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This study considers the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion and examines why some states have been reluctant to implement the expansion by focusing on state fiscal factors, including budget solvency, long-run solvency, and federal Medicaid assistance percentages (FMAPs). We used data and samples from multiple sources covering nine years (2012 –2020) and 50 states. Our estimation strategy was an event history analysis with robust standard errors to resolve the possible heteroscedasticity problem. The findings show that states' Medicaid expansion decisions were associated with increased long-run solvency and were marginally associated with decreased budget solvency, providing evidence for the significance of state fiscal capacity in shaping policy decisions. The FMAP influenced the adoption of the Medicaid expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of the procedural justice theory is absent from our understanding of environmental policies, particularly in the process of nuclear policy decisions. We explore the relationship between citizen participation and policy acceptance of nuclear facilities by considering community conflict and governmental trustworthiness in the case of South Korea. This study used data collected from citizens who live in the areas where nuclear plants are situated. The results showed that citizen participation may be a predictor of enhanced governmental trustworthiness. Moreover, community members with higher levels of governmental trustworthiness are more likely to allow the construction of additional nuclear plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polluted rivers transport and transform large quantities of anthropogenically-derived organic carbon to coastal regions, and account for an unneglectable share of global CO2 emissions. Effective river water management can enhance water quality and reduce CO2 emissions from the surface water to the atmosphere. However, the effect of water management on future riverine CO2 emissions remains a topic yet to be explored. In this context, the effects of water quality on riverine carbon dynamics were evaluated by examining the temporal variations in carbon fluxes from the Elbe River during a climate base period (around 30 years) from 1984 to 2018. The analysis of long-term data reveals that annual CO2 emissions from the Elbe River have decreased from 3.8±1.7 Tg C yr–1 in 1984 to 1.3±0.6 Tg C yr–1 in 2018 (1 T = 1012), and the largest reduction occurred after the initial decade of reunification of Germany. The changes in wastewater treatment have largely reduced nutrient loads, mitigated eutrophication, impacted the quality of the transported carbon to the ocean, resulting in concurrent decreases in CO2 emissions. The long-term trends in the Elbe River underscore the importance of water quality management for mitigating CO2 emissions from polluted rivers around the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers lessons for overcoming future economic crises by examining whether democratic management helped local governments recover their financial condition. During the Great Recession, local governments were forced to make painful decisions regarding increased taxes and user charges, and cuts in public services. Several case studies provide evidence that citizen participation allows localities to increase property taxes as well as cut public services. However, broader, systematic empirical research is lacking. This study found that local governments with participatory budgeting were more likely to improve their financial condition during the Great Recession. The results allow us to identify the role of citizens in fiscal decision-making, offering lessons on how local governments can overcome possible fiscal crises in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a way to narrow the fiscal disparity across local governments with different revenue capacity, revenue-sharing institutionalizes relatively affluent governments to transfer some revenues for the poor. However, effects of the shared revenue, for both transfer-losing and transfer-gaining governments, on individual governments' service quality are unknown. In this study, we investigate the connection between the shared revenue and government service quality, the concept measured with tangibility, empathy, assurance, responsiveness, and reliability. Using data of 25 districts in Seoul Metropolitan Area from 2008 to 2016, our findings demonstrate the shared revenues are positively associated with all measures of government service quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the impacts of Medicaid expansion on New York county total health spending and specifics of health spending, including health services, public health facilities and public health administration. Little research considered the financial effect of Medicaid expansion on local governments while well reported are its influences on uninsured rates and health services utilization. New York counties have contributed to health in their boundaries by providing or funding public health services, and supporting a part of the non-federal share of Medicaid expenditures and uncompensated care. Medicaid expansion can reduce the size of county expenditures for health by enrolling more previously uninsured population in the program and offering more generous federal funding for the expanded Medicaid. We offer empirical evidence that Medicaid expansion was associated with reduced county health spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High‐frequency, paired measurements of the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) and dissolved O2 were combined with dissolved organic matter (DOM) characterization to investigate diurnal (7:00–19:00) and seasonal variations in CO2 dynamics in the lower Ganges River. Diurnal variations in pCO2 shifted seasonally, concurring with changes in DOM optical properties, biodegradable DOM, and O2 departures from atmospheric equilibrium (ΔO2). Increased pCO2 and CO2 flux (FCO2) in August–September corresponded to monsoonal floods carrying more terrestrial materials. Lower dry‐season pCO2 and FCO2 concurred with higher ΔO2, and exhibited strong relationships with DO and pH, indicating a dominant influence of phytoplankton production. Despite large variations in pCO2, the year‐long positive FCO2 implied that the lower Ganges acted as a CO2 source, reaching 122 mmol m−2 d−1. Increasing hydrologic variability and pollution in the Ganges Basin can amplify pCO2 variations linked to seasonal shifts in terrestrial inputs and phytoplankton production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little scholarly research has paid attention to the collective impact of contracting out on local financial condition. Contracting out can enhance a fiscal state by allowing local officials for more buying power with lower service costs as well as less long-term liabilities. Beyond prior research on the effect of contracting in a service, this research offers evidence that higher levels of contracting out spending improve local financial condition regarding budget solvency and long-run solvency. However, external suppliers can deteriorate financial condition. The findings show that the improvement of budget solvency does not materialize at a certain level of contracting out spending, but this is not the case for long-run solvency. The expectation of financial condition improvement may rely on the degree to which practitioners deliver public services through contracting out. Thus, local officials may want to decide levels of contracting out services strategically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water pollution disrupts the ecological integrity of urbanized river systems, but its impacts on riverine metabolic processes and carbon fluxes are poorly studied in developing countries. Three seasonal field surveys were combined with two high-resolution measurements and an in situ incubation experiment to investigate the effects of untreated wastewater on organic matter biodegradation and the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) along the Mekong–Tonle Sap network around Phnom Penh. High-resolution measurements during the dry-season survey exhibited large downstream increases in pCO2 along the Mekong reaches receiving Tonle Sap inflows carrying urban sewage, contrasting with little spatial variation during a monsoon survey when the Mekong floodwater reversed the Tonle Sap flow. The monsoonal and dry-season surveys revealed flooding-induced homogenization and large spatial divergences in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and its δ13C and Δ14C between the Tonle Sap and connected Mekong reaches. During the 3-day incubation of Mekong waters, alone or mixed with sewage, a large initial nocturnal increase in pCO2 in sewage-supplemented river water exceeded the subsequent daytime CO2 uptake by phytoplankton photosynthesis varying with light exposure. This, combined with the preferential consumption of labile DOC components displaying protein-like fluorescence, implies sewage-enhanced biodegradation of riverine organic matter. These results suggest that neglecting wastewater-enhanced CO2 production in urbanized river basins during long dry periods can result in a significant underestimation of riverine CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]