Behavioral scientists and laypeople misestimate societal effects of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cendri Hutcherson ◽  
Constantine Sharpinskyi ◽  
Michael E. W. Varnum ◽  
Amanda Modesta Rotella ◽  
Alexandra Wormley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Expert Judgment ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Societal Change ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Lay People ◽  
Wide Range

Effective management of global crises relies on expert judgment of their societal effects. How accurate are such judgments? In the spring of 2020, we asked behavioral scientists (N = 717) and lay Americans (N = 394) to make predictions about COVID-19 pandemic-related societal change across social and psychological domains. Six months later we obtained retrospective assessments for the same domains (N scientists = 270; N layPeople = 411). Scientists and lay people were equally inaccurate in judging COVID’s impact, both in prospective predictions and retrospective assessments. Across studies and samples, estimates of the magnitude of change were off by more than 20% and less than half of participants accurately predicted the direction of changes. Critically, these insights go against public perceptions of behavioral scientists’ ability to forecast such changes (N layPeople = 203; N academics/policy-makers = 30): behavioral scientists were considered most likely to accurately predict societal change and most sought after for recommendations across a wide range of professions. Taken together, we find that behavioral scientsits and lay people fared poorly at predicting the societal consequences of the pandemic and misperceive what effects it may have already had.

Anti-corruption in History

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Over Time

Anticorruption in History is the first major collection of case studies on how past societies and polities, in and beyond Europe, defined legitimate power in terms of fighting corruption and designed specific mechanisms to pursue that agenda. It is a timely book: corruption is widely seen today as a major problem, undermining trust in government, financial institutions, economic efficiency, the principle of equality before the law and human wellbeing in general. Corruption, in short, is a major hurdle on the “path to Denmark”—a feted blueprint for stable and successful statebuilding. The resonance of this view explains why efforts to promote anticorruption policies have proliferated in recent years. But while the subjects of corruption and anticorruption have captured the attention of politicians, scholars, NGOs and the global media, scant attention has been paid to the link between corruption and the change of anticorruption policies over time and place. Such a historical approach could help explain major moments of change in the past as well as reasons for the success and failure of specific anticorruption policies and their relation to a country’s image (of itself or as construed from outside) as being more or less corrupt. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that the present volume intends to begin to fill. A wide range of historical contexts are addressed, ranging from the ancient to the modern period, with specific insights for policy makers offered throughout.

scholarly journals Experimental Economics in Agriculture: A Review of Worldwide Research

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1566
Author(s):  
Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez ◽  
Juan F. Velasco-Muñoz ◽  
José A. Aznar-Sánchez ◽  
Belén López-Felices
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Experimental Economics ◽  
Scientific Production ◽  
Bibliometric Study ◽  
Agricultural Activity ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wide Range

Over the last two decades, experimental economics has been gaining relevance in the research of a wide range of issues related to agriculture. In turn, the agricultural activity provides an excellent field of study within which to validate the use of instruments employed by experimental economics. The aim of this study is to analyze the dynamics of the research on the application of experimental economics in agriculture on a global level. Thus, a literature review has been carried out for the period between the years 2000 and 2020 based on a bibliometric study. The main results show that there has been a growing use of experimental economics methods in the research on agriculture, particularly over the last five years. This evolution is evident in the different indicators analyzed and is reflected in the greater scientific production and number of actors involved. The most relevant topics within the research on experimental economics in agriculture focus on the farmer, the markets, the consumer, environmental policy, and public goods. These results can be useful for policy makers and researchers interested in this line of research.

scholarly journals Carbon pricing under uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick van der Ploeg
Keyword(s):  
Term Structure ◽  
Discount Rate ◽  
Carbon Price ◽  
Abatement Cost ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Policy Uncertainty ◽  
Carbon Pricing ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Macroeconomic Uncertainty ◽  
Wide Range

AbstractEconomists have adopted the Pigouvian approach to climate policy, which sets the carbon price to the social cost of carbon. We adjust this carbon price for macroeconomic uncertainty and disasters by deriving the risk-adjusted discount rate. We highlight ethics- versus market-based calibrations and discuss the effects of a falling term structure of the discount rate. Given the wide range of estimates used for marginal damages and the discount rate, it is unsurprising that negotiators and policy makers have rejected the Pigouvian approach and adopted a more pragmatic approach based on a temperature cap. The corresponding cap on cumulative emissions is lower if risk tolerance and temperature sensitivity are more uncertain. The carbon price then grows much faster than under the Pigouvian approach and discuss how this rate of growth is adjusted by economic and abatement cost risks. We then analyse how policy uncertainty and technological breakthrough can lead to the risk of stranded assets. Finally, we discuss various obstacles to successful carbon pricing.

Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Poh
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Chinese Characteristics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Complete Alignment ◽  
Depth Interviews

The view that China has become increasingly assertive under President Xi Jinping is now a common trope in academic and media discourse. However, until the end of Xi Jinping’s first term in March 2018, China had been relatively restrained in its use of coercive economic measures. This is puzzling given the conventional belief among scholars and practitioners that sanctions are a middle ground between diplomatic and military/paramilitary action. Using a wide range of methods and data — including in-depth interviews with 76 current and former politicians, policy-makers, diplomats, and commercial actors across 12 countries and 16 cities — Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics: Rhetoric and Restraint in China’s Diplomacy examines the ways in which China had employed economic sanctions to further its political objectives, and the factors explaining China’s behaviour. This book provides a systematic investigation into the ways in which Chinese decisionmakers approached sanctions both at the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally, and shows how China’s longstanding sanctions rhetoric has had a constraining effect on its behaviour, resulting in its inability to employ sanctions in complete alignment with its immediate interests.

scholarly journals Universities’ Intellectual Capital Report: The Formation Concept, Analytical Capabilities under Stakeholders Management Decisions-Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
A. A. Vakhrushina ◽  
M. A. Vakhrushina
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Capital ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Accounting Systems ◽  
Management Accounting Systems ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Russian Universities

The modern trends in the socio-economic life, educational and research spheres lead to the increased attention of universities to the more effective management of available resources, as well as high-quality and relevant disclosure of information in their public reporting to the interested parties. Under the circumstances, the intellectual capital (IC) components become key objects in the management accounting systems, and the IC report may become one of the main engines to achieve the transparent information which can raise the interest of stakeholders. The analysis of this practice clarified the discussion points and helped to develop conceptual guidelines for the preparation of the IC report for Russian universities. There have been used the following methods to solve the problem, such as quantitative-systematic analysis, semantic grouping of results and logical relationships. The developed methodology for analyzing the report on IC universities has a certain practical importance. Such methodology also includes methods of financial and management analysis. The formulated recommendations are intended for a wide range of stakeholders, the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science and higher education institutions.

AN INVESTIGATION ON THE VOTERS TRUST ON PAKISTAN GENERAL ELECTION 2018

2020 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 212-220
Author(s):  
Shahid Ullah ◽  
Asghar Ullah Khan ◽  
Muhammad Imran Khan
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Sample Selection ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Data Collections

The research study was conducted to examine favorite political party and the people’s perception about outcomes of general elections 2018. Researcher drawn 400 sample from population of district Dera Ismail Khan using non-probability sampling technique through Curry & Dr. John in 2007 method for sample selection. The researcher used the convenient sampling techniques for the data collections. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey research method with closed-ended questionnaire for measuring concept. The results revealed that there is significant relationship between favorite political party and public perceptions about current government. The study is expected to provide suitable contribution to existing database of knowledge about the issues under considerations in this research. Study is also expected to offer valuable recommendation as extracted from the results of the current study for the general public and policy makers.

Crypto-currencies narrated on tweets: a sentiment analysis approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-72
Author(s):  
Saeed Rouhani ◽  
Ehsan Abedin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Social Opinions

Purpose Crypto-currencies, decentralized electronic currencies systems, denote a radical change in financial exchange and economy environment. Consequently, it would be attractive for designers and policy-makers in this area to make out what social media users think about them on Twitter. The purpose of this study is to investigate the social opinions about different kinds of crypto-currencies and tune the best-customized classification technique to categorize the tweets based on sentiments. Design/methodology/approach This paper utilized a lexicon-based approach for analyzing the reviews on a wide range of crypto-currencies over Twitter data to measure positive, negative or neutral sentiments; in addition, the end result of sentiments played a training role to train a supervised technique, which can predict the sentiment loading of tweets about the main crypto-currencies. Findings The findings further prove that more than 50 per cent of people have positive beliefs about crypto-currencies. Furthermore, this paper confirms that marketers can predict the sentiment of tweets about these crypto-currencies with high accuracy if they use appropriate classification techniques like support vector machine (SVM). Practical implications Considering the growing interest in crypto-currencies (Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Litcoin and Ripple), the findings of this paper have a remarkable value for enterprises in the financial area to obtain the promised benefits of social media analysis at work. In addition, this paper helps crypto-currencies vendors analyze public opinion in social media platforms. In this sense, the current paper strengthens our understanding of what happens in social media for crypto-currencies. Originality/value For managers and decision-makers, this paper suggests that the news and campaign for their crypto in Twitter would affect people’s perspectives in a good manner. Because of this fact, the firms, investing in these crypto-currencies, could apply the social media as a magnifier for their promotional activities. The findings steer the market managers to see social media as a predictor tool, which can analyze the market through understanding the opinions of users of Twitter.

scholarly journals Evolution of models to support community and policy action with science: Balancing pastoral livelihoods and wildlife conservation in savannas of East Africa

2009 ◽  
Vol 113 (17) ◽  
pp. 4579-4584 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Reid ◽  
D. Nkedianye ◽  
M. Y. Said ◽  
D. Kaelo ◽  
M. Neselle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Policy Maker ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Creation

We developed a “continual engagement” model to better integrate knowledge from policy makers, communities, and researchers with the goal of promoting more effective action to balance poverty alleviation and wildlife conservation in 4 pastoral ecosystems of East Africa. The model involved the creation of a core boundary-spanning team, including community facilitators, a policy facilitator, and transdisciplinary researchers, responsible for linking with a wide range of actors from local to global scales. Collaborative researcher−facilitator community teams integrated local and scientific knowledge to help communities and policy makers improve herd quality and health, expand biodiversity payment schemes, develop land-use plans, and fully engage together in pastoral and wildlife policy development. This model focused on the creation of hybrid scientific−local knowledge highly relevant to community and policy maker needs. The facilitation team learned to be more effective by focusing on noncontroversial livelihood issues before addressing more difficult wildlife issues, using strategic and periodic engagement with most partners instead of continual engagement, and reducing costs by providing new scientific information only when deemed essential. We conclude by examining the role of facilitation in redressing asymmetries in power in researcher−community−policy maker teams, the role of individual values and character in establishing trust, and how to sustain knowledge-action links when project funding ends.

scholarly journals Embodied Energy and CO2 Emissions of Widely Used Building Materials: The Ethiopian Context

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Woubishet Zewdu Taffese ◽  
Kassahun Admassu Abegaz
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Coarse Aggregates ◽  
Human Habitat ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Concrete Blocks

Buildings use a wide range of construction materials, and the manufacturing of each material consumes energy and emits CO2. Several studies have already been conducted to evaluate the embodied energy and the related CO2 emissions of building materials, which are mainly based on case studies from developed countries. There is a considerable gap in cases of developing countries regarding assessment of embodied energy and CO2 emissions of these building materials. This study identified the top five most used construction materials (cement, sand, coarse aggregates, hollow concrete blocks, and reinforcement bars), which are also prime sources of waste generation during construction in the Ethiopian building construction sector. Then, what followed was the evaluation of the embodied energies and CO2 emissions of these materials by examining five commercial and public buildings within the cradle-to-site lifecycle boundary. The evaluation results demonstrated that cement, hollow concrete blocks (HCB), and reinforcement bars (rebars) are the major consumers of energy and major CO2 emitters. Cumulatively, they were responsible for 94% of the embodied energy and 98% of the CO2 emissions. The waste part of the construction materials has inflated the embodied energy and the subsequent CO2 emissions considerably. The study also recommended several strategies for the reduction of embodied energy and the related CO2 emissions. The research delivers critical insights into embodied energy and CO2 emissions of the five most used building materials in the Ethiopian construction industry, as there are no prior studies on this theme. This might be a cause to arouse awareness and interest among the policy makers and the wider public to clearly understand the importance of research on this crucial issue to develop national energy and CO2 descriptors for construction materials, in order to take care of our naturally endowed, but yet fragile, human habitat.

scholarly journals Measuring Urban Resilience to Climate Change in Three Chinese Cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9735
Author(s):  
Mingshun Zhang ◽  
Yaguang Yang ◽  
Huanhuan Li ◽  
Meine Pieter van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Resilience Index ◽  
Weak Points ◽  
Monitoring Progress

Building an urban resilience index results in developing an increasingly popular tool for monitoring progress towards climate-proof cities. This paper develops an urban resilience index in the context of urban China, which helps planners and policy-makers at city level to identify whether urban development is leading to more resilience. The urban resilience index (URI) suggested in this research uses data on 24 indicators distributed over six URI component indices. While no measure of such a complex phenomenon can be perfect, the URI proved to be effective, useful and robust. Our findings show that the URI ensures access to integrated information on urban resilience to climate change. It allows comparisons of cities in a systematic and quantitative way, and enables identification of strong and weak points related to urban resilience. The URI provides tangible measures of not only overall measures of urban resilience to climate change, but also urban resilience components and related indicators. Therefore, it could meet a wide range of policy and research needs. URI is a helpful tool for urban decision-makers and urban planners to quantify goals, measure progress, benchmark performance, and identify priorities for achieving high urban resilience to climate change.

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