Based on a case study of a waste management services provider in India, this paper sets out to investigate how an ecopreneurial organisation balances the competing demands of environmental mission and profit generation. Results indicate that two internal organisational mechanisms, namely Leadership, and Organisational Processes, are instrumental in achieving the dual goals. The paper highlights... Continue Reading →
‘Women Power’ in Renewable Energy
The Role of Nested Institutions in Vocational Training of Solar Energy Entrepreneurs in India Conventional myths such as the poor are misfit to manage smart technologies or women-led rural enterprises generally fall through faster than men have since been broken as evidenced by various empirical studies. In the context of solar energy enterprises managed by... Continue Reading →
Community level impact of solar entrepreneurs in rural Odisha, India: the rise of women led solar energy-based enterprises
Contemporary research in the area of renewable energy-based entrepreneurship has largely ignored studying the effects of women led solar businesses in a regional context, particularly rural areas. While there are studies recognising entrepreneurship as a key instrument in bringing in regional transformation and thereby development, very little insight has been provided to gain an understanding... Continue Reading →
Pre-apprenticeship training for young people: estimating the marginal and average treatment effects
This paper evaluates traineeships, a voluntary programme of work placement and preparation that aims to help young unemployed people in England compete for jobs and apprenticeships. Applying the method of local instrumental variables to administrative data, we estimate the marginal treatment effects on apprenticeship take-up and employment. The heterogeneous impacts are then aggregated to form... Continue Reading →
A Bayesian structural time series analysis of the effect of basic income on crime: evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund
This paper examines the impact of Alaska's Permanent Fund dividend on crime. The dividend has been payable annually to state residents since 1982 and is the world's longest-running example of a basic income. Initially universal, from 1989 onwards eligibility was withdrawn from an increasing proportion of those in prison. A Bayesian structural time series estimator... Continue Reading →
The Belt and Road Initiative in times of global uncertainty: A trade policy perspective
While all Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) trade routes end in Europe, Europeans remain deeply divided on the issue. There is little appetite for turning away investment but there is an identified need for the strategic oversight and planning of inward and outward investment, which underpins market access. The absence of large-scale state ownership across... Continue Reading →
Four reasons why G7 climate finance initiative will struggle against China’s Belt and Road
During the G7 summit in Cornwall, the group of nations unveiled a global initiative to help low and middle-income countries to cover the vast cost of green infrastructure. Intended as a green rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative aims to unlock private capital to invest in projects related to climate... Continue Reading →
Basic Income as a Policy Lever – Can UBI Reduce Crime?
What would the effect of a universal basic income be on crime? A new study looks into Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend and suggests that it reduced property crimes. The idea of a universal basic income (UBI)—an unconditional payment, without means-test or work requirement—has recently seen a resurgence of interest. Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,... Continue Reading →
Belt and Road: The China Dream?
This paper explores the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in terms of changes in trade costs on trade and consumer welfare in China, the EU, and the rest of the World. We employ a general equilibrium structural gravity approach and conduct a counterfactual analysis. Our key findings are as follows: (i) China and the... Continue Reading →
Covid-19 and the Gig Economy: Hope Springs Eternal
He wants to work Monday nights but not Tuesday afternoons; she is available on Saturday evenings but not on Sunday mornings… Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises often find it challenging to recruit part-time workers, with abundant choices available to gig workers in different sectors, but the pandemic has vividly demonstrated the nature and depth of insecurity of this form of... Continue Reading →
‘Your driver is DiDi and minutes away from your pick-up point’: A thematic case of DiDi and worker motivation in the gig economy of China
In recognition of importance and expansion of the gig economy, largely indeveloped and BRICs economies along with the growing literature surrounding it, this research contributes towards an empirical and conceptual understanding of how employee motivation and retention are managed by the mobile-app based multiple payment-enabled carpooling Chinese giant DiDi. Both the exponential usage and evidently... Continue Reading →
The Nexus Between the COVID-19 Pandemic, International Relations, and International Security
Michael S. Baker, M.D. - Rear Admiral, USN (ret), Dr Sebastian Kevany and Dr Deon Canyon and Professor Robert Ostergard Security Nexus: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies The extent to which other related global relationships, national entities, and supranational organizations have performed in the current case will only be clear in retrospect:... Continue Reading →
The intersection of global health, military medical intelligence, and national security in the management of transboundary hazards and outbreaks
Michael S. Baker, M.D. - Rear Admiral, USN (ret), Dr Sebastian Kevany and Dr Deon Canyon and Jacob Baker Security Nexus: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies The COVID-19 pandemic-induced, shocking collapse of national and international trade, air travel, and tourism have rocked the world, and brought into stark relief the need for... Continue Reading →
Urgent Policies Required to Grant Public Access to Protected Health Information during Emergency Disease Outbreaks and Pandemics
Dr Sebastian Kevany and Dr Deon Canyon Security Nexus: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies While some believe that contact tracing apps produce benefits as soon as users increase above 10 percent of a population, there remain PHI-related shortcomings in these approaches because such apps do not actually measure the circumstances that are... Continue Reading →
Epidemic Control Equals Health Security: What Developing Countries Can (Still) Learn from the Global North
Dr. Sebastian Kevany Written for the Irish Global Health Network Unfortunately, there are only a limited number of ways that data or examples from developed countries are likely to help the developing world, and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, in their preparations for the current global pandemic. There are too many variables in play — not... Continue Reading →
Enabling the sharing of original, timely and creative macro and micro level response concepts, systems, and ideas
Dr. Sebastian Kevany Written for the Irish Global Health Network In the opinion of one who has witnessed, and participated in, responses to numerous public health emergencies (PHEs) and epidemic outbreaks throughout the world for many years — from Cholera in Zimbabwe; to Ebola in Sierra Leone; to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Iraq; to all... Continue Reading →
Health Security Considerations to Improve the Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness of Ireland’s Future Infectious Disease and Epidemic Control Efforts
Dr. Sebastian Kevany Written for the Irish Global Health Network Retrospect is easy, and Ireland’s successes in epidemic control should not be understated: the shape of the country’s mortality curve without interventions compared to what has been achieved would make for interesting viewing, were it possible to hypothesize such a counterfactual. But there nonetheless perhaps... Continue Reading →
Estimating the Impact of Traineeships
Final Report for the Department for Education:Traineeships are an education and training programme that provide young people aged 16-24 with an intensive period of work experience and work preparation training, as well as offering them support in improving their English and maths, to give them the best opportunity of entering an apprenticeship or employment. This... Continue Reading →
Which Way Huawei? ISDS Options for Chinese Investors
This chapter explores how recent moves by western nations to restrict the involvement of Chinese multinational Huawei in 5G telecoms development could give rise to investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) actions. China has been increasing its outgoing foreign investment and is now a player with global aspirations as evidenced in the Belt and Road Initiative... Continue Reading →
Improving Financial Inclusion through the delivery of cash transfer programmes
This paper follows a quasi-experimental research design to assess the impact of the electronic payment system of Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. The switch from cash payments to electronic payments delivered via savings accounts is found to have medium-term effects on savings decisions, transaction costs, and coping strategies. Overall, the study finds that, following the intervention,... Continue Reading →
Geographic Protest: The Role of Counter-Mapping in Supporting Campaigns Against Large-Scale Extractive Projects in Colombia: The Case of La Colosa
In a few short years, social movements in Cajamarca, Colombia, were able to convince a once divided community almost unanimously to reject the establishment of the world’s largest gold mine on their doorstep. This paper examines the role of contestatory cartography in achieving this remarkable result. It explores the range of mapping and counter-mapping tools used... Continue Reading →
Indigenous medicine and biomedical health care in fragile settings: insights from Burundi
This study contributes to the health policy debate on medical systems integration by describing and analysing the interactions between health-care users, indigenous healers, and the biomedical public health system, in the so far rarely documented case of post-conflict Burundi. We adopt a mixed-methods approach combining (1) data from an existing survey on access to health-care,... Continue Reading →
Neogeography, development and human rights in Latin America.
Latin America has a long history of exploitation and oppression of populations, moreover it has been suggested that the ‘postcolonial’ quest for rapid national `modernization’ has led to an increase in the extractive, neoliberal, policies of corporations and governments working across the region (Bryant, 1998: 85). Rarely, however, has this been taken lying down. Social... Continue Reading →
Regional trade institutions in West Africa: Historical reflections
This paper reflects on trade institutions across West Africa from the Empirehood to the present day. We found that regional trade institutions were more standardised across West Africa before the current countries gained their independence. We argue that reflection on past trade institutions could provide important guidance for policy makers currently involved in deepening the... Continue Reading →
Gold, power, protest: Digital and social media and protests against large-scale mining projects in Colombia
Colombia’s Internet connectivity has increased immensely. Colombia has also ‘opened for business’, leading to an influx of extractive projects to which social movements object heavily. Studies on the role of digital media in political mobilisation in developing countries are still scarce. Using surveys, interviews, and reviews of literature, policy papers, website and social media content,... Continue Reading →
What works to improve the quality of student learning in developing countries?
We conducted a systematic review to identify policy interventions that improve education quality and student learning in developing countries. Relying on a theory of change typology, we highlight three main drivers of change of education quality: (1) supply-side capability interventions that operate through the provision of physical and human resources, and learning materials; (2) policies... Continue Reading →