1,721,011 research outputs found
Assessing SDGs: A New Methodology to Measure Sustainability
Full text linkThe FEEM project APPS – Assessment, Projections and Policy of Sustainable Development Goals – focuses on the quantitative assessment of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. The project consists of two phases. The first, retrospective, computes indicators for all SDGs in 139 countries and then derives a composite multi-dimensional index and a worldwide ranking of current sustainability. This allows informing on strengths and weaknesses of today socio-economic development, as well as environmental criticalities, all around the world. The second phase, prospective, aims at evaluating the future trends of sustainability in the world by 2030. The assessment of the SDGs is carried out by means of an extended version of the recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium ICES macro-economic model that includes social and environmental indicators. The final goal is to highlight future challenges left unsolved in the next 15 years of socio-economic development and to analyze costs and benefits of specific policies to support the achievement of proposed targets. This paper presents the methodology and the results of the retrospective assessment. Five main steps are described: i) screening of indicators eligible to address the UN SDGs; ii) data collection from relevant sources; iii) organization in the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society, environment); iv) normalization to a common metrics; v) aggregation of the 25 indicators in composite indices by pillars as well as in the multi-dimensional index. The final ranking summarizes countries’ sustainability performance. As expected, Middle-North European countries are at top of the ranking (Sweden, Norway and Switzerland the first three), with the most industrialized European countries such as Germany and UK, however, penalized by insufficient environmental performance. Other highly developed countries are between 24th (Canada) and 52nd place (United States). The emerging nations are scattered in our sustainability ranking. Brazil (43rd) and Russia (45th) precede China (80th) and India (102nd), the latter two especially penalized because of their social complexity. The worst performances, in terms of overall sustainability, are in Sub-Saharan Africa (Comoros, the Central African Republic and Chad occupy the last places in the ranking)
Can climate policy enhance sustainability?
Full text linkImplementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for the future. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change. Climate policy is therefore crucial for present and future generations. Nonetheless, one may wonder whether future economic and social development could be harmed by climate policy. This paper addresses this question by examining recent developments in international climate policy and considering different levels of cooperation that may arise in light of the outcomes of the Conference of the Parties held in Doha. The paper analyses how various climate policy scenarios would enhance sustainability and whether there is a trade-off between climate policy and economic development and social cohesion. This is done by using a new comprehensive indicator, the FEEM Sustainability Index (FEEM SI), which aggregates several economic, social, and environmental indicators. The FEEM SI is built into a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy, thus offering the possibility of projecting all indicators into the future and of delivering a perspective assessment of sustainability under different future climate policy scenarios. We find that the environmental component of sustainability improves at the regional and world level thanks to the implementation of climate policies. Overall sustainability increases in all scenarios since the economic and social components are affected negatively yet marginally. This analysis does not include explicitly climate change damages and this may lead to underestimating the benefits of policy actions. If the USA, Canada, Japan and Russia did not contribute to mitigating emissions, sustainability in these countries would decrease and the overall effectiveness of climate policy in enhancing global sustainability would be offset
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Policy-relevant assessment method of socio-economic impacts of flooding: an Italian case study.
Full text linkVariations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Report on Economic Quantitative Ex-Ante Assessment of Proposed Policy Mixes in the EU
No full textThe purpose of deliverable D6.2 is to support with a quantitative economic assessment the evaluation of a set of policies scrutinized within the DYNAMIX project, aiming to promote decoupling of resources use from GDP and material efficiency within the EU. The analytical tools used for the investigation are three macro - economic models, ICES, MEMO and MEWA, all belonging to the category of Computable General Equilibrium modelling, but with complementary characteristics. More specifically: they all provide a sectoral representation of the EU economic system and endogenous price formation. In practice, they can assess direct and indirect policy effects on the whole economic system and the full macroeconomic feedbacks, beyond the sector initially subjected to the policy intervention. However, ICES representing the EU with a country detail, is better suited to capture intra and extra EU trade effects. MEWA and MEMO consi der the EU as a single region, but differently from ICES, offer a more realistic representation of technological change, feature forward looking agents and have a richer representation of labour supply choices. The policies examined by the different models and their slightly different implementation, due to the differences in the models’ sectoral and functional details, are summarized in the table below. [Table 1 DYNAMIX Quantitative Economic Assessment Policy Matrix.]
The first two policies examined - a material tax and a tax aimed at internalising environmental externalities - are based on different designs and implementation strategies. Nonetheless, their common trait is the breadth. They have direct and indirect effects on many sectors, and thus have impacts clearly detectable on the overall EU GDP.
The strongest message from the analysis is that the cost of the policy crucially depends upon (a) the sensitivity of the production system to the dynamic incentive to dematerialize induced by the policy signal, i.e. ultimately upon the reaction (or availability) of technological progress and (b) the use of tax revenues, i.e. on the implementation of an appropriate revenue - recycling scheme.
A combination of technological progress in response to the tax with a reduction in labour taxation can indeed, according to the modelled outcomes, end up stimulating economic growth (a maximum 8% GDP gain in 2050) and increasing material efficiency (in a range between 12 to more than 70% in 2050), reaping a material “double dividend”: more GDP and lower material use. Without these two factors, however, especially when taxes are rebated lump - sum to households, the policy can be particularly depressing for EU GDP ( - 5% ), and, as a further drawback, might even worsen, rather than increase material efficiency in many material intensive sectors of the economy. This can happen when the reduction in economic activity outpaces the decline in material use at the sectoral level.
All in all, the tax shift fosters a huge transformation of the production system. Therefore, notwithstanding final net GDP gains, material intensive sectors would be highly penalized (a good example is the iron and steel sector which may experience a production decline up to 60% when exposed to a material tax). This calls for a careful designing and planning of the policies devising a set of accompanying measures to smooth the most adverse social effects. Increasing public investment for R&D dedicated to material efficiency, whether financed through increases in labour, corporate or value added taxation, seems to have the highest potential to boost GDP among the three policies and is also the least burdensome for material intensive sectors. In fact, final material use can also increase, as an economic “rebound effect” materializes with the “production scale” effect being larger than the “material use decline” effect. This raises a caveat: although supporting material efficiency R&D might seem the “optimal” policy to foster absolute decoupling, it should be accompanied by further regulation or incentives limiting material use or promoting dematerialized services.
Despite the obvious differences, the tax to foster pesticide reduction, the increase in the VAT on meat and a targeted information campaign to influence food behaviour towards less meat intensive diets, address a group of sectors with a “low weight” in term of EU value added. Thus, their relevance is prominently sectoral. Raising the VAT on meat to the EU average VAT level can be successful in reducing meat consumption (between 2.5 and 14% in 2050). Meat industry exports are expected to increase in response to the decrease in world meat prices following the contraction of EU demand while effects on ‘Non - meat’ based food production in the EU is ambiguous but anyway moderate ( 0.7%, - 0.24% in 2050 depending on the model). Potential declines in ‘Non - meat’ based food production might occur when the demand contraction induced by the tax on household budget meets higher input costs as some meat products are used as intermediates also by the non - meat food industry. Again, final GDP impacts are determined by the use of VAT revenues. If they are rebated in a lump sum to households, GDP in the EU could decline by 0.05%; if labour taxes are reduced, GDP could increase by 0.35%. Comparable effects on meat industry production (a contraction by 6% in the ICES model) and slight GDP gains (by 0.04% in the EU in 2050) would be induced by the information campaign to shift food consumption habits. Notably, the effect on GD P is positive, rather than negative as in the VAT case, even without an accompanying reduction in labour taxes. This occurs as the recomposition of consumers’ preferences is not induced by any active tax policy which ultimately impacts household income, but just by the “persuasion” of consumers. In this sense, inducing “just” a substitution and not an income effect, the action of the campaign is less invasive. However, it has to be recognized that there is a huge uncertainty on the effectiveness of information campaigns and on the time they would need to accomplish the desired results. These issues are not considered in the current analysis though.
The pesticide tax, finally, can reduce the use of pesticides (up to 10% in the models) while exerting a limited effect on the EU agricultural activity (which in 2050 contracts of the 0.08% - 0.8%) and an even smaller one on overall EU GDP. When changes are so small, however, it is possible that indirect effects prevail over direct effects. For instance, in some simulations, an increase, albeit small, in EU chemical sector production is observed. This is explained by the increase in agricultural production outside the EU favored by the higher prices of EU agricultural commodities, which brings about an increased demand for fertilizers and pesticides, including those produced in the EU, which are exported more. The policy thus would not induce a decrease in the negative externality, but its de-location abroad. These unintended secondary effects should thus be dealt with specific corrections. Like the material tax policy, the circular tax design aims to foster dematerialization, recycle and re-use, but with a much narrower scope as it focusses specifically on raw materials (excluding metals) extraction. In the light of the relatively limited economic relevance of the mining sector in the EU, policy effects are mostly felt by raw-material-intensive branches of the production system, while systemic effects are small. Not surprisingly, mining of non-ferrous minerals (experiencing a production contraction in the range of 7 - 35%) and the non-metallic minerals transformation sector (contracting 7 - 10% by mid-century) are the more heavily affected. Once again, revenue recycling mechanisms play some role. Nonetheless, the small volume of revenues available to be recycled does not allow for significant GDP and employment expansion. Similarly, the absence of recycling does not cause huge GDP impacts, although they remain slightly negative (-0.32% in 2050). The overall dematerialization potential of the policy, especially in the long term, is limited if compared to that for instance of the material tax, producing at best a 3% material efficiency improvement with respect to the reference scenario. The last policy examined, is the shift towards more “leisure consumption”. Its direct consequence is the decrease in the labour supply. Therefore, the price of labour (wages) will increase, leading to some substitution of labour with capital, energy and materials. In the short run, this will increase the capital - to - GDP ratio, energy - intensity and material intensity. However, in the long run, as the economy will produce less goods to be consumed, an absolute reduction in the use of energy and materials will occur along with the decline in GDP. Exports will also be penalized with potential negative consequences on the current account
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