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Public resentment toward scientific institutions, scholars, and their expertise challenges the status of science in society in many countries worldwide. It is thus essential to examine the global prevalence of such resentment—and the potential of legacy media to temper it, thanks to their ability to cultivate positive views of science, educate citizens, and connect publics to scientific discourse. However, existing research has mostly surveyed Western populations, focused on pro-science rather than anti-science views, rarely studied the role of media use, and often ignored country characteristics that may interact with media use. This secondary analysis addresses these caveats, drawing on the 2017–2020 wave of the World Values Survey (N = 70,867 in 49 countries) and three relevant country-level indicators (freedom of the press, populism, uncertainty avoidance). Findings indicate that anti-science attitudes vary substantially across countries and are more prevalent in many Latin American nations. Results of Bayesian multilevel regressions show that frequent use of newspapers, TV, and radio indeed alleviates anti-science attitudes in some countries—but fosters them in others, particularly in those where populist rhetoric is more prevalent in public discourse, potentially because such rhetoric often challenges science and academic expertise. These findings call for further comparative research on global reservations against science and reflections about their repercussions on the science-society nexus.

Anticipating those most at-risk of being acutely malnourished significantly shapes decisions that pertain to resource allocation and intervention in times of food crises. Yet, the assumption that household behavior in times of crisis is homogeneous—that households share the same capacity to adapt to external shocks—ostensibly prevails. This assumption fails to explain why, in a given geographical context, some households remain more vulnerable to acute malnutrition relative to others, and why a given risk factor may have a differential effect across households? In an effort to explore how variation in household behavior influences vulnerability to malnutrition, we use a unique household dataset that spans 23 Kenyan counties from 2016 to 2020 to seed, calibrate, and validate an evidence-driven computational model. We use the model to conduct a series of counterfactual experiments on the relationship between household adaptive capacity and vulnerability to acute malnutrition. Our findings suggest that households are differently impacted by given risk factors, with the most vulnerable households typically being the least adaptive. These findings further underscore the salience of household adaptive capacity, in particular, that adaption is less effective for economic vis-à-vis climate shocks. By making explicit the link between patterns of household behavior and vulnerability in the short- to medium-term, we underscore the need for famine early warning to better account for variation in household-level behavior.

In Vietnam, a country where religious expression is widespread, many gods and goddesses are commonly worshipped. Among those, Bà Tổ Cô (Family Goddess) is widely worshipped in the North of Vietnam due to her exceptional background as unmarried, young, and having spiritual roots, unlike other national and heroic figures. This article examines the sanctity of the Family Goddess by decoding the terms, worshippers, beliefs and practices, sacred encounters and supports. The research is a final result of decade-long field trips, archival study, and in-depth interviews with various stakeholders. The research findings show that the veneration of the Family Goddess in Northern Vietnam is a continuity of a long-standing tradition of worshipping female deities in Asia and thus emphasising the need to maintain this unique intangible heritage as a crucial part of Vietnamese cultural diversity.

Societies are increasingly multicultural and diverse, consisting of members who migrated from various other countries. However, immigrants and ethnic minorities often face discrimination in the form of fewer opportunities for labor and housing, as well as limitations on interactions in other social domains. Using mock email accounts with typical native-sounding and foreign-sounding names, we contacted 23,020 amateur football clubs in 22 European countries, asking to participate in a training session. Response rates differed across countries and were, on average, about 10% lower for foreign-sounding names. The present field experiment reveals discrimination against ethnic minority groups, uncovering organizational deficiencies in a system trusted to foster social interactions.

The discussion of the social, political and economic consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly revolves around negative effects. This study exploits a unique opportunity and analyses data from a survey (N = 13,316) that happened to be in the field in the months of the development and eventual manifestation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It documents slightly higher levels of average general life satisfaction as well as of satisfaction with various specific aspects of life (health, work, work-life balance and leisure) during the lockdown among scientists in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It is argued that the lockdown can be regarded as a large-scale social experiment of a very sudden and abrupt change of work and social life, which is unique in history. Daily survey data elicited before and after the lockdown allows the construction of a quasi-experimental design for analysing how this abrupt change of social reality has affected satisfaction. For scientists, the lockdown mainly entailed the transition to work from home, leading to a reduced speed of life and allowing for more flexibility in incorporating family and leisure into the work day. It is discussed how some of these mechanisms might apply to the general population., Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7 (1), ISSN:2662-9992

This chapter addresses the challenge of motivating employees regarding energy conservation, by providing a socio-motivational and micro-interactional perspective on energy conservations in the workplace. Building on change management research, we highlight the socio-relational and motivational dynamics between energy managers and employees in conversations about energy-related behaviour change. Further, we introduce Motivational Interviewing (MI) as a socio-relational approach that offers potential to help energy managers in discussing energy savings with employees. In this regard, we outline how introductory training in MI for energy managers can be designed, can provide detailed information on procedures, and present methodological approaches to evaluate these types of interventions. Finally, we provide a detailed analysis of conversational dynamics between an energy manager and an employee who we evaluated as part of a training evaluation study.

In 2011, the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group made its project ratings database public. With broad geographic and sectoral coverage, this database is a valuable resource for research on development effectiveness, what works and what does not. This chapter first provides an overview for scholars interested in evaluation but unfamiliar with the World Bank evaluation system. Next we examine whether geopolitical or institutional factors influence ratings. We focus on how projects are selected for performance assessments and what factors influence project ratings. We find evidence that bureaucratic factors influence selection and that one geopolitical variable—nonpermanent United Nations Security Council membership—impacts ratings. Nonetheless if researchers control for potential biases, World Bank project ratings can provide a valuable way to measure project quality in many applications.

Central banks occupy a unique space in their national governments and in the global economy. The study of central banking however, has too often been dominated by an abstract theoretical approach that fails to grasp central banks’ institutional nuances. This comprehensive and insightful Handbook, takes a wider angle on central banks and central banking, focusing on the institutions of central banking. By 'institutions', Peter Conti-Brown and Rosa Lastra refer to the laws, traditions, norms, and rules used to structure central bank organisations. The Research Handbook on Central Banking’s institutional approach is one of the most interdisciplinary efforts to consider its topic, and includes chapters from leading and rising central bankers, economists, lawyers, legal scholars, political scientists, historians, and others.

We explore the effect of tax reforms in Italy and Belgium, respectively that decrease the cost of equity on bank lending. Because local firms were also affected by these reforms, we em-ploy loan level data from the German credit register, to identify the differential impact on lending by banks that were 'treated'. We find that the decrease in the cost of equity leads banks to raise their equity ratio, and to expand their balance sheet by increasing the amount of credit supplied in Germany.

The objective of this chapter is to take stock and to map the relevant issues related to data ownership. It covers the central aspects of a potential new property right regarding data: its rationale, characteristics, and implementation. Market failure can be a consequence of overly high transaction costs. According to literature, data ownership could correct this market failure by lowering transaction costs for contractual agreements involving data and by correcting a misallocation of costs and benefits, that is, the fact that data collectors are able to externalize costs while internalizing benefits. Data may be protected at three distinct levels: at the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic level. According to World Economic Forum taxonomy, volunteered data is explicitly shared by individuals. If individuals share data that is not by them but rather about them, this data should be qualified as observed data. Finally, inferred data refers to different data types originating from various sources, used mostly for predictive purposes.

Every economist worth his or her salt will tell you that monetary compensation is more efficient than all other forms of rewards. Awards have only received scant attention in the economics literature. Yet, they are ubiquitous. They can take many forms and include titles, prizes, orders, medals, and still other types of decorations. We outline the distinguishing characteristics of awards, especially in comparison to monetary rewards, show the potential risks and emphasize where awards are particularly useful.

This chapter analyzes the OECDs emerging role in education policy and retraces the early history of the Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), which has become highly influential through the launch of the famous Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). It argues that the OECD’s engagement in education policy was driven by a network of technocrats aiming to produce the “right kind of people,” or engineering the West. Paradoxically, the failure of this quantitative planning project opened the doors for the OECD to get involved with more qualitative aspects of education planning. Catalyzed by the United States, and in particular the Ford Foundation, goal-oriented sciences were used by the OECD as governing means, allowing an organization that lacked binding policy instruments to professionalize its soft-law governance.

Yugoslavia’s accession to the OEEC/OECD as an observing member was primarily motivated by concerns that the deepening of the process of Western European integration would have an adverse effect on trade with Yugoslavia´s most important trading partners. While Western powers were willing to associate Yugoslavia with a core Western economic institution, the Yugoslav authorities realized in the early 1960s that relations with the OECD could not compensate for staying outside the Western European economic trading areas (EEC and EFTA). Instead, the Yugoslav participation in the OECD became more of a means to engage with Western policy-makers, exchange views on global trade and development, and gain insights into economic policies and benefit from the organization’s expertise in various fields.

This chapter proposes a historical framework for understanding the OEEC/OECD. After presenting key modes of governance, it provides an overview of the organization’s trajectory since 1948. The periodization we propose is linked to the mandates of successive Secretary-Generals, dates that coincided with deeper transformations of the organization’s set-up, tasks, and overall outlook: The OEEC’s focus on reconstruction and European integration (1948–1961), the OECD as the center of Atlantic cooperation and Keynesian growthmanship (1961–1969), the crisis-ridden 1970s and the OECD’s shift of economic ideology of neo-liberalism (1969–1984), the deepening of liberalization and the search for a post-Cold-War role (1984–1996), and the focus on enlargement and the management of globalization (1996–2016). The conclusion discusses the OECD as a (geo)political platform, expert think tank, and identity-generating Club.

There is considerable ambiguity about what makes an event a mega event. Intervening in this debate this paper develops a definition and classification scheme for mega events. On the basis of a review of existing definitions it proposes four constitutive dimensions of mega events: visitor attractiveness mediated reach costs and transformative impact. The paper develops indicators for each dimension and maps onto these four dimensions a sample of the latest editions of nine large events (Expo Summer and Winter Olympics Football World Cup European Football Championship Asian Games Commonwealth Games Pan American Games Universiade). From this it develops a multi dimensional point based classification scheme of large events according to size distinguishing between major events mega events and the recently emerging class of giga events. Concluding it identifies the need for more systematic data on the size costs and impacts of a broad range of large scale events over time.

A few economists still believe that the extraordinary high and yearly increasing salaries for CEOs can at least be partially explained by talent. Underlying this are elaborate theories and models such as an increasing demand by a simultaneous shortage of talented people, which is driven by external factors like globalization, technological progress, demographic change, or a general shift from firm-specific to transferable skills. All these explanations share the assumption that marginal differences in talent get extraordinarily paid in the CEO market because of Zipf’s law. Such superstar effects in salaries are driven by “imperfect substitution”—meaning that firms prefer to have the best CEO rather than the second and third best together—and by “scale” in production—implying that in international companies consisting of thousands of employees, one CEO can reach and manage a large and diverse work force.

Advocating a holistic approach, the life design paradigm suggests that individual and environmental constraints as well as resources shape people’s career journeys and their broader evolution. In particular, career adaptability and career resilience are central personal resources that help people in designing their career. In specific situations, people are able to activate these resources, and career interventions can strengthen them. Career adaptability and career resilience also help people to better use their environment’s resources, which eventually contribute to their employability. Over time, these constant interactions between people and their environment can lead to the development of negative spirals or virtuous circles, ultimately fostering adaptive functioning, and a successful life. People’s career path and employability thus depend on a combination of personal, and environmental factors, occurring within specific organizational, social, economic, and political structures.

The European audio-visual production industry is a dynamic sector challenged by fundamental changes in terms of technology, business models and regulation that require production companies to revise their business strategies. This chapter introduces two business model extensions that could address these challenges and then empirically analyses the models’ implementation by production companies in eight European countries. Neither the integration of advertiser funding in the production phase, nor the forward integration of online distribution is popular among the companies included in the study. Small companies are apparently reluctant to develop the new competences that are needed for the suggested business model extensions.

This impressive Handbook presents the quantitative techniques that are commonly employed in empirical finance research together with real-world, state-of-the-art research examples.

The extent and severity of the recent financial crisis has spurred both theoretical and empirical research in the areas of macroeconomics and financial economics, largely analyzing the challenges faced or imposed by the banking sector. The focus of this chapter is placed on the empirical work that determines the relevance of banks in the monetary policy transmission mechanism, or points to regulatory and macroprudential challenges within the banking sector. While the lending channel had already been investigated prior to the crisis, the identification of the risk channel gained the attention of researchers mostly in the post-crisis literature. Empirical advances have been made on several fronts: the increased availability and use of detailed micro-data, as well as (re)development and application of several methodological approaches, have allowed solving for previously existing identification drawbacks. Furthermore, research on regulatory implications of banks’ operations has proposed new ways of measuring the risk which institutions pose for the system, and suggested possible regulatory and macroprudential improvements.

Many see the primary impact of Design Thinking in the area of industrial innovation. Given the engineering background of the methodology, this is definitely the most straightforward approach, with its practice-oriented nature. We claim, however, that Design Thinking—defined as the mindset as well as the toolset—can significantly contribute to the success of academic research in the Information Systems area. While building on the notion of inquiry from a philosophy of science, as well as the concept of a mindset from psychology, we offer an extended view of Design Thinking as a malleable paradigm. We argue that implementing Design Thinking phases in Information Systems research projects will contribute to a better traceability and understanding of the creative processes, as well as to the credibility of their results. We postulate that Design Thinking will also contribute to new findings, thus leveraging the knowledge contribution. We, provide proven and tested practical guidance on how Design Thinking can be embedded in research projects. While this paper primarily addresses an academic audience, practitioners and facilitators in the field of Design Thinking may benefit from a philosophical perspective on this paradigm.