What types of asylum seekers are Europeans willing to accept? We conducted a conjoint experiment asking 18,000 eligible voters in 15 European countries to evaluate 180,000 profiles of asylum seekers ...that randomly varied on nine attributes. Asylum seekers who have higher employability, have more consistent asylum testimonies and severe vulnerabilities, and are Christian rather than Muslim received the greatest public support. These results suggest that public preferences over asylum seekers are shaped by sociotropic evaluations of their potential economic contributions, humanitarian concerns about the deservingness of their claims, and anti-Muslim bias. These preferences are similar across respondents of different ages, education levels, incomes, and political ideologies, as well as across the surveyed countries.This public consensus on what types of asylum seekers to accept has important implications for theory and policy.
Using new cross-country survey and experimental data, we investigate how beliefs about intergenerational mobility affect preferences for redistribution in France, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, ...and the United States. Americans are more optimistic than Europeans about social mobility. Our randomized treatment shows pessimistic information about mobility and increases support for redistribution, mostly for “equality of opportunity” policies. We find strong political polarization. Left-wing respondents are more pessimistic about mobility: their preferences for redistribution are correlated with their mobility perceptions; and they support more redistribution after seeing pessimistic information. None of this is true for right-wing respondents, possibly because they see the government as a “problem” and not as the “solution.”
Time varying risk aversion Guiso, Luigi; Sapienza, Paola; Zingales, Luigi
Journal of financial economics,
06/2018, Volume:
128, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Exploiting portfolio data and repeated surveys of an Italian bank's clients, we test whether investors’ risk aversion increases following the 2008 crisis. We find that, after the crisis, both ...qualitative and quantitative measures of risk aversion increase substantially and that affected individuals divest more stock. We investigate four explanations: changes in wealth, expected income, perceived probabilities, and emotion-based changes of the utility function. Our data are inconsistent with the first two channels, while they suggest that fear is a potential mechanism underlying financial decisions, whether by increasing the curvature of the utility function or the salience of negative outcomes.
•The full scale energy utilization in WWTP has been defined.•The energy efficiency of the plant corresponds to the best performances of large scale.•The thermal balance from sludge digestion and ...drying has been considered.•Improvement in energy efficiency had proposed.
Energy consumption represents a significant part of the operative costs of a wastewater treatment plant but, with a correct design and a careful management model, there are important possibilities for its limitation. The proposed research presents a multi-step methodology for the evaluation of the energetic aspects of wastewater treatment, which was implemented on the largest facility in Italy (2.7M population equivalents as organic load), managed by Società Metropolitana Acque Torino (SMAT). The study initially took into account each phase of the process scheme, in order to obtain specific electricity consumption values for all the electro-mechanic devices. Data from tele-control system and direct measurements in field have both been acquired. The total electric energy demand of the plant was evaluated (66.78GWh/y, about 50% from aeration in oxidation tanks). In account of large contribution the energy efficiency of the blowers was verified with positive results. Four specific energy consumption indexes were considered to carry out a critical analysis of SMAT wastewater treatment plant with other facilities performing biological oxidation processes and of a different order of magnitude about design capacity, and congruent values were obtained. The considered indexes related the electric energy demand to the equivalent population, to the volume of treated water and to the amount of removed COD and total Nitrogen. Furthermore the thermal energy demand of the plant was estimated (49.15GWh/y, more than 93% from sludge line). An energy balance for the whole plant was finally evaluated, and some energy optimization solutions to decrease the corresponding costs were suggested.
•Food waste issue requires an analysis which consider several factors simultaneously.•The study improves the overall knowledge about action preventing food waste.•Food management in home is important ...in reducing food waste intensity.•The reuse of leftovers is a relevant determinant of food waste minimization.
Food waste is a critical issue with multiple ethical, environmental and economic consequences. The aim of this study is to investigate which factors most affect food waste and determine what actions are undertaken to prevent it at the household level. The study, while privileging a behavioural perspective, focuses on the overall consumption process, from purchasing through final food consumption, thus assuming a broad perspective. The data for this study were collected among Italian, Spanish and English populations using three public online questionnaires administered from January to September 2017. This resulted in a total of 3323 usable questionnaires referring to a sample population aged between 18 and 35 years. As for the main motivation to waste food, the research findings provide strong evidence of the importance of in-store behaviour and food management at home in reducing the frequency of food waste in all the three countries examined. As for the actions preventing food waste, the consumption of leftovers appears as a relevant determinant in minimising food waste. The findings confirm that food waste is a complex issue that requires a broad approach of analysis considering several factors simultaneously. The study also provides further insights regarding the relationship between eating outside the home and food waste, which is a topic of debate in the extant literature. Finally, the study improves the overall knowledge about actions that prevent food waste, which have previously been poorly investigated.
This research contributes to the entrepreneurial orientation (EO)-performance literature by offering a wider picture that includes two intermediate steps: organizational learning capability (OLC) and ...innovation performance. This study also provides an explanation of intra-industry firm performance differences by focusing on EO. We use structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses on a data set from talian and panish ceramic tile producers. The results support our conceptual model and demonstrate its usefulness in explaining differences in intra-industry firm performance. Findings suggest that OLC and innovation performance should be enhanced by managers in order to boost the positive EO-performance link.
This paper proposes an overarching review of national municipal waste management systems and waste-to-energy as an important part of it in the context of circular economy in the selected countries in ...Europe. The growth of population and rising standards of living means that the consumption of goods and energy is increasing. On the one hand, consumption leads to an increase in the generation of waste. On the other hand, the correlation between increased wealth and increased energy consumption is very strong as well. Given that the average heating value of municipal solid waste (MSW) is approximately 10 MJ/kg, it seems logical to use waste as a source of energy. Traditionally, waste-to-energy (WtE) has been associated with incineration. Yet, the term is much broader, embracing various waste treatment processes generating energy (for instance, in the form of electricity and/or heat or producing a waste-derived fuel). Turning waste into energy can be one key to a circular economy enabling the value of products, materials, and resources to be maintained on the market for as long as possible, minimising waste and resource use. As the circular economy is at the top of the EU agenda, all Member States of the EU (including the EEA countries) should move away from the old-fashioned disposal of waste to a more intelligent waste treatment encompassing the circular economy approach in their waste policies. Therefore, the article examines how these EU policies are implemented in practice. Given that WtE traditionally is attached to the MSW management and organisation, the focus of this article is twofold. Firstly, it aims to identify the different practices of municipal waste management employed in selected countries and their approaches in embracing the circular economy and, secondly, the extent to which WtE technologies play any role in this context. The following countries, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, and the UK were chosen to depict a broad European context.
•Waste management in Eastern/Central European countries focuses on low-cost options.•There are vast discrepancies of waste management performance across different regions.•Lack of cooperation between different lawyers of multi-governance in waste management.•More positive view from the EU is required towards WtE and new technologies.•Intensive recent progress in Lithuania and Poland with new WtE plants underway.
As in most OECD countries, obtaining good-quality housing in a location facilitating access to jobs, public services and amenities can be very challenging for Italian households with low or unstable ...income. This book sheds light on access to housing in Italy from two different, complementary vantage points. First, it puts the Italian housing market in international perspective using OECD statistics and analysis to compare housing policies and outcomes in Italy to other OECD countries. Second, it zooms in on selected Italian innovative housing projects, where it asks residents and other stakeholders about their experiences with these initiatives: what were their difficulties, how have the projects been designed and developed, what did the projects bring to them?
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