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Environmental cost–benefit analysis is increasingly used to support the formulation of European air quality policies. In these analyses, typically around three-quarters of the societal benefits of cleaner air are related to monetised increases in statistical life expectancy. However, the literature presents widely diverging estimates for the value of a statistical life year (a ‘VOLY’). This paper presents a review of studies aimed at establishing a VOLY as used in European air quality policies and it examines the factors that cause the variations in VOLY estimates. We discuss the implications of our findings for European air quality policies and also present a novel approach to analyse the VOLY. We have labelled our approach the ‘maximum societal revenue VOLY’ (MSR-VOLY), and postulate that this approach may be particularly useful in the context of natural capital accounting.

Hydrologic, climatic, regulatory and economic factors interact in complex ways to influence groundwater conditions. These relationships can be difficult to measure and model but are important for water management and for considering viable futures for regional economies. This paper proposes a strategy for an improved understanding of how groundwater levels reflect signals of regulatory, economic and climate factors. Most existing econometric studies of groundwater use focus on large-scale irrigated agriculture and urbanized areas in first world nations, where groundwater extraction data is available. In much of the world, groundwater extraction data are not available for individual farms and other water users. The goal of this study is to explore the responsiveness of groundwater levels (a more widely available measure of groundwater conditions) to regulatory, economic and climate signals in rural areas, using a growing body of remotely sensed land cover data. Pooled Ordinary Least Squares econometric models examine the effects of regulatory, climatic and economic factors on groundwater levels in rural Arizona. Groundwater regulations, recharge projects, housing units and irrigated acreage have statistically significant relationships to groundwater levels in the study areas. This approach can be valuable for understanding factors that influence groundwater conditions and which may be useful in managing groundwater use in widespread areas where groundwater extraction data is unavailable.

FinTech is inducing changes in how financial services (FS) are perceived, developed, promoted, delivered and consumed. Future of FinTech, however, is rooted in deliberate integrated actions to improve framework conditions related to consumer trust, regulation and scalability. Building on limited scholarship, this paper identifies the building blocks for the future of FinTech and provides prescriptive areas of focus to guide research, policy and practice. In sum, the purpose of the paper is to serve as a catalyst and a call for an integrative approach in developing a common understanding and interpretation of FinTech as a socially-constructed phenomenon at the intersection of research and technology management.

In this paper, we analyze how India’s climate change policy is framed, formulated and implemented and argue that it requires carefully balancing of domestic and international interests. Given the country’s population size, composition and projected economic growth, India will, in the next few years, see its most significant energy demand upsurge along with a massive need for infrastructure. As projected by the International Energy Agency, “nearly 60% of its CO₂ emissions in the late 2030s will be coming from infrastructure and machines that do not exist today”. As a result, policy choices made today by India’s decision-makers and international negotiators will have severe implications for the world.

This paper analyzes global emission trends, climate change impacts and India’s international and domestic climate policies—from Paris to Glasgow and New Delhi to rural India. Furthermore, we examine the core constraints that Indian policymakers face and draw attention to shortcomings in India’s climate change policies, particularly concerning continued investment in coal despite the country’s widely lauded efforts to embrace renewables. We argue that fossil fuel subsidies are a delicate political issue with significant implications for many election-determining poor citizens—hence accompanying “just transition” measures are essential.

The 2015 international Paris Agreement called for pursuing efforts to limit the changes in climate to 1.5^∘C above pre-industrial levels. This study uses two approaches to re-examine this feasibility more fully. The observed trends in the temperature record provide one means to estimate when 1.5^∘C will be reached. Examination of the remaining allowed carbon emissions provides another approach. The temperature record and the observed trends in temperature over recent decades suggest that 1.5^∘C will be reached by 2032–2042. Consideration of the equivalent amount of CO₂ reveals the ranges of 266, 366 and 531 GtCO₂-eq still allowed for 67%, 50% and 33% probabilities, respectively, of staying within the temperature limit. At the current rate of emissions, the 50% limit would be reached in eight years. If an emissions reduction of 4% per year beginning in January 2023 is considered, the 67% likelihood for staying within the 1.5^∘C limit is passed in 2030 and the 50% likelihood is passed in 2035. As a result, humanity is very unlikely to meet the identified targets needed to keep the global temperature change to 1.5^∘C and the SSP1-1.9 scenario assumptions for future emissions toward enabling a limit of 1.5^∘C are also extremely unlikely.

Climate change is the outstanding survival and ethical issue of our time, and requires urgent action if our descendants are to inherit a livable world. Substantial opportunities exist in the transition to a renewable economy provided through climate action. Reliable, relevant, and accessible information is key…

The first chapter provides an overview of our research on connecting the various aspects of technology that now shapes the Sharing as well as the Digital Economies. It underscores the integration of IoT, blockchain, and AI into a decentralized intelligence system that has profound possibilities to employ data in innovative ways. The explosion of data has the potential to transform how we view our current processes and possibilities. How we use and analyze data has become significantly important to our economics, and we discuss its transformative adoption in our industries and policy to enable its development. As we grapple with technology’s inherent risks, we describe how it can be used as a moral agent. It also describes the structure of the book, where each chapter elaborates on a specific application in a particular economic sector.

The vital factors which can facilitate the development of Startups and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in markets are the appropriate regulatory and policy frameworks. However, there is a difference in the frameworks which may contribute to different levels of development of startups and SMEs in different countries. This chapter thus focuses on the comparative study of the frameworks of selected countries to display their possible challenges in those countries. The chapter shows that governments in Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand adopt different regulatory frameworks which help stimulate the creation of startups and SMEs. It provides comparisons of the frameworks in those four countries, and also presents that there are challenges from these regulatory frameworks for startups and SMEs developing there.

Scientists and policymakers alike have increasingly been interested in exploring ways to advance algorithmic fairness, recognizing not only the potential utility of algorithms in biomedical and digital health contexts but also that the unique challenges that algorithms—in a datafied culture such as the United States—pose for civil rights (including, but not limited to, privacy and nondiscrimination). In addition to the technical complexities, separation of powers issues are making the task even more daunting for policymakers—issues that might seem obscure to many scientists and technologists. While administrative agencies (such as the Federal Trade Commission) and legislators have been working to advance algorithmic fairness (in large part through comprehensive data privacy reform), recent judicial activism by the Roberts Court threaten to undermine those efforts. Scientists need to understand these legal developments so they can take appropriate action when contributing to a biomedical data ecosystem and designing, deploying, and maintaining algorithms for digital health. Here I highlight some of the recent actions taken by policymakers. I then review three recent Supreme Court cases (and foreshadow a fourth case) that illustrate the radical power grab by the Roberts Court, explaining for scientists how these drastic shifts in law will frustrate governmental approaches to algorithmic fairness and necessitate increased reliance by scientists on self-governance strategies to promote responsible and ethical practices.

The theme of Topic Study Group 40 (TSG-40) at the 14^th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-14) (Shanghai, China) is Research and Development on Mathematics Curriculum. TSG-40 was held worldwide on-line style in three sessions of July 13, July 16, and July 17, 2021. This article reports a concise summary of TSG-40 including its organization, theme and description, the list of presentations and program overview, the summary of presentations in the theme of four topics at TSG-40, and future directions and suggestions in the area of research and development on mathematics curriculum.