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How people pay is critically important to consumers and businesses alike. Many consumers are choosing to pay for goods and services from an increasing number of options. Tech‐savvy urbanites buy coffee by tapping their phone on a reader. Parents returning from a night out use peer‐to‐peer payment apps, such as Venmo, to pay the sitter. The recent explosion of financial innovations promises faster, more efficient, and cheaper transactions. These increasing digital payment options coincide with decreased number and volume of cash transactions. However, vulnerable populations face more constrained payment choices and often rely exclusively on cash. Without experience, devices, or acceptable credit histories, vulnerable populations may have little access to digital transactions. The advantages of falling digital costs and other benefits thus accrue to the digitally connected. At the same time, those who must transact in coins and paper money are likely to find their relative costs increasing. This paper highlights payment trends and the potential impact on vulnerable populations in the United States as we move toward a cashless society. This paper should stimulate discussions of public policy initiatives to mitigate digital payment issues for vulnerable people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the sustainable raw materials that are used for gift wrapping during the Christmas seasons in Great Britain. It mentions that Professor Chris Carr reveals more possibilities that turkey and duck feathers or even sheep droppings may be used to develop Christmas wrapping paper. It also notes the British government's statistics which encourages recycling in the country.

In 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) as part of the NIH Roadmap Initiative, in order to improve the conduct and impact of NIH's clinical and translational research portfolio. The CTSA program is intended not only to transform the training programs and research infrastructure at individual academic institutions, but also to create a nation-wide collaborative consortium to transform the biomedical research enterprise. In January 2009, the NIH CTSA National Consortium adopted Strategic Goals to maximize the CTSAs' impact on the Nation's healthcare and health. Of these, the CTSA Strategic Goal 4 is to promote the translation of the results of clinical and translational research into practice and public policy. To advance this goal, a committee was constituted to focus on the organization and development of the CTSA Consortium's comparative effectiveness research (CER) capacity, an increasingly important component of research translation into practice and policy. This Committee's Workgroups took on a number of deliverables in service of this objective, including producing this White Paper on how the CTSA Consortium might best facilitate CER, for NIH's Institutes and Centers (ICs), other Federal agencies, outside stakeholders, and the healthcare system overall. This White Paper offers some specific suggestions for how the CTSA Consortium might support this emerging and crucial national effort to generate, synthesize, and disseminate CER in order to improve healthcare decision-making and health outcomes. Important points of reference for this White Paper are two Congressionally mandated reports on CER released at the end of June 2009, one by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and another by the Federal Coordinating Council for CER (FCC-CER). The definitions of CER by each report, and their recommendations for the CER enterprise, are highly germane to the purpose of this CTSA Consortium White Paper. The CER definition used in the IOM Report was, "The generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care. The purpose of CER is to assist patients, clinicians, purchasers, policy makers, and the public to make informed decisions that will improve health care at both the individual and population levels."… [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information about the emerging discourse incubator (EDI) which focuses on the government regulation, public policy and intersection of the supply chain management. Topics mention including the nomological network, academic supply chain journals and issues facing the supply chain management.

The article presents a call for papers on such topics as supply chain management (SCM), as well as public policy and government regulation (PPGR) and the political dynamics of rulemaking processes.

Introduction: Research with young people (YP) is ethically challenging and bound in a complex maze of issues relating to power, voice and representation. Such sensitivities mean that the challenges raised in researching marginalised YP are often hard to navigate. This paper reports on research carried out with YP to explore links between mental health, school exclusion and involvement in criminal gangs. It aims to provide a practical guide to negotiating some of the methodological and ethical challenges experienced. Method: In‐depth interviews conducted with 28 YP (aged 14–24 years) who were gang involved or seen to be at risk of gang involvement. Research was conducted in youth clubs, alternative provision and youth justice settings. Results: Observations/Reflections We reflect on how navigating ethics can create barriers to involving YP as primary informants in research. We consider why it is important to overcome these hurdles and how public engagement work with recognised gatekeepers and the use of creative interview methods can facilitate meaningful encounters, where YP feel able to share valuable insights into their lives. Conclusion: Alongside a number of specific learning points, the paper reflects on theories behind research with YP, including the need for recognition of power imbalances and reflexivity. It concludes with thoughts on the practical realities of achieving meaningful participation or an 'authentic voice' with marginalised groups and the importance of this in informing policy and practice. Patient or Public Contribution: The focus of this work was to collect experiences of YP who are recognised as gang‐involved or at risk of being so, with a view to informing health and education policies. The scoping study for the project involved extensive public engagement work with YP exploring and trialling suitable methods of accessing, recruiting and ultimately interviewing this target group. This is central to the discussion within the body of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holistic Flexibility is a conceptual lens in systems thinking that enables intellectual, emotional and tactical elasticity in systems practice. This paper will demonstrate Holistic Flexibility in practice in an NGO setting to design and implement a programme to address the widening gap between government policy and its implementation. Critical Systems Heuristics was chosen as the preferred methodology, strengthened with two methods from two other systems methodologies—CATWOE (a mnemonic for Customers, Actors, Transformation, Worldview, Owners, Environment) from Soft Systems Methodology and issues (assumption) rating method from Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing. Following a participative programme design exercise, two phases were identified. The strategy, implementation and impact of phase 1, which covered work undertaken between the period 2018 and 2020, is provided. Phase 2 was under consideration at the time of writing this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 31st December 2020, The National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released a list of 65 international scientific journals, all of them indexed by the Web of Science, that were said to be potentially in conflict with academic rigour. The list immediately influenced the publication patterns of Chinese researchers. A year later, on 31st December 2021, CAS released a revised and reduced list of 35 questionable journals and said the publishers in the meantime had reacted constructively and improved the procedures of their journals. This study aims to provide an understanding of the motivations and criteria behind the list, partly by reviewing Chinese policy documents and public debates, partly with a quantitative analysis to detect the relative importance of the criteria used to select the journals for the list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue is based on a selection of papers initially presented at the conference on "Resilience and the Third Sector" (Institute of Public Sector Accounting Research, University of Edinburgh, November 2022). The third sector is pervasive in most societies and makes a distinctive and widely‐recognized contribution to the public good by building social capital, frequently affording a foundation for social cohesiveness. However, it is a fragile sector that is significantly affected by crises (the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune). These have the potential to curtail the capacity of third‐sector organizations (TSOs) to deliver societal benefits and, in the most extreme cases, even threaten their survival. Given this, the resilience of TSOs (albeit this term has multiple layers and manifold meanings) is critical. This paper explores a range of connotations linked to third‐sector resilience and explores contemporary evidence (including the papers in this Special Issue) as to how the sector identifies, manages, and learns from crises. In addition, it provides a brief outline research agenda as a basis for encouraging researchers to focus on resilience in TSOs and enhance knowledge. It is argued that more rigorous, evidence‐based research of this nature has the potential to positively influence practice in the sector, as well as policy formulation by government and others who steer TSOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents criticism on researcher John W. Kindt's article "The Costs of Addicted Gamblers: Should the States Initiate Mega-Lawsuits Similar to the Tobacco Cases?" The primary criterion for inclusion of citations in Kindt's article is whether the materials support his position on the high social costs of gambling, especially casino gaming as opposed to whether the underlying research is competent or valid. Since Kindt wants to argue a position that is supported by very little refereed research, most of his citations are either from his own prior writings, from unpublished papers, presentations, or hearings, or from newspaper or magazine articles; There is little mainstream research cited, probably because it does not pass the ideological test of conforming to Kindt's convictions. There is little interest exhibited by the author in acknowledging any information that might run counter to his thesis that gambling is a very bad activity that has been thrust on to an unsuspecting and naive public by a clever gambling establishment particularly skilful at such deception. On the other hand, Kindt has little difficulty citing individuals who are in agreement with his beliefs.

In the current climate of welfare reform, it is important to understand how perceptions of the poor affect policy decisions. This paper examines how people distinguish between the undeserving poor and the deserving poor, and how this differentiation affects policy decisions. Survey respondents rated each policy in a set of hypothetical policies on a liberal-conservative continuum. Analyses were then conducted to explore differences in the respondents' likelihood of recommending the most liberal and the most conservative of these policies. Study I demonstrated that liberal policies were more likely to be recommended and conservative policies were less likely to be recommended when the target group was perceived to be deserving rather than undeserving. Study 2 replicated this effect of perceived deservingness and demonstrated an effect of attribution of responsibility. That is, liberal policies were more likely to be recommended and conservative policies were less likely to be recommended when the responsibility for the target's poverty was attributed to society rather than to the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period when the British Educational Research Association (BERA) was founded was one in which there was an increasing recognition amongst the research community that a wind of change had stirred up the settled traditions of educational research. It was a time which celebrated the promise of alternative paradigms for research. Ten or so years on we are entering another era where the emphasis is not on the reconceptualisation of what research is but on how it is organised. I think one can discern at least two factors, not wholly separate from each other, that will increasingly influence how a substantial part of research will be organised. These two factors are the changes which have taken place in the composition of the research community and the direction of current Government policy concerning the school system. I aim to show how these are leading to a fruitful form of collaborative research at local level which should be encouraged and supported—not least by BERA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over two decades, the literature has characterized contemporary Western societies as audit societies. These societies are characterized by an approach to governance that is shaped by the idea and practice of auditing. This paper shows that with regard to public governance, the audit society has started to give way to a program of government innovation, or what we theorize to be the emergence of a new form of society: the innovation society. The paper builds this theorization on a longitudinal case study of the past 40 years of Danish central government administrative policy developments with a focus on internal auditing. The paper shows that internal auditing has transitioned from being a macro actor of public governance to becoming a micro actor and ultimately terminated. The paper further shows that this dissociation process was instigated not by elected politicians but by highly positioned civil servants who managed to remove what they identified as an obstacle to the stability of the innovation program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recruitment of internationally qualified nurses as a labour source is a long‐standing human resource strategy being implemented to address the current and increasing global nursing shortage. Internationally qualified nurses transitioning into the health workforce of developed countries following immigration often possess specialty skills. A lack of a clear pathway of specialty skill utilisation makes recognising and using these specialty skills complex for many nurses. The ability for nurses to transition between countries and maintain specialty practice demands immediate attention in the current atmosphere of the global pandemic and the predictions to recruit more specialist nurses from overseas. Aim: To identify and synthesise strategies taken by various developed countries in transitioning specialist internationally qualified nurses into practice. Methods: An integrative review was conducted to identify common themes, patterns, and best practices in order to inform policy development and improve the successful integration of internationally qualified nurses into the healthcare systems of developed countries. The study employed the Whittemore and Knafl five‐stage integrative review approach. To conduct a comprehensive search, four electronic databases, namely Medline, CINAHL Complete, ProQuest Health, and EMBASE, were systematically searched in October 2021. The search was updated in March 2022 to ensure the inclusion of the most recent literature. Additionally, Google Scholar was utilised to avoid overlooking any important articles. Prior to the full‐text review, three reviewers independently evaluated titles and abstracts. The included papers' quality was determined using the JBI critical appraisal tools. Results: This study included 10 papers, comprising three studies and seven reports. However, none of these documents provided information on how internationally qualified nurses could transfer their specialty skills acquired overseas to developed countries after immigrating. The guidelines and policies reviewed only offered generic advice on becoming a specialist nurse. Although some countries mentioned that post‐graduate qualifications were not mandatory for nurse specialists, the majority of documents in this review emphasised the need for a national framework of education at level eight or higher (equivalent to a post‐graduate level) to attain the status of a nurse specialist. Moreover, the included documents did not provide clear information on whether an international specialisation degree would be recognised during the registration process. As a result, confusion persists regarding the requirement of post‐graduate qualifications for nurses aiming to specialise and the recognition of international specialisation degrees during the registration process. Discussion: The lack of consistency in defining nurse specialty and the skill transferability among institutions and state borders were evident in this review. According to all the 10 documents analysed, developed countries appear to have minimum policies on the transfer of internationally qualified nurse's specialty skills. Recommendations for policymakers, employers, and aspirant migrants have been proposed. Limited research has been done on how developed countries used their internationally qualified nurses' overseas‐acquired specialist skills after immigration, indicating a lack of a distinct specialist skill transition pathway. Conclusions: This review presents data to support the need for greater research in this area to better utilise the abilities that internationally qualified nurses bring from their home country and put them to constructive use in the host country, especially in the context of a global pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gambling literature is replete with accusations of bias. Research that has been funded by the gambling industry, or an organization that at some point has been associated with the gambling industry, is often dismissed as biased. There are two obvious problems with the argument that funded research is dishonest. First, if funding nullifies research findings, then all government-supported research, must be invalid. In the extreme case, only unpaid volunteer researchers should be trusted. Second, scientific findings are not simply opinions. Questionable findings can be either supported or refuted by other researchers who repeat experiments, empirical tests, and analyses. Kindt does not bother to refute researchers with whom he disagrees; he simply lobs personal attacks and conflict-of-interest allegations. Most of the support for his arguments comes from non-academic sources. While this type of work might be suitable for publication in a law review, it is inappropriate for a peer reviewed economics journal.

The Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) in Great Britain study was conducted during 2017–2019 comprising three country studies: BBF England, Wales and Scotland. It was part of an international project being coordinated during the same period by the Yale School of Public Health across five world regions to inform countries and guide policies to improve the environment for the promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding. This paper reports on the application of the BBF process that is based on an implementation science approach, across the countries that constitute Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland). The process involves assessing 54 benchmarks across eight interlocking gears that drive a country's 'engine' towards a sustainable policy approach to supporting, promoting and protecting breastfeeding. It takes a consensus‐oriented approach to the evaluation of benchmarks and the development of recommendations. This paper provides a critical overview of how the process was conducted, the findings and recommendations that emerged and how these were managed. We draw on critical theory as a theoretical framework for explaining the different outcomes for each country and some considerations for future action. Key messages: Undertaking an international, comparable approach to develop evidence‐based policy recommendations for scaling up the breastfeeding environment can provide useful data on which to draw explanations and conclusions on national variation.The findings from the BBF process across England, Scotland and Wales suggest that improving breastfeeding in Great Britain is dependent on the degree of political will and having a coordinated national breastfeeding strategy in place or not, along with access to robust breastfeeding data.A critical theory lens helps to bring to light some differences in the research and policy process that can explain differences between countries in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To tackle the current global environmental crisis, operational science‐policy interfaces are needed. The Intergovernmental Science‐policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides governments with policy advice via its assessment reports. To expand the evidence‐base and to support the uptake of IPBES products, participation needs to be balanced across the globe. We found imbalance in authors' distribution at both the UN regional and country level. It is more pronounced for IPBES‐related scientific papers than for the IPBES global assessment. The more detached from politics the decision of getting involved is, the more imbalanced the representation of the regions becomes. To improve the IPBES' geographical balance, a strategy to increase the number of active member states is called for. We argued that without explicit efforts to reach the balance—for example, providing an attractive research environment for excellent researchers in their home country, improving cooperation among countries across the UN regions, and granting publication opportunity for all authors—the idea of geographic equality diminishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article the author discusses polity, politics, and policies from the standpoint of an article on the improvement of performance and accountability in public sector. He provides an additional strand to the argument on effective modelling in public sector management. He notes that while he argues that system dynamics succeeds in its purpose to develop policies for organizations, he believes that focusing on policies solely might hinder the considerations of other aspects of modelling.

In this article the author discusses the paper of D. Wheat on the role of information technology in public policy design and implementation. The author offers an overview of the paper including its discussion on the failure of public policy, and recommendation of taking information systems as vital element in public policy. The author asserts that the paper supports the design and implementation of public policy by demonstrating that frameworks can develop the thinking of system dynamics (SD) professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine cyber security issues related to smart grids (SGs), such as prior cyber‐attacks, possible vulnerability issues, and enhanced cyber‐security procedures for SGs on a technical and management basis. When designing public policies for SGs, it is important to consider both the motivations and obstacles to cyber protection and socio‐economic conditions. Furthermore, the importance of suggested policies is viewed from various perspectives. The present paper provides an assessment of a group of policies specified by various stakeholders as having the potential for developing SG cyber security. The methodology for the formation of such a group of policies includes a perfect examination of global experience and meetings with experts from various fields. Subsequently, such policies are evaluated using a Delphi questionnaire aimed at assessing their advantages in pursuing investment goals for cyber security. The first result is that every policy is considered a positive effect of all goals, different in the priority assigned to each of them. The policies that received the most attention were: "regulatory changes policy to foster innovation in cyber security of SGs," "regulation of new business models to improve cyber security and detect malicious attacks" and "establish a cyber‐security governance strategy." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We often show a greater inclination to assist and avoid harming people identified as those at high risk of great harm than to assist and avoid harming people who will suffer similar harm but are not identified (as yet). Call this the identified person bias. Some ethicists think such bias is justified; others disagree and claim that the bias is discriminatory against statistical people. While the issue is present in public policy and politics, perhaps the most notable examples can be found in medical ethics such as in ICU triage decisions made during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The Rule of Rescue, as the application of the identified person bias is sometimes called, states that spending large amounts of resources rescuing identifiable individuals who are in imminent danger is justified. In this paper, I show that our distorted attitudes toward time play a role in identified person bias. I claim that ICU triage decisions are better explained by a preference to treat people sooner rather than later, which is at least partially due to near bias (positive events are to be preferred to be near rather than distant), than by a preference to treat identified lives over statistical lives. Thus, another bias, near bias, is involved in the reasoning behind the identified person bias and the Rule of Rescue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), a large number of government policies have been implemented worldwide in response to the global spread of COVID‐19. This paper aims at developing a data‐driven analysis to answer the three research questions: (a) Compared to the pandemic development, are the global government COVID‐19 policies sufficiently active? (b) What are the differences and characteristics in the policy activity levels at the country level? (c) What types of COVID‐19 policy patterns are forming? Methods: Using the Oxford COVID‐19 Government Response Tracker data set, we present a global analysis of the COVID‐19 policy activity levels and evolution patterns from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2022, based on the differential expression‐sliding window analysis (DE‐SWAN) algorithm and the clustering ensemble algorithm. Results: Within the period under study, the results indicate that (a) the global government policy responses to COVID‐19 are very active, and the policy activity levels are significantly higher than those of global pandemic developments; (b) a high activity of policy is positively correlated to pandemic prevention at the country level; and (c) a high human development index (HDI) score is negatively correlated to the country policy activity level. Furthermore, we propose to categorize the global policy evolution patterns into three categories: (i) Mainstream (152 countries); (ii) China; and (iii) Others (34 countries). Conclusion: This work is one of the few studies that quantitatively explores the evolutionary characteristics of global government policies on COVID‐19, and our results provide some new perspectives on global policy activity levels and evolution patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mali national policy recommends that women take iron and folic acid supplements (IFA) from the time of the first antenatal care (ANC) visit, throughout pregnancy and during the first 3 months after delivery. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated their ANC guidelines to recommend the United Nations International Multiple Micronutrient Antenatal Preparation (UNIMMAP) formulation of multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS) in the context of rigorous research, including implementation research. In Bamako, Mali, a codesign process was used to tailor antenatal care MMS packaging and counselling materials aimed at optimizing delivery and uptake of and adherence to MMS. This paper presents the codesign process along with the results of a post‐intervention qualitative assessment to evaluate the behaviour change intervention. At the conclusion of the intervention, we conducted semistructured qualitative interviews with 24 women who had received the intervention and six pharmacy managers from the six health centres participating in the study. We conducted two focus groups with midwives who had delivered the intervention and two group discussions with family members of women who had received the intervention. Respondent perspectives reveal an easy experience transitioning from previously used IFA. Women and providers concur that the intervention counselling materials and visual aids were instrumental in influencing the perceived benefit and uptake of MMS. Family members play an influential role in pregnant women's decision‐making regarding MMS uptake. MMS and the associated implementation strategies developed through the codesign process were found to be a highly acceptable intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of community engagement, aligned with President Jokowi's mission to promote social enterprises, as a means to support the development of a re‐generative circular green economy in Tarumajaya, West Java. The primary focus is on enhancing farming, fishing, and forestry activities with villagers. The Covid‐19 pandemic presented significant challenges for the villagers, particularly in marketing their goods, resulting in financial hardships and an increased vulnerability to debt traps, particularly affecting women. Additionally, a major obstacle to achieving regenerative living is the limited access to land, with approximately 80% of the villagers either landless or owning small plots. Moreover, fishing restrictions imposed by the military to protect the Citarum River have further curtailed access to common grazing land for cattle. Preliminary analysis indicates that adopting intensive farming methods, such as rabbit breeding, mushroom cultivation, and fertiliser production, holds promise for reducing the community's carbon footprint. Overcoming these challenges and mapping pathways towards regenerative living are central objectives of this case study, providing insights and practical strategies to foster sustainable economic and environmental progress in Tarumajaya. Key components of the approach include finding markets for village products, extending access to common resources such as rivers, forests, and hillside terraces to villagers, and providing mentorship to women for supporting their small enterprises. The ongoing partnership with the village involves a community of practice consisting of universities and nongovernmental organisations, while private sector entities, including a gas company and tea and coffee plantations, are engaged in negotiations with the village head to secure additional land access. This study highlights the combination of challenges arising from the lack of access to common resources, limited market opportunities, and the influence of predatory financial institutions during the pandemic. By working closely with the villagers, the case study aims to identify opportunities and support the transition towards a green circular economy that moves away from business as usual and promotes regenerative living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rate of return regulation in principle suggests strong linkages between interest rates, utility return on book equity (ROE), and stock price/book equity ratios: ceteris paribus, changes in interest rates should be quickly transformed into changes in ROEs, and stock prices should tend toward book value. Absent lags in the process, it also suggests that utility investors are minimally exposed to the risks of unanticipated changes in interest rates, notably those associated with inflation. In this paper we examine the financial implications of electric utility regulation from 1971-1980. Over this period, which was characterized by inflation-related rises in interest rates, we find that the gap between allowed and earned ROEs, on the one hand, and interest rates, on the other hand, increased. Since this outcome is in contradiction of the conceptual model of regulation and investors' exposure to inflation risk, we test the hypothesis that investors respond to the reality of regulation by imposing risk premiums which are functionally related to interest rates. The basic idea is that an ROE shortfall leads to an expectation that regulation will respond in the future with a higher earnings level, but this "IOU" in the implicit social contract is risky. And the question addressed in this paper is whether the degree of riskiness is related to the level of interest rates. Using two valuation models we conclude that at least during the 1970s risk premiums were not related to the level of interest rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends previous work in the development of a methodology for ill-structured policy problems. It argues that recent advances in the structure and logic of argumentation allow one to develop a new basis for treating policy issues. In brief, policies may be viewed as the outcome of a process of reasoning (argumentation) whose purpose is to establish the basis (rationale) for the policy. This paper shows how the tools of symbolic logic may be applied to handle arguments containing strong inconsistencies. The tools presented allow treatment of one of the most fundamental issues concerned with ill-structured problems, the divergence between opposing formulations or perceptions of a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada entered the COVID‐19 pandemic with a strong fiscal position, which gave it room to mitigate its economic impacts. Of interest in this paper is the history of Canada's financial position in terms of net debt as reported in the Government of Canada's annual financial statements. Net debt is a measure of fiscal sustainability that has been reported in the Government of Canada's public accounts since the country's earliest days. It created (and continues to create) a particular visibility of the "effectiveness" of the federal government's financial management and of the country's financial position at a particular point in time but also impacts future political policy. Although there were periods of sharp increases in the federal net debt over the country's history, the federal government was always able to regain control, and this has resulted in the reasonable level of net debt the country has today. This study shows how this net debt changed, was sustained over time, and was influenced by the political and economic context in which it was situated. We find evidence of its use for supporting government accountability to the population but also as an accounting measure employed by the government to influence public opinion and thereby gain support for government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast number of empirical studies have found that monopsony power is pervasive in labor markets. In some circumstances, the exercise of monopsony results in wage discrimination that is not taste‐based. Instead, it results from profit maximization in the presence of different labor supply functions of two distinct groups of workers. This paper examines the profit maximizing employment decisions of a monopsonist under these conditions, as well as the public policy regarding wage discrimination. The economic effects of the current statutes are also examined, as well as some policy recommendations to strengthen the prohibition of wage discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines caregiving for sick older family members in the context of socio‐economic transformations in rural China, combining empirical investigation with normative inquiry. The empirical part of this paper is based on a case study, taken from fieldwork in a rural Chinese hospital, of a son who took care of his hospitalized mother. This empirical study highlighted family members' weiqu (sense of unfairness)—a mental status from experiencing mistreatment and oppression in family care, yet with constrained power to explicitly protest or make care‐related choices. Underpinning people's weiqu and constrained choice, as informed by the conception of structural injustice, is the impact of unjust social structures, organized by unfavourable norms, discriminatory social policies and institutions targeting rural populations. By restraining individual choices and capacities in supporting health care for aging populations, these unjust structures create additional difficulties for and discriminations against rural families and their older members. Some policy recommendations are proposed to mitigate structural injustice so as to empower families and promote care for older people in rural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, ASLO honors scientists for their exceptional work in advancing the fields of limnology and oceanography. I am optimistic that barriers have substantially lessened over the past decade, probably through the many demonstrations of high impact science based on data synthesis, more training and networking at places like synthesis centers and the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), as well as stronger data and reproducibility policies from publishers and funders. Because of the range of physical, chemical and biological processes included in the work, not only was new research stimulated which reinterpreted existing isotope data and created new data toward the understanding of food webs, but the paper also stimulated further investigation into the physical and chemical sub-models that supported the food web interpretations. Data-intensive ecological research is catalyzed by open science and team science. [Extracted from the article]

This paper systematically analyzes the discourse of quality in public policies and reforms of the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) between 1983 and 2013. It identifies a subtle and cumulative but highly significant movement in which "quality" is transformed from a vague and largely undefined promise related to the pursuit and extension of New Public Management (NPM) doctrines into a set of catch‐all and seemingly apolitical norms for contemplating and undertaking reform. This finding contributes to debates about whether and to what extent NPM is "dead," "comatose," "very much alive," and so forth, showing that quality simultaneously displaces NPM as the source of catch‐all administrative norms, and also reinvigorates and embeds them within and as part of medical professionalism though with new points of emphasis and twists. Pointing to generalizable mechanisms underlying this transformation, this paper highlights a growing international quality improvement movement as offering a new and consequential set of reform doctrines, to borrow Hood's terms, "for all seasons." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the limitations and risks associated with the use of output‐oriented measures to assess public school performance. In particular, it questions the capability of the performance measures set by external institutions, with respect to schools, to support sustainable educational outcomes. To this end, the 'street‐level bureaucracy' theory is used in the paper as a basis to analyse the behavioural distortions generated by perceived public service gaps at school level policy implementation. Such unintended behavioural effects are often a major cause of disappointing outcomes when test‐based accountability systems are adopted. In the second part of the paper, an insight model referred to a hypothetic medium‐sized public school located in a poor area in Colombia is used to illustrate how a feedback approach to school performance measurement can support decision‐makers to pursue sustainable education outcomes and to prevent behavioural distortions from perceived public service gaps at 'street‐level' policy implementation. This analysis outlines an alternative approach to school performance measurement that might help policy makers in extending the domain of governmental benchmarks to performance measures and collaborative efforts that reflect the challenges of holistic education in the context where public schools are located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper addresses how democracy can affect public finance and state capacity investment. We show that the effect of democracy on public policy can take two forms: direct and indirect. The direct effect transpires when increasing democracy leads to an increase in public expenditure which results in increased public goods provision and reduced political rent. The indirect effect emerges when increased democracy leads to a reduction in state capacity investment and, subsequently, to a reduction in public goods provision. Paradoxically, lower political rents deteriorate the incumbent's incentive to invest in state capacity, at the expense of public goods provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using a common agency lobbying framework, this paper illustrates how the minimum wage set reflects the interaction between economic and political factors and under what circumstances will the policymaker be induced, through lobbying, to change the minimum wage. Specifically, when the labor demand elasticity is large, lobbying is successful in inducing the policymaker to set the minimum wage in accordance with her political ideology. However, the paper also shows the conditions under which lobbying will reverse the ideological preference and induce a business‐friendly government to increase the minimum wage. Empirical analysis on a panel data for ten Canadian provinces gives considerable support for theoretical predictions. The real minimum wage decreases in skill‐adjusted union density and political ideology, while larger labor demand elasticity reinforces the influence of political ideology in the presence of lobbying. (JEL J38, D72, D78) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bankruptcy costs are the deadweight economic costs of firms going bankrupt. They include both ex post bankruptcy costs incurred after a firm's bankruptcy filing, such as transactions costs, and ex ante bankruptcy costs incurred before the filing, such as those resulting from creditors' attempts to reduce their losses if bankruptcy occurs and/or managers' attempts to raise the expected return to equity by increasing the firm's risk. This paper has two purposes. First it proposes a model of bankruptcy costs which focuses on the costs of inefficient decision making before the firm's actual bankruptcy filing. The model implies upper bound expressions for total bankruptcy costs. Second, the new U.S. Bankruptcy Code went into effect late in 1979 and made important changes in bankruptcy reorganization procedures. The paper poses the question of whether the changes made under the new Code tend to raise or lower aggregate U.S. bankruptcy costs. We approach this question by calculating the upper bound expressions suggested by the model, using parameter values from both before and after the new Code took effect. From an economic standpoint, the most important changes instituted under the new Bankruptcy Code had the effect of making it more difficult to reorganize firms in bankruptcy. Previously, it was common for failing firms to file for bankruptcy, but for prior management to continue to operate the firm in much the same form as before. The bankruptcy filing prevented unpaid creditors from suing the firm while a reorganization plan was arranged which cut back most debts. From an economic standpoint, such a procedure was anomalous, since we learn in basic economics that competition in the long-run should cause inefficient firms to go out of business. As long as failing firms are more likely to be inefficient than firms in general, it would seem to be rewarding inefficiency and offsetting the beneficial effects of competition systematically to aid the survival of fai... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have provided an analysis of the international extension of arbitrage pricing theory, where investors value returns of the same asset differently; the same analysis could be applied to a domestic framework with heterogeneous consumption tastes. The technical problems posed by currency translation and aggregation in the international CAPM do not arise in APT since factors are not constrained to be portfolios of the original assets. While APT is not utility based, it requires the definition of a riskless portfolio, hence the numeraire used to measure (real) returns matters. This paper shows that, if a factor model is believed to hold when asset returns are expressed in some arbitrarily chosen currency, this factor structure, as well as its major conclusions, is invariant to the currency chosen. The relation between factor coefficients when measured in different currencies has been investigated, as well as the pricing of the forward exchange rates (or national interest rate differentials) which depend on the covariance of the currency fluctuations with the same common factors. If investors hold homogeneous expectations as measured in some currency, the same m-factor model and pricing relation will apply for everyone and we can aggregate the ex ante specification to a market testable ex post relation. It follows that, whatever the numeraire used, the pricing relation (5) might be subjected to empirical scrutiny. Again, note that the IAPT says nothing about the size of the risk premia lambda[sub k], nor the number or origin of the common factors, but only specifies the linearity of the pricing relation. Tests of international asset pricing models have so far been scarce and inconclusive (e.g. Solnik (12), Stehle (13)). Major limitations come from data availability, but also from the technical problems involved in the exact identification of the ex ante efficient portfolios as stressed by Roll (6). Consumption based CAPM are not void of similar... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co‐creation and open innovation have become an important source of competitive advantage. Over the past decades, huge amounts of information have become accessible to the external stakeholders of the organizations, changing the traditional value creation processes. However, co‐creation comes with its challenges, including the complex engagement of stakeholders, difficulties in opening up value chains and issues of trust and intellectual property. The arrival of blockchain and cryptographic asset‐driven decentralized technologies has brought to the world an entirely new spectrum of possibilities regarding social, financial and technological innovations. Now it is possible to achieve superior levels of transparency, security and fairness to the public, especially when compared with the rather limited business models that dominate Web 2.0 commercial products. While the first applications of blockchain technology were for digital currency transactions, that same technology is now being applied to the development of the blockchain‐based decentralized platforms. This calls for research to integrate other relevant fields such as organizational management, public policy, community engagement and marketing. This qualitative preliminary study aims to build an integrative and transdisciplinary framework of blockchain service ecosystems based on theoretical premises of Service Science through which blockchain‐based value co‐creation can be analysed. The systemic approach presented in this paper provides much‐needed guidance for developers of decentralized organizations on how to create sustainable platforms and to maintain them profitable in the long run. The focus of the proposed conceptual model is to initiate a scholarly curiosity in understanding possible solutions and potential impact of blockchain technology in the way we collaborate as a society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic significantly raised the stakes for the translation of bioethics insights into policy. The novelty, range and sheer quantity of the ethical problems that needed to be addressed urgently within public policy were unprecedented and required high‐bandwidth two‐way transfer of insights between academic bioethics and policy. Countries such as the United Kingdom, which do not have a National Ethics Committee, faced particular challenges in how to facilitate this. This paper takes as a case study the brief career of the Ethics Advisory Board (EAB) for the NHS Covid‐19 App, which shows both the difficulty and the political complexity of policy‐relevant bioethics in a pandemic and how this was exacerbated by the transience and informality of the structures through which ethics advice was delivered. It analyses how and why, after EAB's demise, the Westminster government increasingly sought to either take its ethics advice in private or to evade ethical scrutiny of its policies altogether. In reflecting on EAB, and these later ethics advice contexts, the article provides a novel framework for analysing ethics advice within democracies, defining four idealised stances: the pure ethicist, the advocate, the ethics arbiter and the critical friend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Europe, countries are reducing CO2 emissions and energy demand by lowering the temperature in public office buildings. These measures affect men and women unequally because the latter prefer and, indeed, perform better under higher temperatures than the standard temperature. Lowering the temperature thus further increases an already existing inequality. We show that the philosophical literature on discrimination provides an interesting theoretical approach to understanding such measures. On prominent understandings of what discrimination is, the policy would be considered direct discrimination against women if it could be shown to reflect a broader inattentiveness to the needs of women in society. Alternatively, and more straightforwardly, the policies can be considered indirect discrimination because of their disparate effects on men and women. The final part of the paper shows that the policies are also wrong for the reasons it is often argued that discrimination is wrong—to wit, that it harms or disrespects those who are discriminated against. The final section suggests a range of measures to offset the discriminatory aspects of the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratification economics has emerged as a field that puts historically and institutionally determined intergroup hierarchies at the forefront of distributive analysis. However, most of the existing theoretical and empirical literature has focused on studying the US stratification regime, limiting the potential application of this analytical framework to other geographies. This paper applies the theoretical framework of stratification economics to analyze the Mexican distributive regime. In the process, we show that expanding the regional focus of stratification economics requires incorporating several insights from other traditions of stratification analysis. Furthermore, we show that a stratification economics approach overcomes several pitfalls of more traditional approaches to analyzing the Mexican distributive regime, such as the human capital approach that anchored several public policy interventions deployed at the beginning of the XXIst century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the extent to which two factors—social networks and the severity of the scarcity of a common property resource—affect norm‐complying behavior that favors cooperation. It assumes that those who comply with the social norm exercise social pressure on defectors. We develop an analytical framework that allows us to determine the minimum (maximum) share of norm‐complying agents at which social networks start (stop) having an influence on cooperation. Knowing these shares allows policymakers to identify the conditions under which legal and/or informal enforcement policies for cooperation are effective and how different types of social networks affect the design of these policies. We find that stable steady states exist in which compliers and defectors coexist (partial cooperation), but the stability of such states requires that the costs of coordination among compliers to exercise social pressure are high. Full cooperation is another possible steady state but is unlikely to prevail if the agents do not perceive the scarcity of the common property resource as severe. A numerical study, empirically calibrated for an aquifer in Spain, shows that subsidizing the compliers' costs of exerting social pressure may impede the attainment of a steady state based on partial cooperation. Although social networks can promote cooperation, their influence is limited. The minimum share of compliers for attaining cooperation can be reduced by informal enforcement policies by not more than 26%. We show that combinations of different types of informal enforcement policies should be applied cautiously because they may cancel each other out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Already in its first implementation, the introduction of the Covid‐19 immunity certificate has generated some debate among the public. This debate might be a hindrance to the effective realization of this policy. This study aimed to systematically review published research evaluating public feeling of the Covid‐19 immunity certificate policy measure and to find which factors might influence its acceptance. Methods: We followed the scoping review methods manual by the Joanna Briggs Institute. We included studies with no time limits that presented novel data, and no exclusions have been made based on study design. We excluded articles that presented just expert opinions. Results: We found and reviewed 17 articles. The included studies were conducted in two main countries (the United Kingdom and Switzerland), with the rest from Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, Taiwan and China. Both qualitative and quantitative studies were included, and nonrepresentative samples were mostly used to explore the public feeling about the Covid‐19 immunity certification. The included studies showed that public views on immunity certification are quite contradictory and influenced by age, gender, ethnicity, political orientation and attitudes towards Covid‐19 vaccination. The topic more often addressed by the included studies was the public's views on the positive and negative implications of the Covid‐19 immunity certificate in terms of ethical, legal and behavioural consequences of this measure. Conclusion: The varying acceptance rates are notable and may partly be linked to differences in demographics, Covid‐19 concerns and ideological beliefs, as seen in other health‐related tracking policies. Moreover, dominant factors behind the (un)success of this policy are complex and entangled with the cultural and political dimensions rather than being just technical. For this reason, it is important to expand psychosocial research to better understand the concerns behind health certifications and allow planning of culturally based and ethically sound suitable strategies. This would be very relevant to increasing public approval and compliance with this public health measure. Patient or Public Contribution: This does not apply to our work as it was a review paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new stylized facts about labor earnings inequality and dynamics in France for the period 1991-2016. Using linked employer-employee data, we show that (i) labor inequality in France is low compared to other developed countries and has been decreasing until the financial crisis of 2009 and increasing since then, (ii) women experienced high earnings growth, in particular at the bottom of the distribution, in contrast to the stability observed for men. Both result from a decrease in labor costs at the minimum wage and an increase in the hourly minimum in the aftermath of the 35h workweek policy, (iii) top earnings (top 5 and 1%) grew moderately while very top earnings (top 0.1 and 0.01%) experienced a much higher growth, (iv) inequality between and within cohorts follow the same U-shaped pattern as global inequality: it decreased before 2009 and then increased until 2016, (v) Individual earnings mobility is stable between 1991 and 2016, and very low at the top of the distribution, (vi) the distribution of earnings growth is negatively skewed, leptokurtic, and varies with age. Then, studying earnings dispersion both within and between territories, we document strong differences across cities aswell as between urban and rural areas, even after controlling for observable characteristics. We also observe a continuous decrease in earnings inequality between territories. However, a larger inflation in rural territories mitigates this convergence. Finally, we document a strong reduction in inequality within rural and remote territories, again driven by changes at the bottom of the wage distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interventions in Africa designed to stop biodiversity decline have often failed because they were based on a top‐down approach to management and focused on enforcing restrictive rules and imposing bans. They were equally misaligned with the values and needs of local actors. This paper presents an African perspective on the discourse regarding the bushmeat crisis and shows that bushmeat in Africa goes beyond being a source of livelihood, having a multifaceted use that must be considered when designing interventions. We show that current conservation initiatives often do not address the right issues, by neglecting nonmonetary dimensions of bushmeat use, inadequately planning interventions, failing to align wildlife laws with realities on the ground, and carrying out ineffective law enforcement characterized by poor governance and corruption. We recommend a revision of current legal frameworks to enhance local ownership, tenure rights, and the sustainable economic empowerment of local communities to reduce hunting. We also call for development of regionally led innovative programs that invest in nature‐based solutions and payments for environmental services. Finally, we identify where more research is needed to understand why wildlife use in Africa is overlooked in national development policies and not considered in national accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]