•We estimate larger price dispersion after an increase in uncertainty about inflation.•Not reporting accurate measures of the CPI entails large welfare losses.•Welfare losses are particularly large ...in volatile economies.
We analyze the manipulation of inflation statistics that occurred in Argentina starting in 2007 to test the relevance of informational frictions in price setting. We estimate that the manipulation of statistics was associated with a higher degree of price dispersion. This effect is analyzed in the context of a quantitative general equilibrium model in which firms use information about the inflation rate to set prices. Reporting inaccurate measures of the CPI entails significant welfare losses, especially in economies with volatile monetary policy.
Colombian journalists experience abundant threats and acts of violence as well as corporate and governmental obstacles to publishing the truth. In response, many reporters engage in self-censorship, ...eschewing stories to protect their livelihoods-and their very lives. Our in-depth interviews with sixteen journalists in the post-conflict era, some of whom have had to leave the country because of such threats, disclose the severity of the problem in deeply textured ways. The results show that dependency on sources and advertising, severe judicial and online harassment, and powerful editorial pressures prevent journalists from reporting freely. The generalized fear, the distribution of official advertising and political publicity, the media's property, and local journalists' vulnerability are the key factors that trigger self-censorship. Nevertheless, these journalists also have counterstrategies to circumvent the problem and further democracy, such as sharing scoops with colleagues when covering sensitive issues, finding international funding, or creating new online media.
Governments implemented many non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to suppress the spread of COVID-19 with varying results. In this paper, country-level daily time series from Our World in Data ...facilitates a global analysis of the propagation of the virus, policy responses and human mobility patterns. High death counts and mortality ratios influence policy compliance levels. Evidence of long-term fatigue was found with compliance dropping from over 85% in the first half of 2020 to less than 40% at the start of 2021, driven by factors such as economic necessity and optimism coinciding with vaccine effectiveness. NPIs ranged from facial coverings to restrictions on mobility, and these are compared using an empirical assessment of their impact on the growth rate of case numbers. Masks are the most cost-effective NPI currently available, delivering four times more impact than school closures, and approximately double that of other mobility restrictions. Gathering restrictions were the second most effective. International travel controls and public information campaigns had negligible effects. Literacy rates and income support played key roles in maintaining compliance. A 10% increase in literacy rate was associated with a 3.2% increase in compliance, while income support of greater than half of previous earnings increased compliance by 4.8%.
One of the characteristics of a democratic country is an open government. The administration of the state can take place in democratic and open governance if it applies the principle of public ...information disclosure (PID) in the administration of its government. In this regard, the Government of Indonesia issued Law Number 14 of 2008 concerning the Openness of Public Information, which must be implemented by all public bodies at every level of government in Indonesia, starting from the central government, and provincial governments, to district/city governments. This study's purpose is to see the extent to which the development of PID implementation practices is at the local government level. The method used in this research is a systematic literature review (SLR) method, by collecting all the results of the latest study on implementing PID at the local government level in Indonesia and systematically analyzing them. From 674 published articles obtained from the scholar.google.com portal using the Publish & Perish application, a PRISMA flow diagram was carried out so that 69 reports were received that were directly related to implementing KIP in local governments in Indonesia. The results show that the quality of PPID institutions influences the implementation of KIP in local governments, the availability of legal umbrellas in the form of regional regulations and head regulations, the information media used, and the available public information according to general needs.
Sharon Dunwoody gained international reputation for her research on science journalism and media risk communication. Drawing on her publications published over more than four decades and the author’s ...long-lasting collaboration with her, this commentary elaborates on three of her most characteristic beliefs and orientations and suggests that they may serve as timely lessons for us to critically reflect on current assumptions and practices: substance over showmanship, improving one-way communication, and respecting the audience.
The openness of public information is an essential or inseparable part of democracy. The principles of democracy are participation, inclusion, representation, transparency, accountability, ...responsibility, free and fair competition, and solidarity. Transparency and participation are linked to the openness of information that allows people to get accurate and sufficient information. This research focuses on the dynamics of democracy in transparency and participation through the openness of public information in Pemalang Regency. The method that used in this research is the qualitative method, since the data is obtained from observation, interviews, and documentation. The result shows that information is restricted by the classification of public information, mechanism access, limitation of tools to deliver the information. Moreover, the database of information has not met the requirement for more up-to-date information. Also, the level of participation of the people in public information in Pemalang Regency is still low.
Through its behavior, an organism intentionally or unintentionally produces information. Use of this “social information” by surrounding conspecifics or heterospecifics is a ubiquitous phenomenon ...that can drive strong correlations in fitness-associated behaviors, such as predator avoidance, enhancing survival within and among competing species. By eliciting indirect positive interactions between competing individuals or species, social information might alter overall competitive outcomes. To test this potential, we present new theory that quantifies the effect of social information, modeled as predator avoidance signals/cues, on the outcomes from intraspecific and interspecific competition. Our analytical and numerical results reveal that social information can rescue populations from extinction and can shift the long-term outcome of competitive interactions from mutual exclusion to coexistence, or vice versa, depending on the relative strengths of intraspecific and interspecific social information and competition. Our findings highlight the importance of social information in determining ecological outcomes.
•PIOs who monitor social media had significantly higher satisfaction with crisis management.•PIOs who monitor social media felt better prepared for Zika virus.•Social media monitoring by PIOs ...differed by community size; small towns had the lowest rates.
As Zika virus emerged as a global health concern in 2016, it was surrounded in public uncertainty regarding its transmission and health consequences. Health communicators were tasked with managing their own uncertainties and with incomplete information on the virus. Given the misinformation, rumors, and even conspiracy theories surrounding Zika virus, monitoring public awareness and understanding of the mysterious illness on social media could offer critical insight to crisis management. A survey (n=226) was conducted with public information officers (PIOs) at local public health departments across the United States to reveal how they utilize and listen to social media during public health crises. In addition to an overall low rate of social media monitoring reported by PIOs, troublesome disparities exist based on community size served. However, there were positive relationships between social media monitoring and satisfaction with overall departmental crisis management as well as preparedness for Zika. These and many other monitoring trends are explored.
Breeding success should increase with prior knowledge of the surrounding environment, which is dependent upon an animal's ability to evaluate habitat. Prospecting for nesting locations and migratory ...stopover sites are well-established behaviours among bird species. We assessed whether three species of California dabbling ducks – mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, gadwall, Mareca strepera, and cinnamon teal, Spatula cyanoptera – in Suisun Marsh, California, U.S.A., a brackish marsh, prospect for suitable wetlands in the week prior to brooding. K-means cluster analyses grouped 29 mallard and gadwall hens into three groups. One group (N=13) demonstrated evidence of brood site prospecting, with the fewest and latest prebrooding wetland visits. Of these hens, seven visited their future brood pond an average of 1.14 times and only shortly before brooding (1.29 days), obtaining current information on habitat suitability. For the remaining six hens, we did not detect a brooding wetland visit, possibly due to data limitations or because these hens acquired sufficient familiarity with the wetland habitat during nest breaks in adjacent wetlands, obviating the need to prospect the specific brood pond. The second identified group of hens (N=11) visited the brooding wetland most frequently (on 4.55 days), further in advance (5.27 days), with the fewest unique wetland visits and the earliest brooding date (26 May). The final group of hens (N=5) were the latest to brood (21 June) and visited the most wetlands, possibly due to less water or more broods present across the landscape. Brood ponds were always farther from the nest than the nearest ponds, indicating that habitat suitability or presence of conspecifics is more important to brood site selection. Prospecting provides hens with knowledge about current habitat conditions and allows them to ‘crowdsource’ public information regarding use of that habitat by other brooding hens. Prospecting may, therefore, benefit ducks inhabiting ephemeral habitats like those within Suisun Marsh, where brood habitat is limited and water cover changes rapidly during the breeding season.
•GPS telemetry 1-week prehatch reveals brood site prospecting behaviour in waterfowl.•Pond visits provide information on current habitat quality and conditions.•Dabbling ducks select brood sites during nest recess wetland visits.•Late-brooding hens visit more ponds, suggesting use of public information.•Hens may crowdsource public information from the presence of other broods.
The guarantee of ensuring the right to access public information is an important condition and criterion for functioning in a legal democratic state. In addition, realizing the right to access public ...information is essential for preventing and detecting corruption. The purpose of this work is to analyze international legal rules and standards, as well as to provide some examples of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in the context of the implementation of the right to access public information. It has been established that the right to access public information is a component of the human right to information and is a fundamental constitutional human right. The existing practice of the European Court of Human Rights confirms the importance of protecting the right of access to public information. It indicates to states that it is mandatory to comply with it, the expediency of applying an effective system of control measures to implement the right under study. The paper analyzes theoretical and legal approaches to understanding the human right to access public information and determines its place in human rights. An analysis of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the right to access public information made it possible to identify existing shortcomings in the legislation of the Member States and Ukraine and to find ways and methods for solving such problems and prospects for preventing such violations in the future, as well as the possibility of applying the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to improve the current domestic legislation in this area.