The global diffusion of environmental clubs: how pressure from importing countries supports the chemical industry's Responsible Care® program

Environmental clubs have proliferated across sectors and issue areas. We examine the diffusion of the chemical industry's Responsible Care® (RC) program. Much of the work on the diffusion of clubs has focused on the demand side: why firms join these clubs despite the costs of doing so. There is some work focusing on the supply side: why actors establish or create a new club. However, there is virtually no work examining why national-level industry associations decide to subscribe to an existing global environmental club in order to make it available to their members. Industry organizations in 17 lower and middle-income countries have joined RC, comprising 25 percent of RC members. We ask, in the context of developing countries, what motivates national associations to join RC? Drawing on an original dataset of RC global diffusion in 195 countries (1985–2017), we estimate a Cox proportional hazards model of the risk of joining RC. We find that RC adoption is more likely when a country exports chemicals to other countries that have joined RC (the California effect) and is unaffected by the total volume of its chemical trade. Thus, while exposure to global markets per se may not influence RC adoption, incentives change considerably when countries’ key importers signal their support for these environmental practices. This is because importing firms often realize that because they have joined Responsible Care, NGOs and stakeholders expect them to demand that their overseas suppliers adopt the same sort of environmental policies and work place safety practices. In addition, peer pressure and learning matter: RC adoption is more likely when countries in close physical vicinity (e.g., within 500 miles) have joined the club. Finally, domestic factors play a role as well: both the level of democracy and the size of the economy encourage national associations to join RC

Do exemptions undermine environmental policy support? An experimental stress test on the odd-even road space rationing policy in India

Policies sometimes exempt particular categories of regulatees for reasons of equity and political feasibility. Will the non‐exempt oppose the policy because they shoulder all of the policy costs? We outline an analytic framework for “stress testing” public support among the non‐exempt when they are provided negative information about exemptions and reduced policy effectiveness. Empirically, we study public support for the odd‐even road space rationing policy in India. Using a survey experiment with 2,182 car owners in Bangalore, we find considerable baseline support for this policy. While support among the non‐exempt erodes when they are told about exemptions, there is no additional erosion when they are told that exemptions reduce policy effectiveness. This suggests that the perception of fairness, not policy efficacy, drives the erosion of support among the non‐exempt. Yet the policy survives the stress test because the majority of respondents continue to support it, in spite of support erosion among the non‐exempt (© Wiley 2020).ISSN:1748-5983ISSN:1748-599

Does partisanship shape public support for suspending U.S. federal gas tax? A survey experiment

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the national average gasoline price in the U.S. rose sharply. In response, President Biden wanted Congress to temporarily suspend the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax. However, critics pointed out that gas tax suspension could: (1) undermine U.S. climate policy goals by encouraging the use of gasoline cars, (2) threaten U.S. national security by providing additional oil revenue to the Russian government for expanding its military capabilities, and (3) undermine the economy by defunding federal highway infrastructure. To systematically test how these critiques influenced public support for gas tax suspension, we administered an online survey experiment in May 2022 to a representative sample of U.S. respondents (N = 1, 705). We found that in spite of high inflation during the months when the survey was conducted, in the aggregate, national security and the economy frames reduced public support for the gas tax suspension while the climate frame had no such effect. Yet, at the disaggregated level we find important partisan differences. When we interact treatment frames with respondents’ party identification, the national security and the economy frames reduced public support for the gas tax suspension among Republicans only, while the climate frame reduced public support among Democrats only

Distributional concerns and public opinion:EV subsidies in the U.S. and Japan

This paper explores whether perceptions about distributive inequity shape public support for energy transition policies. The introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) is an important policy priority for the decarbonization of road transportation. Because high sticker prices restrict EV sales, governments offer consumers EV subsidies. However, some are concerned that subsidies may favor certain groups and industries. Using a conjoint experiment, we examine the public preference for EV subsidies in the U.S. and Japan.,. In the U.S., there is a concern that EV subsidies help the high-income (i.e., individual-focused concerns), while the prevailing concern in Japan is whether they favor foreign companies which are the first movers in the EV industry (i.e., industry-focused concerns). We embed a vignette experiment within the conjoint experiment to prime the respondents with individual- and industry-focused distributional concerns. In both countries, regardless of the priming they received, our respondents favor universalistic subsidies that are inclusive of the high-income and luxury/foreign cars to subsidies that are more progressively targeted (i.e., exclusive of the rich and luxury cars) or favoring domestic firms. As such, recent EV policy discourse centering on distributional politics does not appear to reflect public opinion

Command and control or market-based instruments? Public support for policies to address vehicular pollution in Beijing and New Delhi

Environmental protection efforts commonly make use of two types of government interventions: command and control policies (C&C) and market-based instruments (MBIs). While MBIs are favored for their economic efficiency, visible prices on pollution may generate political backlash. We examine whether citizens are more likely to support policies that tend to obfuscate policy costs (C&C), as opposed to MBIs, which impose visible costs. Using conjoint experiments in Beijing and New Delhi, we examine support for ‘policy bundles’, including both C&C policies and MBIs, aimed at limiting air pollution from vehicles. In both cities, increasing fuel taxes (a MBI) reduces policy support. However, pledging revenue usage from fuel taxes to subsidize electric cars or public transport eliminates this negative effect. Furthermore, individuals with a lower evaluation of their government respond more negatively to MBIs. MBIs may be economically efficient, but are politically difficult unless policy-makers can offset visible costs through additional measures

A modified lognormal approximation of the Lyman-α\alpha forest: comparison with full hydrodynamic simulations at 2≤z≤2.72\leq z\leq 2.7

Observations of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in distant quasar spectra with upcoming surveys are expected to provide significantly larger and higher-quality datasets. To interpret these datasets, it is imperative to develop efficient simulations. One such approach is based on the assumption that baryonic densities in the intergalactic medium (IGM) follow a lognormal distribution. We extend our earlier work to assess the robustness of the lognormal model of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in recovering the parameters characterizing IGM state, namely, the mean-density IGM temperature ($T_0$), the slope of the temperature-density relation ($\gamma$), and the hydrogen photoionization rate ($\Gamma_{12}$), by comparing with high-resolution Sherwood SPH simulations across the redshift range $2 \leq z \leq 2.7$. These parameters are estimated through a Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique, using the mean and power spectrum of the transmitted flux. We find that the usual lognormal distribution of IGM densities cannot recover the parameters of the SPH simulations. This limitation arises from the fact that the SPH baryonic density distribution cannot be described by a simple lognormal form. To address this, we extend the model by scaling the linear density contrast by a parameter $\nu$. While the resulting baryonic density is still lognormal, the additional parameter gives us extra freedom in setting the variance of density fluctuations. With this extension, values of $T_0$ and $\gamma$ implied in the SPH simulations are recovered at $\sim 1-\sigma$ ($\lesssim$ 10%) of the median (best-fit) values for most redshifts bins. However, this extended lognormal model cannot recover $\Gamma_{12}$ reliably, with the best-fit value discrepant by $\gtrsim 3-\sigma$ for $z > 2.2$. Despite this limitation in the recovery of $\Gamma_{12}$, we argue that the model remains useful for constraining cosmological parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Endodontic management of dental pain in an inhibitor positive, severe Hemophilia A patient: A brief review and report of a case

Dental health care providers often have to deal with patients requiring special care during treatment planning, and certain precautions while carrying out the procedures, and patients with bleeding disorders are one of them. Hemophilia, an X-linked blood dyscrasia, is the most common bleeding disorder. While hemophilia-A is a deficiency of factor VIII, hemophilia-B (Christmas disease) is a deficiency of factor IX. The present paper presents a case discussing endodontic management of mandibular molars with irreversible pulpits in an inhibitor positive severe hemophilia-A patient. As such patients may require administration of inferior alveolar nerve blocks, so adequate factor levels should be ensured before initiation of local anesthetics. Furthermore, the authors have tried to highlight the barriers to oral health care suffered by such patients and the larger role played by the physicians and oral health care providers in the prevention, early detection, and timely intervention in these cases

Management of complicated crown fracture by reattachment with super bond: A case series

Coronal fracture of teeth is a prevalent form of dental trauma. Mainly it affects anterior teeth due to accidental injury, but sometimes posterior teeth may also get affected. The immediate restoration of the original fractured segment not only offers an alternative treatment in the emergency but also restores patien