Rosca Participation in Benin: a Commitment Issue

In the light of first-hand data from a Beninese urban household survey in Cotonou, we investigate several motives aiming to explain participation in Rotating Savings and Credit ASsociations. We provide anecdotal pieces of evidence, descriptive statistics, FIML regressions and matching estimates which tend to indicate that most individuals use their participation in a rosca as a device to commit themselves to save money and to deal with self-control problems.ROSCA, self-control, commitment device, Benin

Une stratégie de conservation axée sur la connectivité pour les Laurentides au Québec

La crise actuelle de perte de biodiversité est sans précédent. Sans des actions concertées et avant-gardistes, les conséquences pourraient s’avérer catastrophiques pour toutes les espèces vivantes sur terre incluant l’être humain. La biodiversité est d’une importance capitale pour la fonctionnalité des écosystèmes et pour les biens et les services que ces derniers peuvent rendre. L’une des principales causes de l’érosion de la biodiversité est la fragmentation du territoire. Afin de bonifier la connectivité sur un territoire, la création de réseaux écologiques composés de noyaux de conservation, de zones tampons et de corridors fauniques s’avère une avenue intéressante et fort prometteuse. Plusieurs exemples de stratégies de conservation axées sur la connectivité existent au Québec, aux États-Unis et à travers le monde. Les engagements québécois en matière d’aires protégées, sans être idéaux, offrent plusieurs possibilités d’enrichir la protection et la conservation de notre environnement. Le territoire des Laurentides au Québec revêt plusieurs caractéristiques qui en font un endroit privilégié pour le développement, entre autres, résidentiel et industriel ainsi que les activités récréotouristiques et forestières, etc. Cette situation induit une pression sur le territoire en le morcelant. L’organisme à but non lucratif Éco-corridors laurentiens a pour mission la protection des milieux naturels dans les Laurentides. Il travaille à l’ébauche d’une stratégie de conservation axée sur la connectivité. L’objectif premier de cet essai est de proposer un scénario qui répondra aux priorités qu’Éco-corridor laurentiens s’est fixé. La stratégie de conservation présentée est un corridor faunique à pas japonais dans l’axe nord-sud reliant le parc national d’Oka au parc national du Mont-Tremblant. Afin de réaliser ce chantier ambitieux, certains outils informatiques en conservation écologique peuvent être utilisés et grandement faciliter le choix des emplacements à prioriser. Différents statuts de conservation et d’options d’acquisitions de propriétés doivent impérativement être considérés. La réhabilitation de certains milieux et le franchissement d’infrastructures routières sont aussi à analyser. Finalement, il est recommandé que toutes les parties prenantes, lors de la création d’une stratégie de conservation, que ce soit l’organisme Éco-corridor laurentiens, le gouvernement du Québec, les municipalités, ou encore les citoyens, déploient des efforts considérables et orientent leurs actions dans la même direction. Ainsi, ce projet d’avant-garde pourrait en devenir un de société pour le Québec, profitable autant à la population d’aujourd’hui qu’à celle de demain

The Impact of Insurance Literacy and Marketing Treatments on the Demand for Health Microinsurance in Senegal: A Randomised Evaluation

Mutual health organisations have been present in Senegal for years. Despite their benefits, in most areas take-up rates remain low. Using randomised controlled trials, we evaluate the effect of an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits and functioning of health microinsurance, as well as three cross-cutting marketing treatments. The results from our various marketing treatments indicate a positive and significant effect on health insurance adoption, particularly for poor households, increasing take-up by around 35-40%. The insurance literacy module does not seem to have a positive impact on take-up decisions. We attempt to provide different contextual reasons for this result

CMIP6 simulations with the compact Earth system model OSCAR v3.1

Reduced-complexity models, also called simple climate models or compact models, provide an alternative to Earth system models (ESMs) with lower computational costs, although at the expense of spatial and temporal information. It remains important to evaluate and validate these reduced-complexity models. Here, we evaluate a recent version (v3.1) of the OSCAR model using observations and results from ESMs from the current Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6). The results follow the same post-processing used for the contribution of OSCAR to the Reduced Complexity Model Intercomparison Project (RCMIP) Phase 2 regarding the identification of stable configurations and the use of observational constraints. These constraints succeed in decreasing the overestimation of global surface air temperature over 2000–2019 with reference to 1961–1900 from 0.60±0.11 to 0.55±0.04 K (the constraint being 0.54±0.05 K). The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of the unconstrained OSCAR is 3.17±0.63 K, while CMIP5 and CMIP6 models have ECSs of 3.2±0.7 and 3.7±1.1 K, respectively. Applying observational constraints to OSCAR reduces the ECS to 2.78±0.47 K. Overall, the model qualitatively reproduces the responses of complex ESMs, although some differences remain due to the impact of observational constraints on the weighting of parametrizations. Specific features of OSCAR also contribute to these differences, such as its fully interactive atmospheric chemistry and endogenous calculations of biomass burning, wetlands CH4 and permafrost CH4 and CO2 emissions. Identified main points of needed improvements of the OSCAR model include a low sensitivity of the land carbon cycle to climate change, an instability of the ocean carbon cycle, the climate module that is seemingly too simple, and the climate feedback involving short-lived species that is too strong. Beyond providing a key diagnosis of the OSCAR model in the context of the reduced-complexity models, this work is also meant to help with the upcoming calibration of OSCAR on CMIP6 results and to provide a large group of CMIP6 simulations run consistently within a probabilistic framework

Rosca participation in Benin : a commitment issue

In the light of first-hand data from a Beninese urban household survey in Cotonou, we investigate several motives aiming to explain participation in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations. We provide anecdotal pieces of evidence, descriptive statistics, FIML regressions and matching estimates which tend to indicate that most individuals use their participation in a rosca as a device to commit themselves to save money and to deal with self-control problems

Near-real-time monitoring of global CO₂ emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting human activities, and in turn energy use and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Here we present daily estimates of country-level CO2 emissions for different sectors based on near-real-time activity data. The key result is an abrupt 8.8% decrease in global CO₂ emissions (−1551 Mt CO₂) in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The magnitude of this decrease is larger than during previous economic downturns or World War II. The timing of emissions decreases corresponds to lockdown measures in each country. By July 1st, the pandemic’s effects on global emissions diminished as lockdown restrictions relaxed and some economic activities restarted, especially in China and several European countries, but substantial differences persist between countries, with continuing emission declines in the U.S. where coronavirus cases are still increasing substantially

Near-real-time monitoring of global CO2 emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting human activities, and in turn energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Here we present daily estimates of country-level CO2 emissions for different sectors based on near-real-time activity data. The key result is an abrupt 8.8% decrease in global CO2 emissions (−1551 Mt CO2) in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The magnitude of this decrease is larger than during previous economic downturns or World War II. The timing of emissions decreases corresponds to lockdown measures in each country. By July 1st, the pandemic’s effects on global emissions diminished as lockdown restrictions relaxed and some economic activities restarted, especially in China and several European countries, but substantial differences persist between countries, with continuing emission declines in the U.S. where coronavirus cases are still increasing substantially