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Background: A maternal mortality ratio is a sensitive indicator when comparing the overall maternal health between countries and its very high figure indicates the failure of maternal healthcare efforts. Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam-CLMV countries are the low-income countries of the South-East Asia region where their maternal mortality ratios are disproportionately high. This systematic review aimed to summarize all possible factors influencing maternal mortality in CLMV countries. Methods: This systematic review applied "The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Checklist (2020)", Three key phrases: "Maternal Mortality and Health Outcome", "Maternal Healthcare Interventions" and "CLMV Countries" were used for the literature search. 75 full-text papers were systematically selected from three databases (PubMed, Google Scholar and Hinari). Two stages of data analysis were descriptive analysis of the general information of the included papers and qualitative analysis of key findings. Results: Poor family income, illiteracy, low education levels, living in poor households, and agricultural and unskilled manual job types of mothers contributed to insufficient antenatal care. Maternal factors like non-marital status and sex-associated work were highly associated with induced abortions while being rural women, ethnic minorities, poor maternal knowledge and attitudes, certain social and cultural beliefs and husbands' influences directly contributed to the limitations of maternal healthcare services. Maternal factors that made more contributions to poor maternal healthcare outcomes included lower quintiles of wealth index, maternal smoking and drinking behaviours, early and elderly age at marriage, over 35 years pregnancies, unfavourable birth history, gender-based violence experiences, multigravida and higher parity. Higher unmet needs and lower demands for maternal healthcare services occurred among women living far from healthcare facilities. Regarding the maternal healthcare workforce, the quality and number of healthcare providers, the development of healthcare infrastructures and human resource management policy appeared to be arguable. Concerning maternal healthcare service use, the provisions of mobile and outreach maternal healthcare services were inconvenient and limited. Conclusion: Low utilization rates were due to several supply-side constraints. The results will advance knowledge about maternal healthcare and mortality and provide a valuable summary to policymakers for developing policies and strategies promoting high-quality maternal healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact mechanism by which an incentive-based fertility policy may reduce the labor income share. First, the specific paths through which this impact mechanism is realized are analyzed using the production function. It is found that an incentive-based fertility policy triggers high savings, which implies more, cheaper, and more readily available capital to be invested in production. A distribution system that earns income based on factor contributions results in more gains for capital than labor, i.e., a lower share of labor income and a wider income gap between labor and capital. Second, the impact mechanism includes three theoretical hypotheses. They are that an encouraging fertility policy is negatively related to labor income share; this relationship is valid provided that the study subject is in a closed economy; and that capital intensification is a mediator variable of fertility policy affecting labor income share. Finally, to further corroborate the impact mechanism in this paper, a Hansen threshold panel model is applied to verify that the effect of fertility policy on labor income share has a threshold effect. This indicates that the effect of the former on the latter changes significantly before and after the change in fertility policy, confirming the existence of an impact mechanism. The established literature has paid little attention to the impact of incentivised fertility policies on the labour income gap. Using capital intensification as the mediating variable, this paper demonstrates the existence of the former effect on the latter. In view of this, under the encouraged fertility policy, this paper proposes specific measures to enhance the labor income share in order to narrow the income gap between labor and capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green and low carbon reflect the high-quality development, while income distribution is an indicator of the balance of development. Is there a lack of fairness in the process of green and low carbon transition of enterprises? Using data from A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2016, this paper constructs a DID identification framework for controlling the endogeneity problem using the 2013 carbon trading policy pilot as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically test the impact of corporate low-carbon transformation on corporate labor income share in the context of carbon trading policy. The findings indicate that carbon trading policy decreases the labor income share of firms. In addition, we demonstrate that the low-carbon transition promotes labor productivity, suggesting that the Porter's hypothesis is confirmed in China, but the increase in labor wages is not in tandem with productivity growth, resulting in reduced labor income share. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of carbon trading policy on labor income share is mainly pronounced in larger firms, high technology firms and persistent incumbent firms. Collectively, these results are expected to accurately improve our understanding on the impact of low-carbon transformation of enterprises on income distribution and provide reference for the government to formulate industrial policies and distribution mechanisms under low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes provincial panel data from China spanning from 2013 to 2019 and considers indices such as residents' income, employment, housing, education, and medical care to comprehensively measure the welfare index of each province using the coefficient of variation. It also examines the impact and mechanism of digital financial inclusion on welfare and evaluates its influence on welfare imbalance through panel data models and RIF regression. The estimation results of digital financial inclusion on welfare indicate that digital financial inclusion is an important driver elevating the income, employment, housing, education, medical treatment and other welfares of Chinese residents, and the conclusion remains robust after using instrumental variable estimation and replacing the measurement method of welfare. Regional differences reveal that digital financial inclusion has a greater contribution to the welfare in the Midwest. The effect mechanism test shows that digital financial inclusion improves the welfare by creating employment opportunities and plays a greater role in the Midwest, and will also improve the welfare by increasing the welfare expenditure. However, this mechanism will exacerbate the welfare imbalance between the Midwest and East. The estimation results of digital financial inclusion on the welfare imbalance show that digital financial inclusion reduces welfare imbalance between the central and western regions and the eastern regions, as well as within the central and western regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main component of China's income gap is the urban-rural income gap, which is largely affected by urbanization. It is worth studying how new-type urbanization affects the income gap between urban and rural areas. Research mostly focuses on the urbanization rate as the core explanatory variable to explain the impact using one or two factors. This paper analyzes the mechanism of the effect using a comprehensive number of factors, with the quality of new-type urbanization development as the core explanatory variable. In terms of theoretical research, we believe that new-type urbanization affects the urban-rural income gap by promoting the transfer of labor, changing industrial structure, and policy tendency. Using both static and dynamic empirical analyses, we test the impact of new-type urbanization on the urban-rural income gap based on China's provincial data. We find that new-type urbanization is conducive to narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas. The transfer of labor significantly reduces the urban-rural income gap. However, the upgrading of industrial structure will enlarge the gap. The impact of China's policy orientation is negligible. Policy should focus on promoting urbanization and improving the marginal rate of return of agriculture, improve the level of human capital, reverse the mismatch between employment structure and industrial structure, increase support for rural areas, and make substantial progress in promoting common prosperity., Competing Interests: NO authors have competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 Na Zhao. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Human capital is a nation's primary source of inner strength to achieve sustainable economic growth and development. Meanwhile, income inequality is a critical issue preventing sustainable economic growth and social transformation, especially in developing countries. This paper investigates the effect of human capital on income inequality in both the short and long term using the mean group, pooled mean group, and threshold regressions for the ASEAN-7 (including Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) from 1992 to 2018. The paper develops a theoretical linkage between human capital and income inequality by combining the learning theory and the Kuznets hypothesis. This linkage is then tested using data from the ASEAN countries. Findings from the paper indicate that human capital reduces income inequality in the short run in the ASEAN countries. However, the effect is reverted in the long run, suggesting that human capital may increase the income gap in these countries. Particularly, the inverted U-shaped relationship between human capital and income inequality is established for the ASEAN countries whose GDP per capita is lower than USD 8.2 thousand per year. In contrast, the U-shaped relationship is found for the countries with income per capital of more than USD 8.2 thousand. All these findings suggest that social policies targeting reducing income inequality should be prioritized and stay at the centre of any economic policies to achieve sustainable economic growth and development in the ASEAN countries., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Vo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper methodically investigates the influence of inclusive income growth on city size, examining it through the dual lenses of "income" and "distribution." The analysis leverages meticulously collected panel data encompassing 276 Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above, spanning the period from 2005 to 2019. Theoretical analysis indicates that the effect of city size expansion on per capita income adheres to a 'U'-shaped trajectory, while its influence on the urban-rural income gap manifests an 'inverted U' pattern. Moreover, the inclusive income growth stemming from city size demonstrates notable heterogeneity across various geographic locations and city hierarchies. The findings reveal that human capital serves as the primary mechanism through which city size influences inclusive income growth. After decomposing the income inclusiveness index, it becomes evident that the expansion of city size exerts a more potent direct driving effect on the income of urban residents. On the one hand, city size expansion directly increases rural residents' income levels by improving labor productivity. On the other hand, it facilitates leapfrog income development by inducing the rural labor force to move to cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realizing the common wealth of all people is the essential requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Measuring the process of realizing common wealth and the differences between groups is one of the important issues that need to be addressed urgently. In order to reasonably measure the process of realizing common wealth in China, on the premise of horizontal comparability and vertical consistency, the principles of comparability and consistency are introduced, and a comparative method of opportunity advantage based on income distribution is proposed from the perspective of opportunity equity. Using the 2012-2020 CFPS data to measure and test the opportunity advantages and their differences across regions and groups in China. The study found, firstly, that the opportunity advantage persists but tends to diminish across groups, with the more educated group having a more pronounced opportunity advantage, but that this advantage is diminishing over time. Secondly, the doctoral degree group has a greater probability of earning higher incomes, followed by the master's and bachelor's degree groups, but this opportunity advantage, i.e., the probability of earning higher incomes, is diminishing, i.e., the education dividend is diminishing. Third, the difference in opportunity advantage between urban and rural areas still exists, as evidenced by the greater probability of higher incomes in towns than in rural areas, but this advantage has narrowed further over time, with a clear process of urban-rural integration. Fourthly, in terms of gender, men have a certain opportunity advantage over women, but this difference is not significant. Fifthly, in the context of education levels, gender and urban/rural subgroups, under the framework proposed in this paper, China has achieved some success in the process of realizing the common wealth, and is showing a steady upward trend., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Ruan, Wang. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Adoption of clean electric energy depends not only on administrative regulations, but also on public support, in particular, the public is willing to pay for environmental improvements. However, the increase of solar photovoltaic power generation willingness to pay (WTP) associated with higher education attainment and the identification of their causality has been missing. Present paper used the enactment of the Compulsory Schooling Law as an instrumental variable to solve the causal relationship between education and willingness to pay for photovoltaic power generation. The results are as follows:Heckman two-stage model and instrumental variable both confirmed that higher education has a positive impact on WTP for solar photovoltaic power generation. For each level of public education in the east, the WTP of photovoltaic power generation will increase by 7.540 CNY, 8.343 CNY and 8.343 CNY respectively, the central public will increase by 9.637 CNY, 10.775 CNY and 11.758 CNY, and the western public will increase by 12.723 CNY, 15.740 CNY and 17.993 CNY respectively. The positive influence of education level is smaller among the people who know the ladder price better, but it is bigger among the people who are male, older than 45 years old, healthier, higher income and stronger awareness of safe electricity use. The total socio-economic value of photovoltaic power generation is significantly different in eastern, central and western region China., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Hu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Understanding lay theories on the causes of economic inequality is the first step to comprehending why people tolerate, justify, or react against it. Accordingly, this paper aims to develop and validate with two cross-sectional studies the Attributions for Cross-Country Inequality Scale (ACIS), which assesses how people explain cross-country economic inequality-namely, the uneven distribution of income and wealth between poor and rich countries. After selecting and adapting items from existing scales of attributions for poverty and wealth, in Study 1, we tested the factorial structure of this initial pool of items in three countries with different levels of economic development and inequality, namely, Italy (n = 246), the UK (n = 248), and South Africa (n = 228). Three causal dimensions emerged from the Exploratory Factor Analysis: "rich countries" (blaming the systematic advantage of and exploitation by rich countries), "poor countries" (blaming the dispositional inadequacy and faults of poor countries), and "fate" (blaming destiny and luck). The retained items were administered in Study 2 to three new samples from Italy (n = 239), the UK (n = 249), and South Africa (n = 248). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) corroborated the factorial structure of the ACIS, and Multi-Group CFA supported configural and metric invariances of the scale across countries. In addition, we show internal consistency and construct validity of the scale: the scale correlates with relevant constructs (e.g., beliefs about cross-country inequality and ideological orientation) and attitudes toward relevant policies related to international redistribution and migration. Overall, the scale is a valid instrument to assess causal attribution for cross-national inequality and is reliable across countries. By focusing on resource distribution from an international perspective, this scale will allow researchers to broaden the discussion on economic inequality to a global level., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Vezzoli et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper examines the linear effects of economic growth on carbon emissions and their impact on mortality and morbidity rates in specific regions sub-Sahara Africa, Middle-East and North Africa, Europe and Central Asia (SSA, MENA, ECA). By analyzing longitudinal data for 82 panels over 30 years, we investigate the relationships between energy usage, per capita GDP, life expectancy, and carbon emissions. Our estimation results show positive correlations between energy use, carbon production, and life expectancy in both the combined sample and individual regions. However, death rate has a negative relationship with carbon production in the combined sample, MENA, and SSA regions. Per capita GDP positively influences carbon emissions and life expectancy in the combined sample and ECA, MENA, and SSA regions. We also identify asymmetric relationships between per capita GDP and carbon production, with evidence supporting the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for the combined and ECA samples, and an N-trajectory for SSA. These findings emphasize the importance of region-specific approaches to sustainable development, considering the unique environmental and economic challenges each region faces. Policymakers should consider our research insights when designing policies to mitigate the negative impacts of economic progress on the environment., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Osei-Kusi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The paper explores the role of business models in the link between uncertainty and bank risk. From the perspective of banks, given that future outcomes tend to be less predictable if banking uncertainty rises, we highlight a framework that a larger dispersion of bank shocks to bank-specific variables might mirror such decreased predictability as a consequence of increasing uncertainty. To compensate for the persistence of bank risk and address the endogeneity issue, we applied the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator as the main regressions. Analyzing a panel of commercial banks from Vietnam between 2007 and 2019, we find that higher levels of banking uncertainty may increase bank risk, as gauged by banks' credit risk (loan loss reverses and non-performing loans) and default risk (Z-score index). This detrimental influence of uncertainty appears to be most pronounced with banks relying on pure lending, and it decreases with more non-interest income. A deeper investigation after estimating the marginal effects with plots reveals an asymmetric pattern that bank risk is immune to uncertainty in banks with the highest level of income diversification. Interestingly, we also provide evidence that uncertainty may lower the default risk level when income diversification exceeds a sufficiently high level. Our findings demonstrate that diversified business models are an efficient buffer against higher bank risk in times of increased uncertainty., Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Huynh, Phan. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Resident consumption is an important link to smooth the domestic circulation and promote the economy to achieve high-quality development. To stimulate the vitality of residents' consumption and achieve the expansion and quality of consumption, we should not only focus on the scale and willingness of residents to consume, but also consider the motivation of consumption. The paper analyzes the impact of intergenerational income mobility on residents' marginal propensity to consume and consumption altruism motive by expanding the Over Lapping Generation Models and combining the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data. The results of the study show: Intergenerational Income Elasticity has a significant positive effect on residents' marginal propensity to consume. When Intergenerational Income Elasticity increases, the "altruistic motive" of residents' consumption will also increase significantly. Compared with rural residents, Intergenerational Income Elasticity has a stronger positive effect on urban residents' marginal propensity to consume and marginal propensity to consume education. With the effect of intergenerational factors, urban residents' consumption shows stronger altruistic motives., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Yingying Shao. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Based on the data of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this paper decomposed Chinese residents' income into labor income and capital income by income source, and measured the income inequality and income composition inequality of Chinese residents during 2010-2018. We take the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality and, by decomposing it by income source, analyze the absolute and relative marginal effects of capital income and labor income on the overall income inequality. On this basis, this paper discusses the redistributive effect of financial instruments such as personal income tax and transfer payment on income inequality and income composition inequality. The results show that capital income is not only the main driving factor for the increase of overall income inequality, but also its influence on inequality is gradually increasing. The results of the redistribution effect of fiscal instruments show that although individual income tax and transfer payment both help to reduce the overall income inequality, only individual income tax can reduce the inequality of income composition, while transfer payment will exacerbate it. In the background of the rising share of capital income, it may widen the income distribution gap in the long run. Hence, future fiscal redistribution efforts should consider the income composition inequality. This includes further promotion of individual income tax reforms, optimization of the tax rate structure, enhancement of relevant tax laws governing capital income like property income, and continuous improvement in the redistributive impact of fiscal instruments., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Tu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The aim of the paper is to provide an ex-post assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity in the EU-27 countries expressed by physical and economic food access. We analysed trade and price effects, together with food insecurity and malnutrition indicators. Actual levels of the indicators were compared with their pre-pandemic magnitudes and/or with counterfactual levels derived from predictive models. We also aimed to compare the objective statistics with the subjective consumers' perception of their households' food security. Our research indicates that the EU food trade was more resilient to COVID-19 impacts than the trade in non-food products, while food trade decreases were of a temporary nature. This did not affect the trade balance significantly; however, the import reduction threatened the physical food access in most EU countries. Regarding economic food access, the results indicate that the increase in food prices was offset by the increase in disposable income. It may suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly affect the deterioration of economic access to food in the EU countries. However, the prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population or the proportion of households reporting inability to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish, or a vegetarian equivalent increased in 2020–2021 compared to 2019. This means that the comparative analysis of the real data on prices and households' income, as well as consumer financial situation and food consumption affordability, does not offer a clear answer concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food security of EU households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security and dietary diversity, defined as providing either physical (availability) or economic (accessibility) access to food, are linked with access to and control over productive resources and is a highly-gendered phenomenon. In Nepal, labor out-migration has increased household income and may have increased people's ability to access diverse food either by increasing investment in agriculture or purchasing various food items from the market. However, the relationship between household dietary improvement and labor out-migration is complex. Drawing on a survey of 1,053 migrant households in three agroecological regions of Nepal, this paper disentangles this complex phenomenon by showing how household dietary diversity and women's dietary diversity are influenced by biophysical, social, economic, and cultural factors. The influence of the amount of remittances, land abandonment, and women confined to the house by household chores are some factors that policy makers should consider seriously in designing gender-sensitive nutrition policies. The expansion of women's agency contributes to enhancing dietary diversity and specifically women's dietary diversity at the household level; however, how these factors determine an individual's dietary diversity depends on intrahousehold dynamics and relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Status or relative concerns (as in the idiom 'keeping up with the Joneses') can lead to negative feelings such as stress and anxiety. One key question is whether these concerns relate to daily smoking behaviour. The conjecture is that status concerns and the accompanying stress and anxiety might be associated with a higher likelihood of smoking and a higher number of cigarettes smoked, generating a higher instant physical reward and reducing the stress and anxiety. The literature aiming to identify this relationship focuses mostly on a single cross section of individuals, ignoring potential differences in unobserved characteristics of smokers and non-smokers (e.g., genetic factors, personality differences, parental smoking during childhood). This paper investigates the role of unobserved individual characteristics on this relationship, which has not been done in previous studies. Using a long panel data of smoking information in Germany and a variety of panel data model specifications, we show that there is no statistically significant association between relative income concerns and the likelihood of smoking or the number of cigarettes smoked among the overall population. We find a positive and significant relationship only among people who smoked at least one cigarette in the past. A 10% appreciation in the income of comparable other individuals relates to about 3.5 more cigarettes per month among these people. Importantly, failing to allow for the unobserved influences of smoking leads to three times larger estimates than when using models with unobserved factors correlating to the income and smoking behaviour. The results are robust with respect to alternative assumptions and specifications where we use different functional forms of unobserved heterogeneity, definitions of relative concerns, incomes, and reference groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective tax rates (ETRs) estimated from the income statement data of multinational corporations (MNCs) are useful for comparing MNCs' corporate income taxation across countries. In this paper, we propose a new methodological approach to estimate ETRs as reliably and for as many countries as possible using Orbis' unconsolidated data for the 2011-2015 period. We focus on countries with at least 50 available companies, which results in a sample of 47, mostly European, countries. We estimate the ETR of a country as the ratio of corporate income tax to gross income for all affiliates of MNCs in that country, weighted by gross income. We propose four ETR estimations, including lower and upper bounds, which differ by gross income calculation. We find that ETRs substantially differ from statutory tax rates for some countries. For example, we show that despite similar statutory rates of 28% and 29%, MNCs in Luxembourg paid as little as 1-8% of gross income in taxes, while those in Norway paid as much as 46-67%. Despite being the best available, existing data is still imperfect. We therefore call for better data in the form of MNCs' unconsolidated, public country-by-country reporting data., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Garcia-Bernardo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The unprecedented expansion and development of high-speed rail (HSR) in China provides a unique opportunity and a new way of thinking for addressing the problem of urban-rural wealth disparities. In this paper, I examine the impact of the introduction of HSRs on the income disparity between urban and rural residents in China. Using panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities from 2004 to 2018, in this paper I employ the double-difference method to assess the impact of HSR on the income gap between urban and rural populations and the mechanism of its action; furthermore, I explore the influence of HSR on urban residents' per capita disposable income and rural residents' per capita net income, as well as the impact of HSR on the flow of elements such as labor and capital. My research findings reveal that the introduction of HSR has greatly widened the income gap between urban and rural residents; however, there is heterogeneity between different East, Central, and West regions, as well as between different levels of cities. A further mechanism study finds that HSR lowers farmers' per capita net income, raises urban residents' per capita disposable income, and widens the urban/rural income gap via mechanisms such as facilitating the interregional mobility of labor and capital factors. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively assess the economic effects brought about by HSR, strengthen the construction of urban-rural transport networks, and improve support for rural areas, so as to promote the coordinated development of inter-regional and urban-rural areas., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper investigates the impact of economic inequality on people's perceptions of fairness and willingness to cooperate. Using experimental and survey data, we distinguish people's injunctive perceptions of fairness from experimentally observed behavioral patterns. We find that impartial observers hold shared perceptions of fair contribution rules. Individuals with their own money at stake hold conflicting views over fair contribution rules. We find that contribution patterns are more scattered under strong inequality than under weak inequality. Overall, we observe that voluntary contributions are lower under strong inequality than under weak inequality. Our results contribute to the debate about the behavioral consequences of income and wealth inequalities in modern societies., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Hariskos et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The Turkish economy has undergone a structural transformation with impressive economic performance during 2002-2018 and then a slowdown. The implementation of policies on the financial markets results in a significant capital inflow, which leads to an increase in the volume of domestic credit. Despite improvements in Türkiye, income inequality and poverty are still relatively high. While much of the literature shows that financial development accelerates growth, there is no consensus on its clear impact on poverty and inequality. While some studies stress that financial development improves inequality and combats poverty by increasing the ability of advantage of new investment opportunities, and by improving the allocation of capital, others point out that the beneficial impact of financial development depends on whether the overall population or the upper-income groups benefit or not. Therefore, this paper aims to empirically investigate the impact of financial development on inequalities and poverty during the 2002-2017 period when Türkiye relatively has been prosperous. According to simultaneous equation regression findings, the widening of the financial sector leads to more equal income distribution and poverty alleviation., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Ayşe Aylin Bayar. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Housing prices in China have experienced rapid growth in recent decades, and land finance has long been discussed as an important factor in this growth. In this paper, we explore the interactions among housing prices, land transfer revenue and infrastructure investment from the perspective of government revenue and expenditure. Based on the panel data of 35 large and medium-sized cities in China from 2000 to 2017, the empirical results show that land transfer revenue, infrastructure investment and housing prices are causally related and result in positive feedback. The grouped regression results show that infrastructure investment has greater impacts on housing prices in eastern region cities than in the other cities. In contrast, in the central and western regions, land sales revenue has a greater impact on housing prices, indicating that cities in less-developed areas are more dependent on land finance than are those in more developed regions. Finally, we use the vector error correction model (VECM) to add control variables for robustness testing. The results show that land transfer income and infrastructure investment have a positive impact on housing prices. Our results provide some references for the stable development of housing markets in China., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Chen, Chen. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Food insecurity is a major concern for the developing world and around 37% of the population of Pakistan is food insecure. This paper utilizes the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) to assess the population prevalence of food insecurity and to identify their risk factors and determinants at the household level in Pakistan. This study employs a multi-level random coefficient model, using the Pakistan Panel Household Survey (PPHS-2010) dataset; representative data from 4,130 households. Factors like; income of the household, gender, education, household size, land ownership, and shocks of food insecurity allow the incidence of idiosyncratic shocks (injuries and/or casualties) at the community level, which affects the food insecurity situation of the community, rather differently were included. The study confirms a statistically significant inverse relationship between household income, household size, and household head education with food insecurity and a positive association of shocks and inflation with food insecurity at the household level. Specifically, with increasing per capita income of the household, food insecurity declines (coefficient: -0.083, statistically significant at 1%) and food insecurity increases with shocks (coefficient: 0.058, statistically significant at 1% significance level). The study also reveals a significant heterogeneity at a one percent significance level in the determinants of food insecurity at the district, community, and household levels. The income of the household, household head gender and education level, household size, household assets, shocks, injuries, and inflationary pressure are important determinants of food insecurity in Pakistan., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Mahmood et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

In this paper, we develop a DSGE model including heterogeneous households, introduce the financial friction of credit constraint mechanism, and study the impact of house price shocks on the consumption of heterogeneous household. Based on this, the CHFS data in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 were used to test the marginal propensity to consume for housing wealth appreciation under different credit constraints. Results show that: Firstly, the financial accelerator mechanism plays an important role in the transmission of housing price shocks to household consumption. The looser the degree of credit constraints, the more obvious the rise in housing prices will be to the consumption expenditure of borrowing household. Secondly, the impact of housing wealth appreciation on household consumption under different credit constraints is heterogeneous. Among them, housing wealth appreciation has a significant positive impact on household consumption expenditure with multiple houses, credit cards, non-loan restrictions, while the marginal effect on the consumption expenditure of households with only one house, loan limited, and no credit cards decreases. Thirdly, for every 1% increase in the housing wealth appreciation, household consumption will increase significantly by 0.10-0.14%., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Qi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

China's rural revitalization strategy has expanded non-agricultural employment opportunities for rural residents. This has directly raised farmers' incomes and household expenditures, which in turn has contributed to the upgrading of industrial structure. Using provincial data for 2012–2021, our study investigates how this employment transition affects industrial development. The effect of rural residents' consumption expenditures on this relationship is also explored through a linkage model to help measure the extent of the impact. This study further explores the regional differences in this effect and its robustness. The findings suggest that non-farm employment significantly contributes to industrial structural upgrading. However, this effect is not consistent across regions. Moreover, rural residents' consumption plays a pivotal role in this relationship. Governments should therefore encourage more non-farm jobs, stimulate domestic demand and use rural consumption as a key growth catalyst, especially after the demographic dividend disappears. It is also important to take into account regional nuances in policy formulation and make adjustments to cater for these differences to prevent any potential imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the digital economy has created new forms of inequality of opportunity. This paper studies whether the development of the digital economy expands the income gap between urban and rural areas from theoretical and empirical. The research based on the panel data of 202 cities from 2011 to 2019 in China shows that: (1) Although the digital economy can promote the improvement of both urban and rural absolute income levels, it has a greater positive impact on urban residents' income levels than on rural residents', resulting in a widening of the urban-rural income gap. (2) The analysis of the action mechanism reveals that employment in the information service industry and the depth of digital finance use are two crucial mechanisms for the digital economy to widen the income gap between urban and rural areas. (3) The spatial Durbin model(SDM) and the spatial error model(SEM) based on three spatial weight matrices show that the impact of the digital economy on the urban-rural income gap is also characterized by spatial spillover, and the development of the digital economy will also have a negative impact on the urban-rural income gap in neighboring regions as well. (4) The main conclusions still hold after the robustness of quasi-natural experiments based on the strategy of "Broadband China" and the selection of historical data as instrumental variables. This research is helpful to understand the effects, mechanisms and spatial characteristics of digital economy on urban-rural income gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social equity is a critical component of social justice and is measured in multiple ways. Conventionally, researchers use literacy levels, workforce participation, political participation and representation, corporate presence, and demographic parity as indicators of social and economic equity. We add law enforcement outcomes to this literature by examining the demographic profiles of convicts in prisons in India for each state and compare it with that of the population of the respective state. To test whether entrenched social inequities have permeated into the law enforcement system, we use three indicators of social identity-religion, caste, and domicile-to create a social equity index (SEI). This is a composite index combining caste, religion and domicile similar in method to the Human Development Index which combines income, education and health. Our indicators are not considered in other popular development indices and is a conceptual innovation. Our paper innovates by combining prison data and census data at the state level over the two latest census rounds (2001 and 2011). We use a spatial panel analysis as well as a distributional dynamics approach to test for bias and transitions over time at the state level. We find that entrenched social hierarchies are mirrored in conviction outcomes and that social identities influence law enforcement. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that states that are conventionally considered to perform poorly in terms of economic and human development have done better in terms of social equity than economically advanced states., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Mukhopadhyay et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

As more attention is given to green and sustainable industries, an analysis of the industrial impacts on all aspects of life, including inclusive affluence, is gradually developing. Idle rural residential land is a valuable resource and an important factor in promoting sustainable development. Balanced urban and rural development contributes to inclusive prosperity, so understanding the relationship between industry and the balanced development of urban and rural can significantly impact social development. In China, achieving the balanced development requires narrowing the urban-rural income gap. This paper analyzed the impact of reallocating idle rural residential land on promoting the balanced development. The study found that industry development has a positive impact on the balanced development, with a regression coefficient of 1.478. Regions with higher industry indices in counties had better outcomes regarding the balanced development. When the development of rural industry derived from idle residential land was in good condition, the effect increased by 3.326 percentage. The results showed heterogeneity, with the regression coefficient of industry development on the balanced development in county-level cities being 0.498 larger than in urban areas. In summary, the reallocation of idle residential land can promote sustainable development, increase residents' income, and improve overall regional economic development. The results are applicable to the comprehensive reallocation of rural land resources., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Hu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Income inequality is a good indicator reflecting the quality of people's livelihood. There are many studies on the determinants of income inequality. However, few studies have been conducted on the impacts of industrial agglomeration on income inequality and their spatial correlation. The goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of China's industrial agglomeration on income inequality from a spatial perspective. Using data on China's 31 provinces from 2003 to 2020 and the spatial panel Durbin model, our results show that industrial agglomeration and income inequality present an inverted "U-shape" relationship, proving that they are the non-linear change. As the degree of industrial agglomeration increases, income inequality will rise, after it reaches a certain value, income inequality will drop. Therefore, Chinese government and enterprises had better pay attention to the spatial distribution of industrial agglomeration, thereby reducing China's regional income inequality., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Given that an excellent performance of any parametric functional form for the Lorenz curve that is based on a single country case study and a limited range of distribution must be treated with great caution, this study investigates the performance of a single-parameter functional form proposed by Paul and Shankar (2020) who use income data of Australia to show that their functional form is superior to the other existing widely used functional forms considered in their study. By using both mathematical proof and empirical data of 40 countries around the world, this study demonstrates that Paul and Shankar (2020)'s functional form not only fails to fit the actual observations well but also is generally outperformed by the other popular functional forms considered in their study. Moreover, to overcome the limitation of the performance of a single-parameter functional form on the criterion of the estimated Gini index, this study employs a functional form that has more than one parameter in order to show that, by and large, it performs better than all popular single-parameter functional forms considered in Paul and Shankar (2020)'s study. Thus, before applying any functional form to estimate the Lorenz curve, policymakers should check if it could describe the shape of income distributions of different countries through the changes in parameter values and yield the values of the estimated Gini index that are close to their observed data. Using a functional form that does not fit the actual observations could adversely affect inequality measures and income distribution policies., Competing Interests: Since the findings reported in our original research paper contradict the results previously published in Paul and Shankar (2020), we would like to confirm that we completely agree to policy of PLOS ONE with regard to the Manuscripts Disputing Published Work as stated in PLOS ONE submission guidelines. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials., (Copyright: © 2023 Sitthiyot, Holasut. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Tobacco farmers often adopt additional multiple agricultural technologies (AMATs) in addition to implementing the standardized technical system in China. Based on the cross-sectional micro data of 346 households of Chongqing, China, this paper assesses the determinants and impacts of the adoption of AMATs on income by using a multinomial endogenous treatment effects model to correct for selection bias and endogeneity caused by observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that (1) the adoption of combinations of AMATs is determined by the household head's education level, experience in tobacco growing, the shortest distance to nearby town, the amount of technical training, the ratio of land available for mechanical cultivation to tobacco land, the distance to extension station, and the ratio of leased land. (2) The adoption of combinations of AMATs has heterogeneous effects on farmers' income through yield and quality improvement. (3) The comprehensive combination of AMATs is not necessarily the best option for farmers. Due to the interaction between technologies such as complementary, substitute or supplementary effects, the moderate implementation of fertilizers and soil improvement is the most effective combination. The results of this research provide a scientific basis for improving the adoption efficiency of AMATs in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that scaling laws widely exist in various complex systems, such as living organisms, cities, and online communities. In this research, we found that scaling laws also hold for companies. The macroscopic variables of companies, such as incomes, expenses, or total liability, all have power-law relationships with respect to the sizes of companies, which can be measured by sales, total assets, or the total number of employees. What is more, we also found the power law exponents always deviate from 1. That means large companies naturally have certain advantages, but the widely used financial indicators based on total volume or ratio may not reflect the company's status well because they are also size-dependent. To tackle this problem, this paper proposes a new set of evaluation indices based on the deviations of the macroscopic variables from the scaling law to eliminate the size-dependent effect. We found that the indicators based on deviations can give more reasonable evaluations for companies and can outperform other conventional indicators to predict the financial distress of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important measure to enhance the allocation of land resources and achieve moderate scale operation in China, land transfer has an irreplaceable role in giving full play to the social and economic value of land. This paper uses data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2018 and applies OLS, PSM and mediator effects to study the impact of land transfer on household income. The results of the study show that: firstly, participation in land transfer can significantly increase the income level of farming households, but the impact of different land transfer acts on household income varies. Secondly, the age and physical condition of the household head, the number of agricultural and non-agricultural members in the household and the poverty status of the household all have a negative effect on household income. On the other hand, the education level of the household head, the household size and the presence of village officials in the household, agricultural subsidies, land titling and land size all have a positive effect on household income. Thirdly, the impact on household income for households that did not participate in land transfer is greater than for those that did. The results of the mediator effect test show that land transfer has a significant effect on household farm income, and that farm income has a full mediator effect, but all have a positive significant effect on household income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Antibiotic resistance (ABR) has substantial global public health concerns. This systematic review aimed to synthesise recent evidence estimating the economic burden of ABR, characterised by study perspectives, healthcare settings, study design, and income of the countries., Methods: This systematic review included peer-reviewed articles from PubMed, Medline, and Scopus databases, and grey literature on the topic of the economic burden of ABR, published between January 2016 and December 2021. The study was reported in line with 'Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' (PRISMA). Two reviewers independently screened papers for inclusion first by title, then abstract, and then the full text. Study quality was assessed using appropriate quality assessment tools. Narrative synthesis and meta-analyses of the included studies were conducted., Results: A total of 29 studies were included in this review. Out of these studies, 69% (20/29) were conducted in high-income economies and the remainder were conducted in upper-and-middle income economies. Most of the studies were conducted from a healthcare or hospital perspective (89.6%, 26/29) and 44.8% (13/29) studies were conducted in tertiary care settings. The available evidence indicates that the attributable cost of resistant infection ranges from -US$2,371.4 to +US$29,289.1 (adjusted for 2020 price) per patient episode; the mean excess length of stay (LoS) is 7.4 days (95% CI: 3.4-11.4), the odds ratios of mortality for resistant infection is 1.844 (95% CI: 1.187-2.865) and readmission is 1.492 (95% CI: 1.231-1.807)., Conclusion: Recent publications show that the burden of ABR is substantial. There is still a lack of studies on the economic burden of ABR from low-income economies, and lower-middle-income economies, from a societal perspective, and in relation to primary care. The findings of this review may be of value to researchers, policymakers, clinicians, and those who are working in the field of ABR and health promotion., Systematic Review Registration: CRD42020193886., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Poudel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Urbanization drives the concentration of innovation elements and knowledge diffusion, which is conducive to enhancing regional innovation capacity. To meet the developmental needs of the new era, China has released the National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020) to test the effect of this policy on urban innovation. The 2014 comprehensive pilot project of China's new urbanization strategy is considered a quasi-natural experiment. This study examines relevant data from cities at the prefecture level and above from 2008 to 2019 using DID, PSM-DID, intermediary effect, and other methods. We established an empirical model to investigate the impact of new urbanization pilot policies on urban innovation. The results indicate that the new urbanization pilot policy can significantly promote an increase in urban innovation capacity. The heterogeneity of the impact of new urbanization pilot policies is evident in the improvements to urban grade, region, scale, etc. Regarding function mechanism, new urbanization can promote urban innovation through talent gathering, industrial gathering, income scale, and other effects. This paper posits the importance of summarizing the success of the pilot project of new urbanization and explores new urbanization to promote urban innovation from multiple perspectives. We put forth recommendations based on the experience of different cities to implement an urban innovation differentiation strategy in constructing new urbanization., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Wang, Qiu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The focus of this study is the implications of structural transformation for gender equality, specifically equal pay, in Sub-Saharan Africa. While structural transformation affects key development outcomes, including growth, poverty, and access to decent work, its effect on the gender pay gap is not clear ex-ante. Evidence on the gender pay gap in sub-Saharan Africa is limited, and often excludes rural areas and informal (self-)employment. This paper provides evidence on the extent and drivers of the gender pay gap in non-farm wage- and self-employment activities across three countries at different stages of structural transformation (Malawi, Tanzania and Nigeria). The analysis leverages nationally-representative survey data and decomposition methods, and is conducted separately among individuals residing in rural versus urban areas in each country. The results show that women earn 40 to 46 percent less than men in urban areas, which is substantially less than in high-income countries. The gender pay gap in rural areas ranges from (a statistically insignificant) 12 percent in Tanzania to 77 percent in Nigeria. In all rural areas, a major share of the gender pay gap (81 percent in Malawi, 83 percent in Tanzania and 70 percent in Nigeria) is explained by differences in workers' characteristics, including education, occupation and sector. This suggests that if rural men and women had similar characteristics, most of the gender pay gap would disappear. Country-differences are larger across urban areas, where differences in characteristics account for only 32 percent of the pay gap in Tanzania, 50 percent in Malawi and 81 percent in Nigeria. Our detailed decomposition results suggest that structural transformation does not consistently help bridge the gender pay gap. Gender-sensitive policies are required to ensure equal pay for men and women., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Van den Broeck et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

For a long time, governments of all countries have attached great importance to the development of underground economic activities. The reason is that the characteristics of the underground economy are hidden and the information disclosure is not sufficient, which not only distorts the economic data indicators, but more importantly, the existence of the underground economy has led to the loss of a large amount of tax base, affecting the long-term economic development of the country. Whether raising the tax burden rate boosts the tax revenue or expand the scale of the underground economy. In this paper, we use Kuznet Tax Curve (KTC) method to analyze the relationship between GDP and TTR/DTR/ITR. We find that the tax base erosion rate of indirect tax is lower than that of direct tax. In addition, we explore the relationship among economic growth, tax rate and tax revenue and adopt SUR-OLS method and Threshold approach to estimate the response of economic growth on total tax revenue(TTR), direct tax revenue(DTR) and indirect tax revenue (ITR) in Taiwan from 1991-2020. Our empirical research shows that when DTR tax rates are between 12.59% and 13%, an increase in income leads to a decrease, not an increase, in DTR, leading to severe tax base erosion. That is, the relationship between GDP and DTR presents a N-shaped relationship. However, ITR does not exist any tax rate threshold effect. Obviously, with the increase of GDP, ITR also increases. This reflects that the difference of tax structure between direct tax and indirect tax plays a key role in the relationship between tax rate and tax base erosion., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Wang, Zhang. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Industrial transformation (IT) is the inevitable course for the sustainable development of resource-based cities, while digital inclusive finance (DIF) provides essential capital elements for industrial transformation. Based on the panel data of 115 resource-based cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this paper discusses the influence mechanism of digital inclusive finance on industrial transformation from the perspectives of the optimization of industrial structure (OIS) and the rationalization of industrial structure (RIS). The empirical results show that digital inclusive finance has a positive effect on both the optimization of industrial structure and the rationalization of industrial structure. Digital inclusive finance influences industrial transformation through residents' income and technological innovation. In addition, in the analysis of income gap and innovation gap, low-income regions have a better effect on the industrial transformation of industrial structure optimization, while high-income regions have a better effect in manufacturing upgrading, thus resulting in a more significant effect of industrial transformation on the rationalization of industrial structure. Obviously, the development of high-innovation regions has relative advantages with more channels for industrial transformation, which have significant effect of industrial transformation. Therefore, it is necessary to provide differentiated reform on the basis of unified development reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which humans share with both kin and non-kin is a defining characteristic of our species. Evolutionary research suggests that pervasive reliance on inter-individual transfers of goods and services may have evolved to support a cooperative breeding adaptation in humans. However, while intensive food sharing between individuals and families has frequently been investigated in small-scale human societies, a comprehensive analysis of the daily transfers of all material goods has not been attempted. Likewise, while much previous research on cooperative transfers focused on terrestrial foraging populations, less attention is paid to other small-scale economic modalities traditionally inhabited by humans. Drawing on over three years' worth of interviews and observational data from a community of primarily ethnic Sama people residing along the coast of Southern Mindanao Island in the Philippines, this paper examines the overall transfer patterns of material goods in a marine foraging economy. A quantitative description of resource acquisition is followed by an in-depth exploration of the characteristics of individual households and household dyads who gave and/or received more during the study period. Results indicate that a household's age and income are consistently correlated with increased inflow and outflow of material goods. Results also suggest differential motivations underlie inter-household sharing of food, money, and other goods in the study community. Most importantly, we find that both daily and long-term reciprocity overwhelmingly drive sharing within household dyads in the study community, despite secondary effects of kinship, relative need, and relative household age between household dyads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Healthy NYC is an innovative survey panel created by the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) that offers a cost-effective mechanism for collecting priority and timely health information. Between November 2020 and June 2021, invitations for six different surveys were sent to Healthy NYC panelists by postal mail, email, and text messages. Panelists had the option to complete surveys online or via paper survey., Methods: We analyzed whether panelists varied by sociodemographic characteristics based on the contact mode they provided and the type of invitation that led to their response using logistic regression models. Poisson regression models were used to determine whether the number of invitations received before participating in a survey was associated with sociodemographic characteristics., Results: Younger age and higher education were positively associated with providing an email or text contact. Furthermore, age, race, and income were significant predictors for invitation modes that led to a survey response. Black panelists had 72% greater odds (OR 1.72 95% CI: 1.11-2.68) of responding to a mail invite and 33% lesser odds (OR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.54-0.83) of responding to an email invite compared with White panelists. Additionally, in five of the six surveys, more than half of the respondents completed surveys after two invites. Email invitations garnered the highest participation rates., Conclusions: We recommend using targeted invitation modes as an additional strategy to improve participation in panels. For lower-income panelists who do not provide an email address, it may be reasonable to offer additional response options that do not require internet access. Our study's findings provide insight into how panels can tailor outreach to panelists, especially among underrepresented groups, in the most economical and efficient ways., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Dasgupta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper reports on a laboratory experiment designed specifically to test the influence of national pride on tax honesty while using a physiological marker to observe emotional responses to patriotic priming. Participants were exposed to one of three framing videos before earning income in a real effort task and were given the chance to declare their taxable income. We find that psychological priming through exposure to symbols of Australian national pride and national identity had a positive effect on the level of tax compliance among Australian but not non-Australians. In addition, non-Australians report lower tax compliance ratios in the treatment groups than in the control group which may indicate an outgroup effect. When exploring the potential of a physiological marker of national pride we observe two different types of physiological responses to the activation and effects of national pride and its impact on tax compliance among Australians. Iconic images activate the parasympathetic nervous system while sports scenes activate the sympathetic nervous system, but both types of images and responses are positively associated with tax compliance. In addition, we find that non-Australians resident in the country for more than a year report a higher level of tax compliance, and that there are some similarities in heart rate variability (HRV) responses between Australian citizens born in the country and those born overseas who have been in Australia for a longer period. Overall, the results support the proposition that identifying with an ingroup at a national level is important for tax compliance., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Macintyre et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This study investigates how the landscape of sex work in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, evolved in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. Using a mixed-methods approach, the analysis triangulates data from quantitative and qualitative sources to quantify shifts in income, demand, and client frequency and describe female sex workers' perspectives on their work environment. The COVID-19 restrictions introduced in early 2020 resulted in dramatic decreases in sex work income, leading to extreme financial vulnerability, food insecurity, and challenges in meeting other basic needs such as paying rent. However, in a 2021 follow-up survey, sex workers reported the summer of 2021 as a key turning point, with the demand for sex work rebounding to closer to pre-pandemic levels. Notably, despite the average number of unique weekly clients not yet having fully rebounded, by 2021 the price per client and the total monthly sex work income had returned to pre-pandemic levels. This may potentially be explained by an increased number of repeat clients, which represented a larger proportion of all clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the vertical connection between upstream and downstream industries, a unique theoretical model is constructed to analyse the impact mechanism of the opening of producer services on downstream manufacturing wage growth. The empirical tests are carried out using the data of China's manufacturing listed companies from 1999 to 2020. Our findings indicate that the opening of producer services has an inverted-U-shaped impact on downstream manufacturing wage growth, and the average level of the opening of producer services in the sample period is lower than the corresponding threshold. Overall, it is in the stage of promoting the wage growth of the downstream manufacturing industry. The opening of producer services mainly affects the wage growth of the downstream manufacturing industry through two channels: labour productivity and labour income share. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the wages of capital and technology-intensive and low-competitive manufacturing industries are relatively strongly promoted by the opening of producer services. Therefore, promoting the orderly opening of producer services and strengthening the technological links between industries will help promote the wage growth of downstream manufacturing industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main potential benefits of rainwater harvesting, namely water saving and storm water management, are easily evaluable at a building scale when well-known behavioral models are used. However, the evaluation is often more complex at an urban scale, due to a lack of building characteristics and demographic data. In the present paper, we propose a method, which is based on the representative building concept that can be used to quantify the potential benefits of rainwater harvesting at different scales, that is, from the building scale to the district and city scales. Particular attention has been paid to the sizing of the system so that it can be used for different rainwater collection purposes. The method has been applied to the city of Turin (Italy) considering different scenarios: 1) domestic use (e.g., toilet flushing and the washing machine), where buildings are independent of each other, and 2) two public uses (the irrigation of public green areas and street washing), for which we have hypothesized that the rainwater collection takes place at a district scale. The non-potable water saving for domestic use varies across the city from 29% to 62%, according to the characteristics of the buildings, while the reduction of the flow peak conveyed to the sewerage system, during extreme storms, is quite constant (in the 57-67% range). Irrigation and street washing require a lower amount of water, thus about 80% of water can be saved, but the retention efficiency is low, and a slight reduction in the flow peaks can be expected. The aim of the methodology presented in this work is to provide a suitable decision-making tool for policy makers and urban planners to evaluate the capability and efficiency of rainwater harvesting systems for buildings, districts, and cities., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2022 Carollo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper studies the effect of income inequality and voters' support for public spending on the choice of size of the welfare state. Based on new empirical findings showing that preferences for taxation depend on the nature of the policies financed with tax revenues (Barnes 2015, Ballard-Rosa 2016, Roosma 2016, and Berens 2019) I build a Downsian two-party political competition framework in which voters differ in both income (rich or poor) and ideology (liberal or conservative). Government provides two types of public services: one that increase the size of the welfare state and other that does not. Liberal (conservative) voters only care about the public service that increase (do not increase) the size of the welfare state. I find that the decisive voter and the size of the welfare state depends on both the level of income inequality and voters' support for public spending. In particular, and different from the traditional models on redistributive politics (Romer 1975, Roberts 1977, and Meltzer 1981), I obtain that an increase in pre tax income inequality may reduce the size of the welfare state chosen by majority voting., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2022 Ángel Solano-García. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper discusses the first moment, i.e., the mean income point, of income density functions and the estimation of single-parametric Lorenz curves. The mean income point is implied by an income density function and associated with a single-parametric Lorenz function. The boundary of the mean income point can show the flexibility of a parametric Lorenz function. I minimize the sum of squared errors in fitting both grouped income data and the mean income point and identify the best parametric Lorenz function using a large panel dataset. I find that each parametric Lorenz function may do a better job than others in fitting particular grouped data; however, a zero- and unit-modal single-parametric Lorenz function is identified to be the best of eight typical optional functions in fitting most (666 out of 969) observations of a large panel dataset. I perform a Monte Carlo simulation as a robustness check of the empirical estimation., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Over the past four decades, China's economy has experienced tremendous economic growth but also a widening urban-rural income gap. Given the dilemma of the urban-rural income gap in China explained by neoclassical equilibrium theory, this paper attempts to provide a new theoretical explanation for the large-income gap between urban and rural areas in China. We select data from 30 provinces(cities) in China over the period from 2006 to 2017 as a sample to investigate whether and how the degree of farmland financial innovation narrows the urban-rural income gap. The results show that the coefficient for farmland financial innovation is significantly negative at the 1% level, signifying that financial innovation can narrow the urban-rural income gap in China. The mediation effect test provides evidence that farmland financial innovation narrows the urban-rural income gap by promoting the permanent migration of the labor force and upgrading the industrial structure. Our results indicate that the government should promote various forms of farmland financial innovation, establish rural property rights transaction system and free farmers from deep farmer-land attachment to realize permanent labor migration., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The need to control the sanitary situation during the COVID-19 pandemic has led governments to implement several restrictions with substantial social and economic impacts. We explored people's trade-offs in terms of their income, life restrictions, education, and poverty in the society, compared to their willingness to avoid deaths. We applied a web-based discrete choice experiment to elicit preferences of the Portuguese citizens for these attributes and computed the marginal rate of substitution in terms of avoided deaths. We recorded 2,191 responses that faced the possibility of having 250 COVID-19 related deaths per day as the worst possible outcome from the choice levels presented. Estimates suggested that individuals would be willing to sacrifice 30% instead of 10% of their income to avoid approximately 47 deaths per day during the first six months of 2021. For the same period, they would also accept 30% of the students' population to become educationally impaired, instead of 10%, to avoid approximately 25 deaths; a strict lockdown, instead of mild life restrictions, to avoid approximately 24 deaths; and 45% of the population to be in risk of poverty, instead of 25%, to avoid approximately 101 deaths. Our paper shows that avoiding deaths was strongly preferred to the remaining societal impacts; and that being a female, as well as working on site, led individuals to be more averse to such health hazards. Furthermore, we show how a DCE can be used to assess the societal support to decision-making during times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically tests the relationship between digital finance and income distribution of residents in 280 cities in China from 2011 to 2020 using linear and nonlinear models, respectively. Based on the Greenwood-Jovanovic (G-J) theory of output grow, the empirical study shows that there is a Kuznets effect of digital finance development on the income distribution of Chinese residents, and most regions have not yet crossed the inflection point of the bell-shaped curve, and the income gap within regions will continue to increase with the development of digital finance. Furthermore, the threshold model test shows that the positive effect of digital finance on the income disparity of residents may initially increase with the increase of regional economic level. However, when the regional economic development reaches a higher stage, the negative effect of digital finance development on the income distribution of residents will be significantly reduced., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The increasing family leverage and the expansion of income inequality have aroused widespread concern in society. Based on the data from the China Household Finance Survey (CFPS), this paper constructs the Gini coefficient and household credit index, and aims to research the impact of income inequality, borrowing level on consumption in different regions, urban and rural areas. The results indicate that the increasing of income inequality significantly restrained the increase of household consumption, while the moderate increase of household leverage can promote household consumption to a certain extent. According to the conclusion of this article, in order to realize the sustainable growth of consumption and upgrade of structure, the government should take measures to stimulate domestic demand: (1) For the central and western regions, the overall wealth level of households should be improved and the borrowing level of residents should be appropriately increased; (2) For the eastern region, the income inequality should be controlled and reduced the negative effects of income inequality on sustainable consumption growth. This research provides evidence for understanding the relationship between income inequality, household leverage ratio and consumption, and sheds light on the formulation of related policies., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.