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A bibliometric analysis of the research on electromobility and its implications for Kuwait
No full textThis article examines the evolution of the most extensively researched subjects in e-mobility during the previous two decades. The objective of this analysis is to identify the lessons that the State of Kuwait, which is falling behind other nations in terms of e-mobility, can learn from in its efforts to adopt electric vehicles (EVs). To strengthen the body of knowledge and determine the most effective and efficient route to an “EV-ready” nation, the authors compiled data on the latest developments in the EV industry. A bibliometric analysis was performed on 3962 articles using VOSviewer software, which identified six noteworthy clusters that warranted further discussion. Additionally, we examined the sequential progression of these clusters as follows: (1) the environmental ramifications of electric mobility; (2) advancements in EV technology, including range extension and soundless engines, as well as the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) of purchasing and operating EVs; (3) concerns regarding the effectiveness and durability of EV batteries; (4) the availability of EV charging stations and grid integration; (5) charging time; and, finally, (6) the origin and source of the energy used in the development of e-mobility. Delineating critical aspects in the development of e-mobility can help to equip policymakers and decision makers in Kuwait in formulating timely and economical choices pertaining to sustainable transportation. This study contributes by cross-walking six global bibliometric clusters to Kuwait’s ten EV adoption barriers and mapping each to actionable policy levers, linking evidence to deployment guidance for an emerging market grid. Unlike prior bibliometric overviews, our analysis is Kuwait-specific and heat-contextual, and it reports each cluster’s size and recency to show where the field is moving. Using Kuwait driving logs, we found that summer (avg 43.2 °C) reduced the effective full-charge range by 24% versus pre-winter (approximately 244 km vs. 321 km), underscoring the need for shaded PV-coupled hyper-hubs and active thermal management
Distributional preferences in a global pandemic: voter attitudes towards COVID-19 economic policy interventions
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic triggered a deep economic crisis that prompted governments and central banks to implement extraordinary fiscal, monetary, and financial interventions. We examine public support for these interventions using a conjoint survey experiment conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom in early 2021. Our experiment innovates by investigating public preferences across two main categories of intervention: (1) wage subsidies designed to address employment and income risks and (2) financial stabilization measures aimed at supporting the balance sheets of households, businesses, and financial institutions. Results show that wagesubsidies received robust public support across diverse social, economic, and experiential cleavages. By contrast, financial and credit market interventions elicited mixed reactions, with strongest opposition toward those benefiting large firms and banks. We argue that the variation in support is primarily driven by an alignment of fairness considerations and policy design. In both countries, wage subsidies had key design features that made them more likely to be perceived as distributionally neutral, consistent with important fairness norms, and limiting the potential for free riding. They were available to all citizens experiencing verifiable employment disruption, delivered through employers, and appealed to welfare-chauvinistic views by excluding many recent immigrants and temporary residents. Moreover, the viral origin of the economic shock was widely perceived as exogenous and quasi-random, and the associated losses – particularly those related to employment and income more readily elicited greater empathy when borne by individuals than by firms. In contrast, financial-sector interventions, especially those aiding large corporations and banks, were less easily viewed as consistent with these fairness norms. These interventions were more prone to being perceived as favoring opportunistic or politically connected firms, echoing earlier public resentment of global financial crisis bailouts. Even some household-targeted financial interventions, such as debt relief and rent holidays, likely raised concerns among respondents about undeserved gains. Unlike some existing studies, our subgroup analysis finds little evidence that personal or local pandemic experiences significantly influenced attitudes toward economic interventions. Individuals who suffered direct health or economic impacts, or who lived in areas with high infection rates or strict lockdowns, were no more or less supportive of interventions. Instead, partisan orientation and perceptions of inequality were more predictive. Left-wing partisans and those who perceived rising or high inequality were especially supportive of wage subsidies and household-focused assistance. Traditional material cleavages – such as income, education, wealth, or asset ownership – had limited explanatory power. The underbanked population was an exception, showing more muted support for all interventions, likely due to perceived exclusion or limited personal benefit. We conclude that public evaluations of economic interventions during the pandemic were shaped less by self-interest or crisis exposure than by judgments about deservingness, fairness, and partisan attachments. Our findings emphasize the importance of policy design and political framing in sustaining public support for large-scale interventions during crises, and they have broader implications for the politics of economic policy in future global shocks
Normative convergence between global health security and universal health coverage: a qualitative analysis of international health negotiations in the wake of COVID-19
No full textBackground: The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO Thirteenth General Programme of Work underscored the importance of mitigating health emergencies while ensuring accessible and affordable health services. Central to these efforts are global health security (GHS) and universal health coverage (UHC), which act both as standalone goals and as cross-cutting approaches to health policy and practice. While GHS and UHC each operate as distinct norms, global health stakeholders increasingly advocate for advancing them synergistically to address interconnected health challenges amid limited resources. However, the current extent of alignment between GHS and UHC remains unclear, especially post-COVID-19. This qualitative study assesses normative convergence between GHS and UHC by tracing their development through iterative draft texts across two major international health negotiations – specifically examining how UHC norms are expressed in the WHO Pandemic Agreement, and how GHS norms are expressed in the 2023 UNGA Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage. Results: UHC was promoted in the WHO Pandemic Agreement through three closely-associated discourse themes (rights-based narratives, equity frames, focus on social determinants of health) and three closely-associated core functions (accessible and affordable health commodities, prioritizing vulnerable populations, primary health care approach). Meanwhile, GHS was reciprocally promoted in the 2023 UHC Political Declaration through three related discourse themes (existential threat narratives, resilience frames, focus on infectious diseases) and three related core functions (outbreak preparedness, health emergency response, One Health approach). Conclusions: The findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic created a policy window uniquely-positioned to accelerate normative convergence between GHS and UHC. Both international agreements advanced convergence by demonstrating increased complementarity and interdependency between the two norms through the co-promotion of their underlying features. However, negotiators agreed to political and operational trade-offs which made it difficult to sustain progress. This study provides a nuanced account of how global health norms evolve through integration in complex policy environments – finding that normative convergence may not always be explicit, but rather implicit through incremental linkages in their underlying discourse and core functions. This research contributes to pragmatic efforts by global health actors seeking consensus amidst an era of polycrisis, and highlights the importance of navigating geopolitics and overcoming path dependencies. It also deepens scholarly understanding on how ‘hybrid norms’ develop through the dynamic process of normative convergence via diplomacy
Rare disease policy in high-income countries: an overview of achievements, challenges, and solutions
No full textObjectives: To provide an overview of policy initiatives in high-income countries aimed at supporting the development and accessibility of treatments for rare diseases. Methods: We examine how legislative, research, and pricing policies in high-income countries address barriers that have historically hindered innovation and access to rare disease treatments. By analyzing examples from the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia, the article identifies ongoing initiatives, outlines current challenges, and explores proposed solutions to foster a sustainable, innovative, and accessible rare disease treatment ecosystem. Results: The review highlights policies such as legislative incentives in the European Union, United States, and Japan for orphan drug development, public-private partnerships to boost innovation, and patient registries to support research and clinical trials. Despite these efforts, major challenges persist, including high therapy costs, limited access to innovation for ultrarare diseases, and diagnostic delays, with significant disparities across regions. Conclusions: Overcoming these challenges will require sustainable pricing and reimbursement frameworks, alongside stronger collaboration between stakeholders, particularly for ultrarare diseases. Advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, hold promise for improving diagnostic accuracy and data collection, supported by enhanced coding systems and registries to facilitate more robust research
Women’s and men’s authorship experiences: a prospective meta-analysis
No full textThe opaqueness of author naming and ordering, when coupled with power dynamics, can lead to a number of disadvantages in academic careers. In this commentary, we investigate gender differences in authorship experiences in a large prospective meta-analytic study (k = 46; n = 3,565; 12 countries). We find that women’s and men’s authorship experiences differ significantly with women reporting greater prevalence of problematic behaviors. We present seven actionable recommendations for improving the receipt and reporting of intellectual credit. Such actions are needed to ensure fairness in authorship, which is one of the most powerful factors in academics’ career outcomes
Evidence from the dead: new estimates of wealth inequality based on the distribution of estates
No full textThis paper examines the estimation of the distribution of wealth using estates left at death. We establish formal conditions for implementing a simplified version of the classic estate multiplier method, relying solely on minimal information about estates and mortality. These conditions are empirically validated, and the simplified approach is applied to produce new long-run top wealth share series for Belgium, Japan, and South Africa, where estate data have previously been underutilized. This method holds potential for expanding the range of countries and years in which wealth concentration can be estimated, especially where estate data exist but the standard method with heterogeneous multipliers is inapplicable
Reducing coal use is key to curbing toxic trace elements emissions in China driven by carbon neutrality policy
No full textToxic trace elements (TEs) are commonly co-emitted with carbon dioxide (CO2) and pose challenges to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the extent to which carbon mitigation measures can simultaneously reduce these pollutants remains unclear. Here, we developed an integrated assessment model to evaluate the impact of China's carbon neutrality policies on TEs emissions from coal combustion across various regions and sectors. Our findings reveal that, compared to baseline scenarios, a 77% carbon reduction under the carbon neutrality policies leads to an 85%-88% decrease in TEs emissions in 2060 within coal-consuming sectors, highlighting the importance of regional and sectoral heterogeneity. We identified key regions and sectors with disproportionately high emission intensities and co-reduction potential. Priority regions include Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Hubei, and Jiangsu, while critical sectors include petrol oil, power generation, services, chemicals, and metal smelting. We also portrayed, for the first time in literature, an integrated long-term roadmap for synergistic control of CO2 and TEs emissions. These findings provide valuable insights for optimizing multi-pollution reduction strategies and enhancing environmental governance efficacy
North American female suffrage: the role of occupational dispersion in the West
No full textUntil the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1919, voting rights for women in the US were not mandatory. Accordingly, many states refused women this privilege. However, the West appeared to be an exception, with all but one state in this region having granted female suffrage before federal enforcement. This paper seeks to understand the role of regional trends in female labour force participation in women’s enfranchisement, with a focus on the impact of occupational dispersion between 1880 - 1910. By exploring an avenue outside of religion and gender imbalances, an original contribution to existing literature on the success of Western women’s suffrage is provided. I utilise census data and governmental marital status statistics to conduct graphical analysis using cartography and complementary log-logistic regression analysis. The key finding of the paper is that women in Western states tended to be engaged in a narrow range of jobs – a consistent pattern found over the period of study. This helped them form a collective voice to fight for emancipation by facilitating mobilisation and more effective suffrage strategies. Hence, although the impact of women’s occupational dispersion is not found to be statistically significant, the relationship between the two variables is nevertheless historically meaningful
Enlisting consumers in tax enforcement: a policy review
No full textOver the past decade, governments worldwide have introduced incentive programs - often in the form of lottery prizes - to encourage consumers to help combat tax evasion. While similar programs date back to the 1950s, the rapid expansion of Value Added Tax (VAT) systems in developing countries, combined with the Information Technology revolution, has reshaped the tax enforcement policy toolbox, leading to a recent surge in enforcement policies through consumer incentives. This paper reviews the rationale behind these policies, documents variations in their design, and examines the conditions under which they can enhance compliance and raise revenue