Happiness and environmental quality

Subjective wellbeing — happiness — is of increasing interest to economists, including environmental economists. There are several reasons for thinking that environmental quality (EQ), defined as high levels of environmental goods and low levels of environmental ‘bads’, will be positively related to happiness. Quantitative evidence on this remains limited, however. Some papers use cross-sectional data aggregated at country level, but it is open to doubt whether these aggregated measures reflect individuals’ real EQ exposures. Other papers use individual-level data, but in general have spatial data at very coarse resolution, and consider a limited range of EQ variables, exclusively around individuals’ homes. This thesis reports two related strands of work. The first designs, implements and analyses data from two new cross-sectional surveys. It builds on earlier work by using spatial data at very high resolution, and advanced Geographical Information Systems (GIS) techniques; by simultaneously considering multiple EQ characteristics, around both homes and workplaces; and by investigating the sensitivity of results to the choice of happiness indicator. The second strand develops and implements a new methodology focused on individuals’ momentary experiences of the environment. It extends a protocol known by psychologists as the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to incorporate satellite (GPS) location data. Using an app for participants’ own smartphones, called Mappiness, it collects a panel data set comprising millions of geo-located responses from thousands of volunteers. EQ indicators are again joined to this data set using GIS. Results of the first strand of work are mixed, but support some links between happiness and the accessibility of natural environments, providing quantitative (including monetary) estimates of their strength. The second strand demonstrates that individuals are significantly and substantially happier outdoors in natural environments than continuous urban ones. It introduces a valuable new line of evidence on this question, which has great potential for future development

Alcune considerazioni sulle Implicazioni Comportamentali della Finanza d’impatto

Impact Finance is a relatively new field in which investors seek both a financial return and a social or environmental impact. Such impact has to be effective, measurable and positively correlated with the financial return, so that they can be distinguished from mere philanthropy. This imposes to consider the need for new valuation models and real investor behavior. Behavioral finance insights can be extremely helpful in drawing an helpful framework, both for practitioners and scholars

Bowdoin Orient v.132, no.1-24 (2000-2001)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1001/thumbnail.jp

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

AIUCD 2021 - Book of Extended Abstracts

Il decimo convegno annuale dell'Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale ha nell’edizione 2021 un titolo peculiare e importante: "DH per la società: e-guaglianza, partecipazione, diritti e valori nell’era digitale". Questo volume raccoglie gli abstract estesi e sottoposti a review per la conferenza di AIUCD2021 tenutasi in forma virtuale a Pisa