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Social capital, social protection, and multi-dimensional poverty: Evidence from Chinese migrant workers' experience
No full textUsing an online survey, we examine the relationship between migrant workers' social capital, social protection, and multi-dimensional poverty alleviation. To address endogeneity concerns, we employ two-stage least squares analysis and seemingly unrelated regression estimation. Our findings indicate that migrant workers' social capital in cities significantly reduces poverty, as those with higher social capital gain greater access to social protection. Additionally, social protection lowers poverty levels and mediates the impact of social capital on poverty alleviation, leading to more equitable outcomes. Among the three dimensions of social capital—social networks, reciprocal connections, and social trust—social networks play the most significant role in poverty alleviation. Social protection partially mediates the effects of social networks and reciprocal connections but fully mediates the impact of social trust on poverty alleviation. These findings highlight both the beneficial and exploitative aspects of social capital. To mitigate the “elite capture” effect—where unequal distribution of social capital disadvantages certain migrant workers—the government should implement more inclusive social protection policies
Climate policy uncertainty and realized volatility across tranquil and economic stress regimes
No full textThis study investigates the out-of-sample impact of climate policy uncertainty (CPU) on realized volatility across tranquil and economic stress regimes. Using data from August 2010 to June 2025, we estimate multiple autoregressive (AR) models with and without CPU as an exogenous predictor. Furthermore, rolling window estimation is used to ensure the robustness across changing market conditions. The results show that basic AR models provide limited forecasting power for most sectors, particularly at longer horizons and during instability. However, incorporating CPU improves risk forecasts, especially for sectors highly exposed to environmental regulations such as Energy, Electricity, and Utilities. Thus, the influence of CPU on volatility is both sector-specific and sensitive to market regimes. The study concludes with policy implications and recommendations for key financial stakeholders
Quantifying the potential triple benefits of photovoltaic energy development in reducing emissions, restoring ecological resource, and alleviating poverty in China
No full textChina has set ambitious carbon neutrality goals and is actively developing photovoltaic (PV) energy. The construction of PV stations could have impacts on the land surface and vegetation. This study employs multiple models and machine learning to simulate the impact of PV station construction on net primary productivity (NPP) and triple benefits: emission reduction, income increase, and ecosystem services (ES). Results reveal spatially varied NPP changes due to PV construction, with improvements concentrated in arid northwestern regions, covering 44.1 % of China's potential construction areas. Over 76 % of barren land PV installations enhance NPP, averaging 17.4 gC/m²/year increase. Northwest of China emerge as key areas for future PV development. By 2060, PV construction could yield emission reduction and carbon trading values of 757 billion yuan annually. Balancing suitability and ecological impacts in PV planning can achieve multi-benefits, including 42.5 billion yuan/year in ES value, while conserving lan
What's in a name? The use of birds in Aotearoa New Zealand business names
Full text linkThe use of animal symbolism or names is a common practice in advertising and branding. Businesses use animals to project attributes of their brand and thus contribute to public familiarity with the species. In New Zealand, birds are arguably the most prominent animals in national conservation priorities and citizen science activities. This fact reflects New Zealand's unique biogeography and the historic lack of terrestrial mammals. Here we explore the frequency with which bird names have been used in business branding over the last 70 years and examine the trend in the relative use of native, non-native or generic names. We quantified the use of bird names in New Zealand businesses using the New Zealand Business Register, which provides details of ca. 1.6 million businesses. We identified the most frequent generic and specific names used between 1950 and 2022. We further explored associations between specific bird groups and business sectors. The prevalence of bird names in New Zealand business branding was generally low, with an increase from approximately 0.3% in the 1950s, trebling to about 1% of all registered businesses in recent years. The representation of native species within businesses that use bird names has increased from approximately 25% in the 1950s to more than 50% today. Aside from the kiwi, the most common bird names used by businesses were generic, for example, eagle, swan, or falcon. However, of those names that could be related to a known species, 83% referred to a species native to New Zealand. We detected non-random associations between bird groups and specific business sectors. For example, raptors were overrepresented in business names from the construction, public administration and safety sectors. We provide an empirical case study on the commercially oriented usage of animal names for business branding. The increased use of bird names over time and associations between specific bird groups and business sectors may indicate socio-cultural attributes linked to particular bird characteristics. The identification of trends and patterns could be the basis for further investigation into relationships between a species' familiarity and public perceptions, with consequent relevance to species conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog
The number of larval instars in the flax weevil (Anagotus fairburni) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
Full text linkThe flax weevil Anagotus fairburni is a large flightless beetle, that is one of the members of the endemic insect ‘megafauna’ of New Zealand. It is a protected species that currently persists only on predator-free islands or in remote and difficult to access alpine areas. Little is documented about the ecology of the flax weevil. In this study we estimated the number of instars in the A. fairburni life cycle by measuring the head capsule widths of larvae collected in the field on Mana Island Scientific Reserve. We used kernel density function estimates to predict average head-capsule widths and the number of larval instars. We then used Brooks-Dyar’s law on the head capsule width data and analysed Brooks and Crosby indexes to refine the estimated number of instars based on imperfect data. Results from sampling of 86 larvae suggested four instar groupings, but further analysis based on Brooks-Dyar’s law found that A. fairburni likely passes through 6 or 7 larval stages prior to pupation, with some uncertainty for smaller instars. Our method provides new data on ecology of an endemic species and provides a framework for further work on similar endangered species where data is imperfect or difficult to gather
Healthy diet choices: does internet use help promote healthy food consumption in Indonesia?
No full textThis study examines the impact of Internet use on healthy food consumption, captured by the share of healthy food expenditure in total household food expenditure. The inverse probability weighted regression adjustment and Tobit models combined with the Lewbel approach help address the selection bias issues and estimate data of 334,229 households collected by the National Economics Survey in Indonesia. The results show that Internet use significantly reduces household healthy food consumption, and the effect on rural households is larger than that on urban households. Internet use diversity, measured by the number of Internet activities and services people access, also significantly reduces healthy food consumption. The disaggregated analyses reveal that with incomes increasing from low (quartile 1) to high (quartile 4), the impacts of Internet use on healthy food consumption for urban households become positive at quartile 2 and the effects increase monotonously. In comparison, the impacts of Internet use on healthy food consumption for rural households are negative at the different income quartiles
Soil type affects partitioning of ruminant urine-¹⁵ due to variation in nitrification potential, immobilisation and drainage under autumn-winter conditions
No full textThere is a need to better understand how soil type affects ruminant urine-N and the in situ losses of nitrous oxide (N₂O) and dinitrogen (N₂) from pasture ecosystems. Similarly, the significance of processes responsible for these losses as N₂, such as codenitrification and denitrification, remain unclear. A 105 day in situ study quantified N₂ and N₂O fluxes from two contrasting soil types, well-drained (Allophanic) and poorly-drained (Gley), after synthetic ruminant urine application (800 kg N ha¯¹⁵, 40 atom % ¹⁵N) in late autumn. The well-drained soil promoted nitrification, as evident from inorganic-N dynamics, higher bacterial amoA gene copy numbers and faster pH decline. The N₂O emission factors from the poorly and well-drained soils were 1.48 ± 0.24 % and 0.22 ± 0.03 %, respectively. Denitrification N₂ fluxes were similar regardless of soil type, totalling 15 % of ¹⁵N applied, and increased markedly after 60 days. While gene copy numbers of nosZI and nosZII varied temporarily, increasing as the poorly drained soil became anaerobic, there was no effect due to urine application, which may have been a consequence of denitrification occurring at depths below that used for microbial soil sampling. Codenitrification made a minor contribution to N₂ fluxes, accounting for ≤0.9 % of N₂ fluxes in the well-drained soil and 12.1 % in the poorly drained soil, confirming that codenitrification increases when soil conditions become anaerobic. In the well-drained soil, the ¹⁵N recovery of urine showed that more urine-N was lost via nitrate leaching, followed by immobilisation in deeper soil depths. This highlights the importance of monitoring soil chemistry and biology in deeper soil layers when studying urine-N turnover and fate in grazed pasture soil. Despite identical historical grazing management these results show that soil type plays a determining role in urine-N transformation and fate, potentially due to differences in microbial activity, soil chemistry and drainage in deeper soil layers
The impact of China’s Central Environmental Protection Inspection on carbon emissions of tourism industry
No full textThe Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) has become a key force across China in addressing the upsurging environmental issues in recent years. Previous studies have focused more on the impact of CEPI on corporate environmental action and air pollution, very few studies have revealed the effectiveness of CEPI in reducing carbon emission Spatial Network Structure of China’s Provincial- of specific industries, like tourism. This paper uses a two-way fixed-effects model to analyse whether CEPI affects the carbon emissions of the tourism industry based on panel data of 117 cities in China from 2013 to 2019. The results show that the CEPI has an inhibitory effect on the tourism carbon emissions, and this effect continued to strengthen until the third period when the inhibitory effect disappeared. The mechanism analysis shows that CEPI can reduce carbon emissions from tourism by promoting the ecologization of the tourism industry. Our findings provide evidence for using CEPI to achieve the tourism carbon reduction target
Learning from COVID-19 for climate-ready urban transformation
No full textCities have suffered from three years of the COVID-19 pandemic and are increasingly experiencing exacerbated heatwaves, floods, and droughts due to climate change. Going forward, cities need to address both climate and public health crises effectively while reducing poverty and inequity, often in the context of economic pressure and declining levels of trust in government. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaps in city readiness for simultaneous responses to pandemics and climate change, particularly in the Global South. However, these concurrent challenges to cities present an opportunity to reformulate current urbanization patterns and the economies and dynamics they enable. This Element focuses on understanding COVID-19's impact on city systems related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and vice versa, in terms of warnings, lessons learned, and calls to action. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core