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The purpose of this paper was to assess the effects of social inequality, democracy, and economic growth on the climate justice performance of a nation. To achieve this goal, the research technique Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS‐SEM) was applied to a sample of 133 countries selected based on indicators available in international databases in 2019. The main results of the analysis were: (a) the effect of democracy on the performance of climate justice is positive; (b) the moderating effect of inequality on the relationship between democracy and climate justice is negative; and (c) economic growth has a U‐shaped relationship with climate justice performance, which indicates the existence of a Kuznets curve for climate justice performance. Based on these results, the main theoretical implications of this study were the discoveries that: (a) the weakening of democratic institutions may be associated with increased social inequality, which reduces the implementation of climate policies aimed at guaranteeing justice; (b) forms of cooperation and financing of climate actions at the global level may be ineffective only if the quality of democracy in vulnerable countries is observed, which can be explained by the persistence of high social inequality; (c) allowing women access to income, education and health might be ways of reducing gender inequality and improving the level of adaptation of countries vulnerable to climate challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to propose an index based on the IPAT model to quantify the performance of countries concerning their emissions, also taking into account the level of climate technology and the level of inequality. In this study, two quantitative techniques were applied to a sample of 100 countries and 21 indicators. The main results were: (a) a 1% increase in social inequality contributes to an increase in emissions levels by 0.105; (b) the 1% increase in climate techs contributes to reducing emissions levels by 0.141; (c) The proposed IPA index shows that only Estonia and Slovenia are the best performers, mainly in overcoming the inequality barrier, while South Africa and Nigeria are the worst performers in reducing their emissions. The results provide evidence that climate policies should contain social targets to improve country performance and should use a representative value to identify their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to propose a new composite index (CI) that helps to determine the most effective location of servers in an Emergency Care System (ECS), using Benefit of the Doubt (BoD)/Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Hypercube queuing model. The CI proposed was developed in four stages: (1) definition of a number of possible ECS configurations through the application of mathematical partitions and permutations; (2) application of the hypercube queuing model to determine performance parameters for each ECS configuration; (3) application of DEA/BoD to build the CI and generate performance rankings, and (4) evaluation of the rankings obtained to define the best configuration for the ECS analyzed. Data from two real cases from Brazil were used to assess the CI proposal. The results obtained confirm that: (a) the hypercube model could, relatively quickly, determine the configuration parameters generated; (b) the application of an appropriate DEA/BoD model enabled the different configurations to be ranked with good discrimination; (c) a pattern in the relationship between ambulance concentration and configuration effectiveness could be identified; and (d) the CI proposed would benefit ECS managers who are making resource location decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper aims: Housing is pivotal in advancing the quality of life. This study investigates the impact of economic complexity on the housing deficit within the Brazilian states. Originality: Several studies have investigated the significance of social policies and economic growth as explanatory factors for housing deficits. Our study sheds light on the importance of economic structure in facilitating improved housing conditions for individuals. Research method: The Fixed Effects Driscoll Kraay (FE-DK) econometric model was employed, utilizing panel data encompassing 27 Brazilian federative units spanning 2009 to 2017. Main findings: The primary finding of this research elucidates the role of economic complexity as a determining factor that significantly impacts the housing deficit within Brazilian states. In other words, an enhanced economic structure contributes to improved housing conditions for the population and fosters a higher quality of life. Implications for theory and practice: Theoretically, this paper posits the existence of a novel determinant that elucidates the housing and housing deficit theory. Moreover, the study makes a substantive contribution by advocating for public policies to facilitate housing conditions and enhance social well-being within a developing country. It underscores the pivotal significance of the productive structure in driving the economic development of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]