Showing papers by "London School of Economics and Political Science published in 2022"
TL;DR: In this article , the authors collected a large dataset with matching GPS tracks, booking data and survey data for more than 500 travellers, and by estimating a first choice model between eight transport modes, including shared e-scooters, e-bikes, shared scooters, personal scooters and personal scooter, they found that trip distance, precipitation and access distance are fundamental to micro-mobility mode choice.
Abstract: Shared micro-mobility services are rapidly expanding yet little is known about travel behaviour. Understanding mode choice, in particular, is quintessential for incorporating micro-mobility into transport simulations in order to enable effective transport planning. We contribute by collecting a large dataset with matching GPS tracks, booking data and survey data for more than 500 travellers, and by estimating a first choice model between eight transport modes, including shared e-scooters, shared e-bikes, personal e-scooters and personal e-bikes. We find that trip distance, precipitation and access distance are fundamental to micro-mobility mode choice. Substitution patterns reveal that personal e-scooters and e-bikes emit less CO2 than the transport modes they replace, while shared e-scooters and e-bikes emit more CO2 than the transport modes they replace. Our results enable researchers and planners to test the effectiveness of policy interventions through transport simulations. Service providers can use our findings on access distances to optimize vehicle repositioning.
34 citations
TL;DR: More than 1 month since Russia began its illegal invasion of Ukraine the tragic human suffering and loss of life are clear as mentioned in this paper . Each day brings more death, injuries, and stories of people fighting for their lives.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors used a comprehensive sample of self-labeled ESG mutual funds (as identified by Morningstar) in the United States from 2010 to 2018, and found that these funds hold portfolio firms with worse track records for compliance with labor and environmental laws, relative to portfolio firms held by non-ESG funds.
Abstract: Abstract Investment funds that claim to focus on socially responsible stocks have proliferated in recent times. In this paper, we verify whether ESG mutual funds actually invest in firms that have stakeholder-friendly track records. Using a comprehensive sample of self-labelled ESG mutual funds (as identified by Morningstar) in the United States from 2010 to 2018, we find that these funds hold portfolio firms with worse track records for compliance with labor and environmental laws, relative to portfolio firms held by non-ESG funds managed by the same financial institutions in the same years. Relative to other funds offered by the same asset managers in the same years, ESG funds hold stocks that are more likely to voluntarily disclose carbon emissions performance but also stocks with higher carbon emissions per unit of revenue. Despite these findings, ESG funds hold portfolio firms with higher average ESG scores. We show that ESG scores are correlated with the quantity of voluntary ESG-related disclosures but not with firms’ compliance records or actual levels of carbon emissions. Finally, ESG funds appear to underperform financially relative to other funds within the same asset manager and year, and to charge higher fees. Our findings suggest that socially responsible funds do not appear to follow through on proclamations of concerns for stakeholders.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors argue that the methodology employed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) rests on flawed foundations, which become particularly relevant in relation to the realities of the immense risks and challenges of climate change, and the radical changes in our economies that a sound and effective response require.
Abstract: Designing policy for climate change requires analyses which integrate the interrelationship between the economy and the environment. We argue that, despite their dominance in the economics literature and influence in public discussion and policymaking, the methodology employed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) rests on flawed foundations, which become particularly relevant in relation to the realities of the immense risks and challenges of climate change, and the radical changes in our economies that a sound and effective response require. We identify a set of critical methodological problems with the IAMs which limit their usefulness and discuss the analytic foundations of an alternative approach that is more capable of providing insights into how best to manage the transition to net-zero emissions.
22 citations
TL;DR: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several international initiatives have been developed to strengthen and reform the global architecture for pandemic preparedness and response, including proposals for a pandemic treaty, a Pandemic Fund, and mechanisms for equitable access to medical countermeasures as mentioned in this paper .
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors discuss the multifaceted economic and financial vulnerabilities that have been created or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic on a foundation of already weak economic fundamentals in many countries.
Abstract: I discuss the multifaceted economic and financial vulnerabilities that have been created or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic on a foundation of already weak economic fundamentals in many countries. Crises often do not travel alone. Banking, sovereign debt, exchange rate crashes, sudden stops, inflation often intersect to become severe conglomerate crises. Historically, whether of the individual or conglomerate variety, crises influence the shape and speed of economic recovery. As the health crisis morphs into a financial or debt crisis in some countries, I discuss what may lie ahead in terms of the stages in crisis resolution and brief reflection how the resolution process can be expedited.
18 citations
TL;DR: A quantitative content and qualitative thematic analysis of alcohol marketing posts (n = 2600) by 20 alcohol brands on Facebook and Instagram pages over an 18 month period (1st January 2019-30th June 2020) was conducted as discussed by the authors .
17 citations
TL;DR: The Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development assessed the challenges posed by COVID-19 in the WHO European region and the lessons from the response as discussed by the authors , and made a series of policy recommendations that are evidence-informed and above all actionable.
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article , seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear, and the authors sidestep the challenge of disentangling various possible causal paths in favor of a holistic approach.
Abstract: Although seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear. While there is a sizable and growing literature on environmental drivers of COVID-19 transmission, recent reviews have highlighted conflicting and inconclusive findings. This indeterminacy partly owes to the fact that seasonal variation relates to viral transmission by a complicated web of causal pathways, including many interacting biological and behavioural factors. Since analyses of specific factors cannot determine the aggregate strength of seasonal forcing, we sidestep the challenge of disentangling various possible causal paths in favor of a holistic approach. We model seasonality as a sinusoidal variation in transmission and infer a single Bayesian estimate of the overall seasonal effect. By extending two state-of-the-art models of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and their datasets covering 143 regions in temperate Europe, we are able to adjust our estimates for the role of both NPIs and mobility patterns in reducing transmission. We find strong seasonal patterns, consistent with a reduction in the time-varying reproduction number R ( t ) (the expected number of new infections generated by an infectious individual at time t ) of 42.1% (95% CI: 24.7%—53.4%) from the peak of winter to the peak of summer. These results imply that the seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is comparable in magnitude to the most effective individual NPIs but less than the combined effect of multiple interventions.
14 citations
20 Feb 2022
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored people's willingness to reduce travel consumption in support of the transition to a low-carbon pathway beyond COVID-19 using new survey data from UK car drivers and air travellers.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors present a climate mitigation scenario that represents convergence to levels of energy that are sufficient for human wellbeing and compatible with rapid decarbonisation in the rest of the world, while maintaining the Global North's energy privilege at a per capita level 2·3 times higher than in the Global South.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors revisited the fragility of the Eurozone, which arises because the sovereigns in Eurozone issue debt in a currency (the euro) over which they have no control.
TL;DR: In this article , a competitive open-city general equilibrium model of vertical and horizontal city structure was developed to show that vertical costs and benefits affect the horizontal land use pattern within cities, and the causal relationship between skyscrapers and urbanization is bi-directional.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors explore the evolution of representation of practitioners in IPCC WGII author teams from AR5 to AR6 and find that practitioner representation has increased in AR6, however this remains low.
TL;DR: In this paper, a new and direct index of social connectedness of regions based on aggregate Facebook friendships is used to measure informal ties, and they find that the effect of geographic proximity on knowledge flows is entirely explained by informal social ties and professional networks.
TL;DR: Li et al. as discussed by the authors examined elite preferences related to a state-building reform in eleventh century China and found that kinship networks, when geographically dispersed, cross-cut local cleavages and align the incentives of self-interested elites in favor of building a strong state.
Abstract: A long tradition in social sciences scholarship has established that kinship-based institutions undermine state building. I argue that kinship networks, when geographically dispersed, cross-cut local cleavages and align the incentives of self-interested elites in favor of building a strong state, which generates scale economies in providing protection and justice throughout a large territory. I evaluate this argument by examining elite preferences related to a state-building reform in eleventh century China. I map politicians’ kinship networks using their tomb epitaphs and collect data on their political allegiances from archival materials. A statistical analysis demonstrates that a politician’s support for state building increases with the geographic size of his kinship network, controlling for a number of individual, family, and regional characteristics. My findings highlight the importance of elite social structure in facilitating state development and help to advance our understanding of state building in China—a useful, yet understudied, counterpoint to the Eurocentric literature.
TL;DR: In this paper , in-utero exposure to economic fluctuations on birth outcomes by exploiting geographical variation in the unemployment rate across local areas in England, and by comparing siblings born to the same mother, was found to be strongly pro-cyclical.
01 Sep 2022
TL;DR: In this article , the authors investigated the structural transformation associated with the twin transition of decarbonisation and digitalisation in European economies by placing it in a broader historical perspective, finding that communication transitions appear to be substantially faster than energy transitions.
Abstract: This paper investigates the structural transformation associated with the ‘twin transition’ of decarbonisation and digitalisation in European economies by placing it in a broader historical perspective. With this in mind, this paper analyses the long run trends in energy intensity and communication intensity since 1850. The evidence indicates that these economies experienced a coevolution of energy and communication intensities during their industrialisation phase, followed by a divergence in the energy and communication intensities associated with the development of high tech and ICT. Overall, this reflects the dematerialisation of these European economies. The paper also analyses the speed of historical energy transitions and communication technology transitions in these economies, finding that communication transitions appear to be substantially faster than energy transitions. The evidence suggests that twin transitions of the decarbonisation and digitalisation of economies are likely to experience a process of imbalanced structural transformation (with ICT continuing to forge ahead). This expectation should guide policy recommendations – increasing the need for low carbon industry to develop and create synergies between the two industries in order to avoid the new industrial revolution being high‑carbon.
01 Jan 2022
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the unassailable power and popularity that numbers have come to assume during the COVID-19 pandemic, linking the health and well-being of the population with the health of the economy and supporting arguments both in favour of and against restrictions of various kinds.
Abstract: This essay discusses the unassailable power and popularity that numbers have come to assume during the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemiological statistics have come to play a remarkable and public role, regulating our lives, while shaping and justifying political decisions. This essay traces the emergence of one particular number, the “R” number or reproduction number in multiple and dispersed sites, drawing attention to the bifurcation of demography and epidemiology in its emergence. It examines how and why the R number came to act as a crucial mediating instrument during the pandemic, linking the health and well-being of the population with the health of the economy and supporting arguments both in favour of and against restrictions of various kinds.
TL;DR: This article developed new Bayesian hierarchical models to aggregate the evidence on these distributional effects for mixture-type outcomes such as household profit, and applied them to microcredit, finding a precise zero effect from the fifth to seventy-fifth quantiles, and uncertain yet large effects on the upper tails, particularly for households with business experience.
Abstract: Expanding credit access in developing contexts could help some households while harming others. Microcredit studies show different effects at different quantiles of household profit, including some negative effects; yet these findings also differ across studies. I develop new Bayesian hierarchical models to aggregate the evidence on these distributional effects for mixture-type outcomes such as household profit. Applying them to microcredit, I find a precise zero effect from the fifth to seventy-fifth quantiles, and uncertain yet large effects on the upper tails, particularly for households with business experience. These quantile estimates are more reliable than averages because the data are fat tailed. (JEL G21, G51, L25, O16, P34)
TL;DR: In this article, two studies were conducted in conflict-affected eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and broadly aimed to refine understandings of public authority and governance, focusing on access to essential social services across different governance arrangements.
TL;DR: CausalRL as discussed by the authors is a reinforcement learning framework for carrying out A/B testing in two-sided marketplace platforms, where there is only one unit that receives a sequence of treatments over time and the treatment at a given time impacts current outcome as well as future outcomes.
Abstract: A/B testing, or online experiment is a standard business strategy to compare a new product with an old one in pharmaceutical, technological, and traditional industries. Major challenges arise in online experiments of two-sided marketplace platforms (e.g., Uber) where there is only one unit that receives a sequence of treatments over time. In those experiments, the treatment at a given time impacts current outcome as well as future outcomes. The aim of this article is to introduce a reinforcement learning framework for carrying A/B testing in these experiments, while characterizing the long-term treatment effects. Our proposed testing procedure allows for sequential monitoring and online updating. It is generally applicable to a variety of treatment designs in different industries. In addition, we systematically investigate the theoretical properties (e.g., size and power) of our testing procedure. Finally, we apply our framework to both simulated data and a real-world data example obtained from a technological company to illustrate its advantage over the current practice. A Python implementation of our test is available at https://github.com/callmespring/CausalRL. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
TL;DR: In this paper , the consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine on the sub-field of Russian studies in political science are discussed, and they draw on their recent work on the historical underpinnings of social structure and its implications for civil society, protest and support for democracy in Russia.
Abstract: This essay reflects upon the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine on the sub-field of Russian studies in political science. I argue that the war has exposed some blind spots in our knowledge. Notably, it has left us struggling to understand the historically deprived communities in Russia whose values, sentiments, and vulnerabilities may be indirect buttresses to both support for Putin and the war. I discuss two key issues in the sub-field: (1) the elite-centered approaches in research in mainstream work on Russia, not least due to data availability preoccupations; and (2) the paucity of inter-disciplinary perspectives, particularly the reluctance of mainstream studies to cast their nets into history and sociology. Disciplinary pressures – the credibility revolution – complicate a historically sensitive revision of long-internalized assumptions. I draw on my recent work on the historical underpinnings of social structure and its implications for civil society, protest, and support for democracy in Russia.
TL;DR: In this paper , tall and durable buildings can be exploited as a source of "big data" to trace the history of the spatial structure of cities, and stylized evidence on how building heights correlate with land values over space and time within cities.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explored the relationship between cohort members' demographic and clinical characteristics and service costs, and found that being female was associated with lower baseline costs and living alone was higher baseline costs.
Abstract: Background: The drivers of costs of care for people with dementia are not well understood and little is known on the costs of care for those with rarer dementias. Objective: To characterize use and costs of paid and unpaid care over time in a cohort of people with dementia living in Britain. To explore the relationship between cohort members’ demographic and clinical characteristics and service costs. Methods: We calculated costs of health and social services, unpaid care, and out-of-pocket expenditure for people with mild-to-moderate dementia participating in three waves of the IDEAL cohort (2014–2018). Latent growth curve modelling investigated associations between participants’ baseline sociodemographic and diagnostic characteristics and mean weekly service costs. Results: Data were available on use of paid and unpaid care by 1,537 community-dwelling participants with dementia at Wave 1, 1,199 at Wave 2, and 910 at Wave 3. In models of paid service costs, being female was associated with lower baseline costs and living alone was associated with higher baseline costs. Dementia subtype and caregiver status were associated with variations in baseline costs and the rate of change in costs, which was additionally influenced by age. Conclusion: Lewy body and Parkinson’s disease dementias were associated with higher service costs at the outset, and Lewy body and frontotemporal dementias with more steeply increasing costs overall, than Alzheimer’s disease. Planners of dementia services should consider the needs of people with these relatively rare dementia subtypes as they may require more resources than people with more prevalent subtypes.
TL;DR: The authors argue that research on social movements as actors and engagement with social movement theories can open new horizons in Social Policy research by advancing our understanding of the politics of policy from a global perspective and strengthening our analytical and explanatory frameworks of agency, ideas, and power in the study of continuity and change of policy.
Abstract: Abstract Across the globe, movements are confronting states and elites, challenging inequalities and mobilising for greater justice, a stronger voice, and progressive policy changes. In this article, I bridge the divide between Social Policy and the interdisciplinary field of Social Movement Studies. I examine how and why social movements, as actors in policy fields and social movement theories, matter for social policy. I argue that research on social movements as actors and engagement with social movement theories can open new horizons in Social Policy research by advancing our understanding of the politics of policy from a global perspective and strengthening our analytical and explanatory frameworks of agency, ideas, and power in the study of continuity and change of policy.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors use a panel of 10 euro area countries over the period 1996Q1-2017Q4 to show that heightened uncertainty leads to a flight to 'safety' and 'quality' in sovereign bond markets.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explore the qualities of children's play and the factors that shape it so as to reimagine, together with children, parents and professionals working with them, a digital environment that could better serve children's best interests.
Abstract: Digital technologies afford ample opportunities for children’s development, identity formation, imagination and sociability through free play. At stake, we argue, is children’s agency. Yet free play is under threat in both digital and nondigital contexts. Recognising that different configurations of the contexts in which play occurs affect whether and how children can play on their own terms, this article draws on the long tradition of research on child-led or free play in natural or nondigital contexts to explore children’s play in digital contexts. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, we examine the qualities of children’s play and the factors that shape it so as to reimagine, together with children, parents and professionals working with children, a digital environment that could better serve children’s best interests. The findings show that the qualities of children’s play are strikingly similar in digital and nondigital contexts but that children find certain social-technical configurations restrictive of their agency and freedom to develop their identity through play in digital contexts. Based on children’s implicit and explicit calls for change, we propose a ‘playful by design’ approach by which designers and providers of digital products and services could urge those with the powers to redesign digital environments to prioritise digital features that promote children’s imaginative, social, open-ended, risk-taking and stimulating play while limiting the risks to children’s safety, privacy and self-determination that arise from commercial interests.
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TL;DR: Model and Theories as discussed by the authors provides an accessible yet critical introduction to the debates about models and theories within analytical philosophy of science since the 1920s, and provides a comprehensive book-length treatment of the topic.
Abstract: Models and theories are of central importance in science, and scientists spend substantial amounts of time building, testing, comparing and revising models and theories. It is therefore not surprising that the nature of scientific models and theories has been a widely debated topic within the philosophy of science for many years. The product of two decades of research, this book provides an accessible yet critical introduction to the debates about models and theories within analytical philosophy of science since the 1920s. Roman Frigg surveys and discusses key topics and questions, including: What are theories? What are models? And how do models and theories relate to each other? The linguistic view of theories (also known as the syntactic view of theories), covering different articulations of the view, its use of models, the theory-observation divide and the theory-ladenness of observation, and the meaning of theoretical terms. The model-theoretical view of theories (also known as the semantic view of theories), covering its analysis of the model-world relationship, the internal structure of a theory, and the ontology of models. Scientific representation, discussing analogy, idealisation and different accounts of representation. Modelling in scientific practice, examining how models relate to theories and what models are, classifying different kinds of models, and investigating how robustness analysis, perspectivism, and approaches committed to uncertainty-management deal with multi-model situations. Models and Theories is the first comprehensive book-length treatment of the topic, making it essential reading for advanced undergraduates, researchers, and professional philosophers working in philosophy of science and philosophy of technology. It will also be of interest to philosophically minded readers working in physics, computer sciences and STEM fields more broadly.