; National progress; Human development Abstract: This article focuses on the contributions and, importantly, the limitations of subjective wellbeing (happiness/satisfaction) measures as indicators of broad population wellbeing and societal functioning. The popular practice of comparing happiness among countries gives a skewed view of how well their people are faring. Charting trends over time in happiness and mental health gives contradictory pictures of population wellbeing even the responses to different questions within the same survey can yield very different findings. Asking people about their own lives and about social conditions produces contrasting results. These issues challenge the orthodox model of human development, which places Western liberal democracies at its leading edge. According to an alternative, psychosocial-dynamics, model, some, at least, may be societies in decline. Reconciling these views is no simple matter. Author Affiliation: (1) National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia Article History: Registration Date: 06/10/2008 Received Date: 30/09/2008 Accepted Date: 05/10/2008 Online Date: 19/10/2008 Article note: This article develops themes presented in a closing address to the First Australian Positive Psychology and Wellbeing Conference, Sydney, 6 April, 2008.

Byline: Panagiotis G. Liargovas (1), Georgios Fotopoulos (2) Keywords: Socioeconomic indicators; Convergence; Quality of life; Greece Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to use socioeconomic indicators for analyzing convergence within Greece at regional (NUTS II) and prefecture levels (NUTS III) since 1960. We use two alternative approaches. The first one is based on the coefficient of variation and the second one on quality of life rankings. We confirm the decline of regional inequalities in Greece, with the exclusion of the 1980s. Regions with increased tourist and trade activity are also regions with high quality of life. Border regions are usually the laggards of social and economic development. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, University of Peloponnese, Tripolis, Greece (2) Department of Economics, University of Patras, Patras, Greece Article History: Registration Date: 25/08/2008 Received Date: 09/12/2007 Accepted Date: 25/08/2008 Online Date: 12/09/2008

Byline: Daniel S. Hamermesh (1) Author Affiliation: (1) University of Texas at Austin, IZA and NBER, Austin, TX, USA Article History: Registration Date: 04/11/2008 Accepted Date: 01/08/2008 Online Date: 12/12/2008

Byline: Sreenivasan Subramanian (1) Keywords: Level-sensitivity; Shorrocks poverty index; Deprivation profile; Headcount ratio Abstract: It is often argued that indicators of achievement or deprivation should be measured such that they display a property of 'level-sensitivity', whereby a given change in the indicator acquires a greater significance the higher (lower) the level of achievement (deprivation) at which the change occurs. In this note, it is shown that a level-sensitive headcount ratio of poverty can be derived from an application of the very useful graphical device called 'a deprivation profile' advanced by Anthony Shorrocks (in: Jenkins et al. (eds.) The Distribution of Welfare and Household Production: International Perspectives, 1996). Author Affiliation: (1) Madras Institute of Development Studies, 79, Second Main Road, Gandhinagar, Adyar, Chennai, 600 020, Tamil Nadu, India Article History: Registration Date: 23/10/2007 Received Date: 25/09/2007 Accepted Date: 23/10/2007 Online Date: 06/11/2007

Abstract This study measures cost inefficiency of Kansas public school districts and applied both mathematical programming and stochastic frontier approach. The empirical study uses two-stage data envelopment analysis model and [...]

Byline: Matt Vassar (1) Keywords: Life satisfaction; Reliability generalization; Meta-analysis; Satisfaction With Life Scale; SWLS; Psychometric Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to meta-analytically investigate the score reliability for the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Four-hundred and sixteen articles using the measure were located through electronic database searches and then separated to identify studies which had calculated reliability estimates from their own data. Sixty-two articles met this criterion, providing 76 reliability coefficients. The articles comprising the sample were next coded to identify potential sample or test characteristics that might affect the variation in reliability estimates. Results indicate that score standard deviation, mean, percent female, US samples, English test version, and youth samples demonstrated significant relationships with score reliability. Results from this study provide useful information, in terms of scale performance, for researchers interested in using the measure for future academic endeavors. Author Affiliation: (1) College of Osteopathic Medicine, Oklahoma State University, 1111 W. 17th St, Tulsa, OK, 74107, USA Article History: Registration Date: 13/04/2007 Received Date: 02/12/2006 Accepted Date: 06/04/2007 Online Date: 11/05/2007

Byline: Amal Kanti Ray (1) Keywords: Social indicators; Composite index of development; PQLI; HDI; Social development index (SDI) Abstract: PQLI and HDI are the two most popular measures of development, besides per capita income. Over the years, PQLI appears to be not much in use for regional comparisons, especially after the introduction of HDI. While PQLI considers only the physical variables--adult literacy, life expectancy at birth and infant survival rate, HDI has life expectancy at birth, educational attainment and real GDP per capita (PPP$). PQLI and HDI are similar, the main difference between the two being the inclusion of income in HDI and exclusion of the same from PQLI. In a sense, HDI represents both physical and financial attributes of development and PQLI has only the physical aspects of life. The present author took the lines of PQLI to express development in terms of physical variables and considering development as a multidimensional phenomenon, Ray (1989) [Ray, A. K. (1989). On the measurement of certain aspects of social development, Social Indicators Research (Vol. 21, pp. 35--92). The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.] included as many as 13 physical variables to represent social development across 40 countries no financial variable was included in the construction of composite index, termed as the Social Development Index, SDI. Incidentally, like PQLI, SDI was introduced before HDI. Unlike PQLI and HDI, SDI considers (i) a large number of indicators representing various concern areas and (ii) a set of objective methods for combining the development indicators as a composite index. Ray (1989) has been restated and updated in this article with newer cross-country information. In the present study, SDI has been constructed for over 102 countries, including 21 OECD countries, using 10 development indicators, instead of 13 indicators in the past. Apart from presenting objective methods for combining indicators into SDI, the present study asserts that SDI works better than HDI as a measure of development for an international comparison. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Statistical Analysis and Computer Analysis, Reserve Bank of India, C8 Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra(E), Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400 051, India Article History: Registration Date: 07/02/2007 Received Date: 18/11/2006 Accepted Date: 07/02/2007 Online Date: 17/03/2007 Article note: The views expressed in the article are those of the author and not of the institution he serves.

Byline: Yew-Kwang Ng (1) Keywords: Happiness; Life satisfaction; Subjective well-being; National success indicators; Green GDP; Environmental costs; Happy life years; Happy planet index Abstract: Amidst increasing attention to happiness studies by economists, the New Economics Foundation launched in July 2006 the Happy Planet Index (Marks et al. 2006). This is the ratio of the average happy life years (HLY) to the per capita ecological footprint of the country concerned. HLY is in turn the product of the average happiness (or life satisfaction) index and the life expectancy index. Some essential revisions to this index are proposed to reach an internationally acceptable national success indicator that aims positively at long and happy lives but negatively at the external costs of environmental disruption. Hopefully, this 'environmentally responsible happy nation index' will lead to some re-orientation of both the market and national governments towards something more fundamentally valuable. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economics, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Australia Article History: Registration Date: 25/04/2007 Received Date: 19/10/2006 Accepted Date: 25/04/2007 Online Date: 05/07/2007 Article note: A keynote speech based on this paper was presented at the 4th Biennial Conference of the Hong Kong Economic Association on 15 Dec. 2006.

Byline: Bruce Headey (1) Keywords: well-being; set-point theory; panel data Abstract: An adequate theory of happiness or subjective well-being (SWB) needs to link at least three sets of variables: stable person characteristics (including personality traits), life events and measures of well-being (life satisfaction, positive affects) and ill-being (anxiety, depression, negative affects). It also needs to be based on long-term data in order to account for long-term change in SWB. By including personality measures in the 2005 survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) became the first available dataset to provide long-term evidence about personality and change in one key measure of SWB, namely life satisfaction. Using these data, the paper suggests major revisions to the set-point theory of SWB revisions which seek to account for long-term change. Previously, theory focused on evidence that individuals have their own set-point of SWB and revert to that set-point once the psychological impact of major life events has dissipated. But the new SOEP panel data show that significant minorities record substantial and apparently permanent upward or downward changes in life satisfaction. The paper aims to explain why most people's SWB levels do not change, but why a minority do. The main new result, which must be regarded as tentative until replicated, is that the people most likely to record large changes in life satisfaction are those who score high on the personality traits of extraversion (E) and/or neuroticism (N). These people in a sense 'roll the dice' more often than others and so have a higher than average probability of recording long-term changes. Data come from the 3130 SOEP respondents who rated their life satisfaction every year from 1985 onwards, among whom 2843 also completed a set of questions about their personality in 2005. Author Affiliation: (1) University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia Article History: Registration Date: 25/04/2007 Received Date: 02/10/2006 Accepted Date: 25/04/2007 Online Date: 07/07/2007

Byline: Grace Yao (1), Chia-huei Wu (1), Cheng-ta Yang (1) Keywords: Content validity; The WHOQOL-BREF Abstract: Content validity, the extent to which a measurement reflects the specific intended domain of content, is a basic type of validity for a valid measurement. It was usually examined qualitatively and relied on experts' subjective judgments, not on respondents' responses. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to introduce and demonstrate how to use quantitative methods to examine the content validity for a certain measurement from respondents' viewpoint with quantitative methods. In the current study, content validity of the WHOQOL-BREF was examined with quantitative methods among 102 undergraduate students and 128 community adults. They were asked to rate the appropriateness of each item with the four domains of the WHOQOL-BREF respectively and also asked to sort the items into the four domains. Then, three quantitative methods on examining content validity were applied to analyze the rating and sorting data, including (1) proportion of substantive agreement, (2) substantive validity, and (3) ANOVA approach. These results were used to compare with the original content structure of the WHOQOL-BREF, to see if the original structure is consistent with the structure of subjects' judgments. The results showed that the content structure gained from appropriateness rating and item sorting was not totally consistent with the original content structure of the WHOQOL-BREF. Among 24 items, 12 items did not have adequate content validity. More discussion on these items and the issue of content validity were further provided. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, Taiwan Article History: Registration Date: 13/04/2007 Received Date: 16/11/2006 Accepted Date: 06/04/2007 Online Date: 17/05/2007

Byline: Luis Delfim Santos (1), Isabel Martins (2) Abstract: This paper describes the monitorin g system of the urban quality of life developed by the Porto City Council, a new tool being used to support urban planning and management. The two components of this system -- a quantitative approach based on statistical indicators and a qualitative analysis based on the citizens' perceptions of the conditions of life -- are presented. The strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches adopted in the project are reviewed. It is argued that, in order to achieve a deeper understanding and more effective measurement of urban quality of life, both kinds of measurements are useful and complement each other. Author Affiliation: (1) Faculty of Economics, University of Porto and CEMPRE, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-464, Porto, Portugal (2) Studies and Planning Department, Porto City Council, Portugal Article History: Registration Date: 11/01/2006 Accepted Date: 10/01/2006 Online Date: 04/08/2006

This paper examines fraudulent financial reporting within the context of Jones' (1991) ethical decision making model. It was hypothesized that quantitative materiality would influence judgments of the ethical acceptability of fraud, and that both materiality and financial risk would affect the likelihood of committing fraud. The results, based on a study of CPAs employed as senior executives, provide partial support for the hypotheses. Contrary to expectations, quantitative materiality did not influence ethical judgments. ANCOVA results based on participants' estimates of the likelihood that a 'typical CPA' would manipulate reported results indicated that both materiality and risk significantly influenced the likelihood of fraud, but that the perceived morality of the action did not. In contrast, results based on participants' self-reported behavior indicated that materiality and the perceived morality of the action would influence the likelihood of fraud, but that financial risk would not. Regardless of the measure used for the likelihood of fraud, the results indicate that financial executives continue to be influenced by quantitative materiality when misstatements are clearly material on qualitative grounds.

Byline: Robert J. Barro (1) Keywords: growth; technology; Solow Abstract: Growth accounting breaks down economic growth into components associated with changes in factor inputs and the Solow residual, which reflects technological progress and other elements. After a presentation of the standard model, the analysis considers dual approaches to growth accounting (which considers changes in factor prices rather than quantities), spillover effects and increasing returns, taxes, and multiple types of factor inputs. Later sections place the growth-accounting exercise within the context of two recent strands of endogenous growth theory--varieties-of-products models and quality-ladders models. Within these settings, the Solow residual can be interpreted in terms of measures of the endogenously changing level of technology. Author Affiliation: (1) Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 Article History: Registration Date: 14/10/2004

Land use change is one of the key reasons for the rise in global carbon emissions. Incorporating practical methods for carbon governance into the major strategic decisions of countries around the world is important for controlling carbon emissions. This study aims to carry out a regional land use carbon budget assessment and build a carbon balance zoning optimization framework. As a result, China will be better able to implement low-carbon strategies and reach carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Using the data of land use and energy consumption for Henan Province from 2000 to 2020, a carbon budget assessment system was constructed. According to the analysis of the geographical distribution of carbon budget, an evaluation system was developed and a carbon balance partition was established from the natural, economic, ecological and resource structure. A regionally differentiated development strategy was proposed. The findings revealed that: (1) Land use carbon emissions of Henan Province reflected a significant increasing trend, while the variation in carbon absorption of land use was stable. Carbon emissions increased by 87,120.25×10 4 t in 2020 compared to 2000, but the carbon absorption remained at approximately 1735×10 4 t over the years and there was an overall state of carbon deficit. (2) The geographical distribution of carbon emissions in Henan Province was characterized by higher in the central part and lower in the surroundings, and the distribution of carbon absorption was higher in the west and lower in the east. The distribution pattern was closely related to the level of land use and the structure of energy consumption. (3) From the carbon balance analysis, the 158 counties in Henan Province were divided into four carbon balance functional areas, namely the carbon sink functional area, low-carbon development area, carbon intensity control area, and high-carbon optimization area. Different optimized development strategies were proposed for each functional area., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As a fundamental component of human existence, land is inextricably linked to human development, and its ecological functions are closely associated with multiple sustainable development goals. This paper presents a framework for constructing and optimizing ecological function space, with the Yangtze-to-Huaihe Water Diversion Project area serving as a case study. A comprehensive land ecological index system is established, encompassing natural foundation, land degradation, land production, ecological structure, and ecological protection. An identity-discrepancy-contrary connection method is employed to investigate changes in regional land ecological functions before (2013) and during (2017, 2020, and 2022) the project's construction based on remote sensing data. The results indicated that the mean values of the land ecological index for each period were 0.1883, 0.1981, 0.2253, and 0.1370, respectively. The study calculated the connection, differences, and contradictions in the land ecological impacts across the counties, revealing a gradual decrease in differences and a growing prominence of contradictions. The land ecology of the Yangtze-to-Huaihe Water Diversion Project area is affected by the project construction, particularly within the construction area, showing an overall improvement. Most counties exhibited a trend of ecological improvement compared to the land ecology before the project's construction. However, after the project implementation, most districts demonstrated a trend of ecological deterioration. As the distance from the construction canal increases, the characteristics of each section and stage vary, generally exhibiting an exponential decrease in the land ecological index. The study highlighted the significance of enhancing the land ecological pattern, improving water quality, increasing water supply along the project, and alleviating groundwater overexploitation. The study can serve as a reference for land ecological protection and restoration in water transfer areas and river basins worldwide., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The Chinese government seeks to promote economic growth and sustainable development while achieving carbon neutrality by establishing phased smart city pilots. Therefore, it is important to study whether smart city pilots can promote carbon emission efficiency (CEE). This paper constructs a multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model based on panel data from 241 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2019, aiming to investigate the mechanism of the impact of smart city pilot policies (SCPP) on CEE and whether there is a rebound effect. The study found that smart city construction (SCC) significantly improves carbon efficiency, with pilot cities increasing their CEE by 1.4% compared to non-pilot cities. The conclusions remain robust under a variety of scenarios including the introduction of placebo tests, counterfactual tests, sample data screening, and omitted variable tests. The results of the mechanism test show that although the rebound effect can inhibit the improvement of CEE, the environment can be improved and the CEE can be enhanced through green technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading, energy structure optimization, environmental regulation effect, information technology support, and resource allocation effect. The heterogeneity results indicate that the SCPP is more effective in promoting CEE in cities in the eastern region, southern cities, environmentally friendly cities, large cities, and medium-sized cities. This study contributes to the existing literature in clarifying the environmental benefits of SCPP and provides valuable policy insights for cities to address climate change and sustainable development., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Achieving the national emission reduction targets requires joint efforts of all jurisdictions, whose sustainable development is affected by complex economic and environmental interactions among regions. An interregional environmental assessment (IREA) framework is constructed for China using multiregional input-output techniques to unravel the carbon emission connections behind interregional economic activities. Then, consumption-based emission accounting is applied in sustainability assessment, in comparison with production-based environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) tests to examine the role of regional connections in shaping EKC. Empirical results expose significant asymmetric CO 2 transfer among regions in China, where the Central and Western regions have become CO 2 haven for the Eastern region. EKC is valid at the national level and manifests marked regional differences between production- and consumption-based curves. The pollution haven effect alters the EKC curve by expediting the emission peak in the developed Eastern region while delaying it in the developing Western region. Thus, revisiting EKCs in the IREA framework reveals that ignoring interregional connections would lead to misleading results. Only when both production- and consumption-based EKCs transcend their turning points can we claim that environmental governance has ushered in a new era of sustainable development., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China is an extremely water-scarce country with an uneven distribution of regional water resources. We define two absolute sustainability indicators, using the multi-regional input‒output (MRIO) model to outline the contribution of China's physical and virtual water transfers in mitigating the problem of regional water boundary-exceeding. Although the overall use of freshwater resources is within the safe operation space, 55% of province's water resource development transgresses the local water planetary boundary. Physical and virtual water transfers effectively mitigate the stress of water supply to the water planetary boundary in China's water-scarce regions. Among them, the role of virtual water transfers occupies the main part. The cost of using physical water in water-receiving regions and the situation of virtual water flowing from water-scarce regions to developed water-rich regions cannot be ignored, and a small number of provinces are responsible for most of the virtual water net imports and exports. The obtained results are helpful for the redistribution of water planetary boundary transgressing responsibilities among provinces and the formulation of absolute sustainable water resources management policies., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper develops a process-level carbon emission calculation model for iron and steel enterprises through the carbon emission mechanism of the whole production process. The relationship between material, energy and carbon flows is considered and combined. The carbon emissions of enterprises are divided into industrial emissions and combustion emissions, and the indirect emissions of purchased intermediate products and electricity purchased from the grid are also considered. Carbon emission targets and corresponding emission reduction strategies are formulated at the enterprise and process levels. For example, consider an iron and steel enterprise. The different types of carbon emissions are accounted for, with their reduction potential analysed based on the carbon material flow analysis method. The results show that the carbon emission of this enterprise is 1930.87 kgCO 2 /t (CS), and the combustion emission caused by energy flow is the main contributor to the enterprise's carbon emission, accounting for 57.02% of the total emission. The carbon emission during iron-making accounts for 69.06% of the entire process and is critical in any carbon emission reduction of the enterprise. Among them, process emissions from the blast furnace process account for 81.79% of industrial emissions of the whole process, which is 356.51 kgCO 2 /t (CS), and is the main challenge of low carbon transformation in this extensive process. This study highlights that increasing the integrated steel-making scrap ratio and electric furnace steel production can break through the existing emission reduction limits. A 65.02% carbon emission reduction can be achieved, and using green electricity can reduce emissions by 24.15%. Reasonably determining the amount of purchased coke and paying attention to the high-value recycling of byproduct gas resources in the plant are essential to achieve low-carbon economic development of steel., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

An intellectual property demonstration city (IPDC) not only promotes innovation, but also brings many unexpected gains, the most prominent of which is carbon reduction. Unfortunately, few scholars have included IPDC and carbon emissions in a unified research framework, ignoring the role of intellectual property protection in environmental governance. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of IPDC on carbon emissions through a multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model, a spatial DID model, and a mediating effect model with IPDC policy as a quasi-natural experiment. The research results are as follows: (1) IPDC policy has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions. Compared to non-pilot cities, IPDC policy can reduce carbon emissions by about 20.6%. (2) There are temporal and regional heterogeneity of the IPDC policy on carbon emissions. More specifically, the carbon reduction effect of IPDC is more effective in large cities and cities with richer human capital, stricter environmental regulation, and higher financial development. Meanwhile, the policy effects in 2012 and 2015 are larger than those in 2018, while the policy effects in 2014, 2016, and 2019 are not significant. (3) IPDC policy reduces carbon emissions mainly by stimulating innovation and green innovation, and promoting R&D element agglomeration. (4) IPDC policy has obvious spatial spillover effects and leads to the surrounding cities becoming pollution havens. The above conclusions have implications for designing a better urbanization model to promote innovative development and reduce carbon emissions., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China's pulp and paper industry (CPPI) has been always the main carbon emission source in recent years. However, the analysis on influencing factors of carbon emissions from this industry is insufficient. To address the issue, the CO 2 emissions from CPPI are estimated in the period of 2005-2019, the driving factors of CO 2 emissions are investigated by the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, the decoupling state of economic growth and CO 2 emissions is determined by Tapio decoupling model, and finally, future CO 2 emissions are predicted under four scenarios by the STIRPAT model to explore the potential of carbon peaking. The results show that CPPI exhibits a rapid increase and a fluctuating downward trend in CO 2 emissions during the period of 2005-2013 and 2014-2019, respectively. The main promoting and inhibiting factors to the increase of CO 2 emission are per capita industrial output value and energy intensity, respectively. There are five decoupling states of CO 2 emissions and economic growth during the study period, and the CO 2 emissions exhibit a weak decoupling state with the industrial output value growth in most years of the study period. It is very difficult to realize the carbon peaking goal by 2030 under the baseline and fast development scenarios. Therefore, efficient low carbon and strong low-carbon development policies are necessary and urgent for the realization of carbon peaking goal and the sustainable development of CPPI., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Transportation sector has become a major contributor to the escalation of carbon emissions and subsequent climate change. In this study, a bibliometric analysis was conducted using CiteSpace on published papers (1991-2022). Then a theoretical framework was proposed through traditional content analysis from three aspects: measurement, mechanism analysis, and low-carbon pathways analysis. The clustering results show that the research topics have involved mainly factor analysis, evaluation, system analysis, control measurement and pollutants. A further summary of the content of the relevant literature shows that there are five main accounting methods for measuring transportation carbon emissions (TCEs), which can be applied to different scenarios. Studies involving the spatio-temporal distribution of TCEs is limited and mainly focus on macroperspectives. The mechanism of TCEs involves three main aspects: system assessment, efficiency measurement, and driver analysis, which serve to identify the internal patterns of TCEs. Finally, the outlook regarding TCEs is presented., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Based on the EORA input-output tables from 2006 to 2016, this paper divided 189 countries in the world into three economies (China, the USA, and other countries) and used the hypothetical extraction method to calculate the virtual water trade volume of the three economies in the Sino-US bilateral trade. Combining with the analysis of the global value chain, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) the virtual water trade volume exported by China and the USA showed an overall increasing trend. The virtual water trade volume exported by the USA was far less than that of China, but more virtual water was transferred through trade. (2) Compared with intermediate products, China's virtual water exports of final products were larger, but the USA was the opposite. (3) Among the three major industrial sectors, the secondary sector was the largest virtual water export sector in China, but it was the primary sector in the USA that had the largest volume of. (4) Bilateral trade had brought environmental disadvantages to China, but this situation was gradually improving., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Traditional Production-Based Accounting (PBA) principle does not consider the embodied carbon emissions in export and import trade. A multiregional input-output (MRIO) model is constructed to estimate the embodied carbon dioxide emissions of 41 countries and regions worldwide, based on the PBA and shared responsibility approach in this paper. The results indicate that the embodied carbon emissions in 2018 in China's export trade were 1326 million tons higher than that of import trade. China, India, and the USA have a different carbon coefficient in the 35 sectors, but electricity, gas, and water supply sectors are the largest coefficient for them. A reduction in carbon emission coefficient would contribute to a decrease in imports and exports. Through the empirical analysis of the embodied carbon emissions in China's import and export trade, it can be seen that China is a major producer of carbon emissions, not a consumer country, and has taken more carbon emissions responsibility for the world. The developed countries should take more shared carbon emission responsibility than the PBA. And it is more reasonable and impartial to assign developed and developing countries carbon emissions responsibility in the light of the shared responsibility method., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Carbon emissions embodied in anthropogenic activities represent the major cause of global warming. Countries, regions, and cities have implemented comprehensive, multi-level and multi-scale measures to reduce emissions and move towards carbon neutrality. The demand for carbon emission reduction (CER) is made more challenging by different geographical locations, country-owned natural resources, and economic development stages. The main objectives of this paper are to conduct a bibliometric analysis to map the frontiers and directions of CER and to explore the paths and development models of CER from the perspective of spatio-temporal, multi-scale, multi-sectoral, and multi-responsible subjects. This study reveals that carbon emission evaluation and prediction, correlation and causal relationship analysis, and CER-related policy simulation and optimization are the most critical hotspots. Additionally, we point out the shortcomings of and future developments for the three study dimensions above. The bibliometric analysis also highlights the fact that a cooperative global value chain as well as amendable policies and mechanisms for CER will help with climate change mitigation and adaptation through the use of advanced carbon capture and storage technologies. We review the technical measures for and policy responses to CER adopted by different countries and industries at the theoretical and practical levels and provide new recommendations. Our work provides important information for climate actions in different countries and sectors and for developing more effective CER strategies and policies., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The urgent global climate change situation forces the steel industry to confront enormous challenges and complex tasks. This research focuses on the steel sector and incorporates data from 56 nations between 2010 and 2018. We analyze the direct and indirect effects of the steel trade on CO 2 emissions using the spatial Durbin model. The results show that Moran's I ranges from 0.414 to 0.521, suggesting that carbon emissions are very spatially dependent. Developed countries such as Japan, Germany, and the USA form high-high agglomeration areas. In contrast, Brazil, Thailand, and India constitute low-low agglomeration areas. Under the three spatial weight matrices, the direct effect coefficients of steel exports are 0.045, 0.038, and 0.057, and the indirect effect coefficients are - 0.006, - 0.076, and - 0.015, indicating that steel exports increase local CO 2 emissions while decreasing carbon emissions in neighboring countries. Urbanization and per capita GDP have positive spatial spillover effects, while the spatial effect of R&D intensity is insignificant. Increased industrialization and renewable energy consumption positively affect carbon emission reduction in local and surrounding nations. The study provides empirical evidence for the steel industry to develop emission reduction strategies., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The present study major aim was to examine the impact of globalization, economic growth, population growth, renewable energy usage and nuclear energy on CO 2 emissions globally by taking the annual data varies from 1985 to 2020. Stationarity among study variables were tested via unit root testing, while nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) technique was used to demonstrate the linkages among variables with the estimation of long-run and short-run. Study results reveal that both in the short run and long run, negative globalization and economic growth shocks positively and negatively influence CO 2 emissions, respectively. Besides, higher population growth is found to positively influence CO 2 emissions while renewable energy consumption cannot influence the CO 2 emission figures. Lastly, positive and negative shocks to alternative nuclear energy consumption are evidenced to negatively influence CO 2 emissions both in the short run and long run. Hence, in line with these findings, several new policies and strategies are recommended for reducing carbon emissions globally., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Regional carbon emission paths have an important impact on the realization of China's carbon emission peak target. Due to the uncertainty of future development model, the change of carbon emissions will also face uncertainty, which will make achieving the peak target challenging. Taking Shandong, Henan, and Guangdong, three of China's most populous provinces, as examples, this study analyzed the impacts of uncertainties in carbon accounting principles, driving factors, and simulation mechanism on achieving the peak target. The results show that (1) under the baseline scenario, the accounting principles based on primary energy consumption and IPCC sector consumption will make the peaking time of Guangdong be evaluated as 2018 and 2030, respectively, and the simulation based on IPCC sector accounting will advance the peaking time of Shandong by at least 5 years, while Henan will be less affected. (2) When considering the impact of the energy structure, Guangdong and Henan are estimated to peak in 2011 and 2018, while without considering the impact of the energy structure, the peak in the two provinces may be after 2035. Energy structure has no effect on the estimation of peaking time for Shandong. In addition, the k value in the ridge regression method also has no effect on the peaking time for the three provinces; it only affects the simulations of annual carbon emissions. This study also presented the carbon emission trajectory under different scenarios; from the simulation results, environmental regulation measures such as accelerating industrial structure transformation and increasing energy consumption intensity may help to achieve the peak carbon emission target as soon as possible. It also suggests that uncertainty should be included in future carbon assessments to present a more complete carbon emission trajectory., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) model is applied to study Chinese national and regional power sector carbon emission changes through consumption side from 2003 to 2017, and regional power sector carbon emissions are estimated through the production and consumption accounting principle. The two-factor ANOVA and one-factor ANOVA are used to compare the differences of regional power sector carbon emissions through the two principles. In addition, the Tapio decoupling analysis model is used to investigate the decoupling state between carbon emissions of power sector and the corresponding driving forces through the consumption side. There are several results: (1) Through the two different principles, regional power sector carbon emissions are statistically significant, yet national power sector carbon emissions are not statistically significant; (2) the main factors contributing to the power sector carbon emission growth are economic scale effect and income level effect, and the main restraining factors are electricity consumption carbon intensity effect and production sector electricity intensity effect; (3) the highest contribution effect to the decoupling indexes between various influencing factors and power sector carbon emissions was scale effect, and technical effect had the second largest contribution value; (4) in 2003-2017, economic scale effect was the first significant factor causing the difference of regional power sector carbon emissions, followed by production sector electricity intensity effect and electricity consumption carbon intensity through the regional decomposition analysis. Finally, this paper gives some targeted suggestions for the low-carbon development of the power sector through national and regional perspectives., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Carbon emissions from tourism are an important indicator to measure the impact of tourism on environmental quality. As the world's largest industry, tourism has many related industries and is a strong driver of energy consumption. The emission reductions it can achieve will directly determine whether China's overall carbon emission reduction target can be met. This paper analyzes the drivers of the evolution of carbon emissions from the tourism industry in China over the period 2000-2017 as a research sample using the Generalized Dividing Index Method (GDIM), and on this basis, it uses scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation to predict the carbon peak in tourism for the first time. The research results show that the scale of industry and energy consumption are the key factors leading to increased tourism carbon emissions, and the carbon intensity of tourism industry, energy consumption carbon intensity, investment efficiency, and energy intensity are the main factors leading to reduced carbon emissions from tourism. The scale of investment and the carbon intensity of investment have a dual effect; the scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation used to predict peak carbon in China's tourism industry show that the peak carbon will occur approximately in 2030. The government needs to further guide and encourage the tourism industry to increase investment activities targeting energy conservation and emission reduction. Under the conditions of strictly implementing energy conservation and emission reduction measures and vigorous promotion of the transformation and upgrading of tourism development methods, the tourism industry will have considerable potential to reduce carbon emissions., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Deforestation and forest degradation are among the leading global concerns, as they could reduce the carbon sink and sequestration potential of the forest. The impoundment of Kenyir River, Hulu Terengganu, Malaysia, in 1985 due to the development of hydropower station has created a large area of water bodies following clearance of forested land. This study assessed the loss of forest carbon due to these activities within the period of 37 years, between 1972 and 2019. The study area consisted of Kenyir Lake catchment area, which consisted mainly of forests and the great Kenyir Lake. Remote sensing datasets have been used in this analysis. Satellite images from Landsat 1-5 MSS and Landsat 8 OLI/TRIS that were acquired between the years 1972 and 2019 were used to classify land uses in the entire landscape of Kenyir Lake catchment. Support vector machine (SVM) was adapted to generate the land-use classification map in the study area. The results show that the total study area includes 278,179 ha and forest covers dominated the area for before and after the impoundment of Kenyir Lake. The assessed loss of carbon between the years 1972 and 2019 was around 8.6 million Mg C with an annual rate of 0.36%. The main single cause attributing to the forest loss was due to clearing of forest for hydro-electric dam construction. However, the remaining forests surrounding the study area are still able to sequester carbon at a considerable rate and thus balance the carbon dynamics within the landscapes. The results highlight that carbon sequestration scenario in Kenyir Lake catchment area shows the potential of the carbon sink in the study area are acceptable with only 17% reduction of sequestration ability. The landscape of the study area is considered as highly vegetated area despite changes due to dam construction., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Resource endowment and economic development of different provinces in China vary greatly, resulting in large amount of CO 2 transfers. We need further exploration to help decision makers allocate emission responsibilities reasonably. We construct China's embodied CO 2 transfer network (CTN) in 2012 from the perspective of provinces and sectors based on multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model and complex network analysis. The key CO 2 transfer nodes and paths, final demand decomposition, topological structure, clustering characteristics, and influencing factors are analyzed. The results show that the average CO 2 transfer length from one province (sector) to another is only 1.323 (1.584). The top three net CO 2 importers (45.39% of the total), located in developed eastern coastal area, mainly import CO 2 from energy-rich but underdeveloped provinces such as Heilongjiang. It presents a CO 2 transfer pattern from north to south and from west to east. CO 2 transfer in energy industry is mainly driven by urban household consumption. Non-adjacent provinces with distance greater than 750 km have no significant spillover effect and difference in technology level has the greatest impact on CTN. This work is important for differentiating the roles of provinces and sectors in CTN, guiding the allocation of carbon credits and controlling total CO 2 emissions.

Byline: Alejandro Caparros (1) Abstract: We set out a dynamic model to investigate optimal time paths of emissions, carbon stocks and carbon sequestration by land conversion, allowing for non-instantaneous carbon sequestration. Previous research in a dynamic general equilibrium framework, assuming instantaneous carbon sequestration, has shown that land conversion should take place as soon as possible. On the contrary, previous research within a partial equilibrium framework has shown that, with increasing carbon prices, it is optimal to delay carbon sequestration through land conversion. We show that land use change alternatives, e.g. reforestation, have to be used as soon as possible before the singular path is reached, i.e. the unique trajectory that brings the system to the steady-state. We also show that faster increasing carbon prices can induce a reduction in the rate of reforestation, and that this may take place after an initial phase of increased reforestations or even immediately, depending upon the shape of the increase in carbon prices. Finally, we show that the type of species used is relevant and that the land conversion rate gets smaller the longer it takes the trees to grow. We analyze four different carbon accounting methods, describing the conditions that make them efficient and discussing the comparative advantages of each of them. Author Affiliation: (1) Institute for Public Goods and Policies (IPP), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Albasanz 26, Madrid, 28037, Spain Article History: Registration Date: 12/06/2009 Received Date: 02/06/2008 Accepted Date: 08/06/2009 Online Date: 23/07/2009

This paper argues that independent auditors have lost sight of their obligation to be truly impartial, and have increasingly adopted an attitude of client advocacy. We argue that auditors have a professional obligation to go beyond merely passing judgment on whether client accounting methods are acceptable under GAAP, and to judge whether the principles adopted are the most appropriate under the circumstances. We then review recent evidence which suggests that auditors have abandoned this objective in favor of advocating client-preferred principles. The results of a survey of public accountants employed by small CPA firms indicates that, in a scenario in which an auditor did not feel that the client's accounting treatment was the most appropriate under the circumstances but it was recognized as an acceptable alternative under GAAP, advocacy of the client-preferred approach is considered appropriate and is very likely to occur in practice. In less subtle cases (e.g., when the auditor did not feel that the client's treatment provided the best reflection of the economic substance of the underlying transactions), survey participants as a group were ambivalent regarding the appropriateness of client advocacy, and felt that subordination of judgment was likely to occur in practice. The results also indicate that engagement risk, or the risk that the firm will be harmed by aggressive behavior, affects judgments of both the appropriateness and likelihood of subordination of judgment. These findings suggest that auditors have adopted an ideology of client advocacy, within the constraints of engagement risk. KEY WORDS: subordination of judgment, auditor independence, client advocacy

Conceptualizing environmental problems as sustainability problems contributing to local and global environmental change requires an understanding of how societies cope with their natural environment. Indicators for society--nature interactions are fairly well developed for national-level analyses. This study adapts some of these indicators to the local level and relates them to a qualitative assessment of economic and cultural change in a single community Indicators are derived from material and energy flow accounting methods and address two major objectives: Firstly, to identify mutual influences between the global and the local level. Secondly, to assess future potentials of environmental pressures and impacts that can be expected to occur as such communities follow a path of further modernization. This study of a small rice-farming community in Northeast Thailand deals with physical as well as sociocultural aspects in order to produce a broad picture of society--nature relations. The indicators developed p ortray a society in the midst of transition and rapid modernization. This becomes apparent when comparing the results to those of similar studies in traditional and industrial societies. What we see is a community struggling to adapt to global influences, while at the same time maintaining subsistence with traditional coping mechanisms. KEY WORDS: Southeast Asia; Thailand; society-nature relations; labor; socioeconomic metabolism; material flows; energy flows; colonization of natural processes.

The development of a sales forecasting system involves three major steps. The first step is to obtain prior sales data and to identify the model that will best forecast the patterns that exist in the data. The second step is to estimate parameter values for the selected model by analyzing the prior sales data. The third step is to test the accuracy of the model by use of the prior sales data. Each of the steps requires use of prior data. In all three steps, there is a basic assumption that the past data represent some underlying process that can be identified and modeled. In some cases the past data may not represent the underlying process, and the forecasting process is seriously distorted. Some frequent causes of distorted data are (1) accounting methods that are used to record or collect the data, (2) marketing tactics such as promotions which create outliers, (3) limits on production capacity that cause stockouts. This paper looks at events and actions that may distort data used for sales forecasting and at the resulting impact the events and actions may have on forecasting accuracy. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)