Search Results
Fiscal Consolidation Programs and Income Inequality
2020, Brinca, Pedro, Ferreira, Miguel H., Franco, Francesco, Holter, Hans A., Malafry, Laurence
We document a strong empirical relationship between higher income inequality and stronger recessive impacts of fiscal consolidation episodes across time and space. To explain this finding, we develop a life-cycle economy with uninsurable income risk. We calibrate our model to match key characteristics of several European economies, including inequality and fiscal structures, and study the effects of fiscal consolidation programs. In our model, higher income risk induces precautionary savings behavior, which decreases the proportion of credit-constrained agents in the economy. These agents have less elastic labor supply responses to fiscal consolidations, which explain the correlation with inequality in the data.
Ideals, practices, and future prospects of stakeholder involvement in sustainability science
2017, Mielke, J., Vermaßen, H., Ellenbeck, S.
This paper evaluates current stakeholder involvement (SI) practices in science through a web-based survey among scholars and researchers engaged in sustainability or transition research. It substantiates previous conceptual work with evidence from practice by building on four ideal types of SI in science. The results give an interesting overview of the varied landscape of SI in sustainability science, ranging from the kinds of topics scientists work on with stakeholders, over scientific trade-offs that arise in the field, to improvements scientists wish for. Furthermore, the authors describe a discrepancy between scientists’ ideals and practices when working with stakeholders. On the conceptual level, the data reflect that the democratic type of SI is the predominant one concerning questions on the understanding of science, the main goal, the stage of involvement in the research process, and the science–policy interface. The fact that respondents expressed agreement to several types shows they are guided by multiple and partly conflicting ideals when working with stakeholders. We thus conclude that more conceptual exchange between practitioners, as well as more qualitative research on the concepts behind practices, is needed to better understand the stakeholder–scientist nexus.
The role of nitrogen in achieving sustainable food systems for healthy diets
2020, Leip, Adrian, Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon, Kugelberg, Susanna
The ‘food system’ urgently needs a sustainable transformation. Two major challenges have to be solved: the food system has to provide food security with healthy, accessible, affordable, safe and diverse food for all, and it has to do so within the safe operating space of the planetary boundaries, where the pollution from reactive nitrogen turned out to be the largest bottleneck. Here we argue that thinking strategically about how to balance nitrogen flows throughout the food system will make current food systems more resilient and robust. Looking from a material and a governance perspective on the food system, we highlight major nitrogen losses and policy blind spots originating from a compartmentalization of food system spheres. We conclude that a participatory and integrated approach to manage nitrogen flows throughout the food system is necessary to stay within regional and global nitrogen boundaries, and will additionally provide synergies with a sustainable and healthy diet for all. © 2020 The Authors
We need biosphere stewardship that protects carbon sinks and builds resilience
2021, Rockström, Johan, Beringer, Tim, Hole, David, Griscom, Bronson, Mascia, Michael B., Folke, Carl, Creutzig, Felix
[no abstract available]