Social housing and digital exclusion

This report by the National Housing Federation Futures Project analyses the concept of digital exclusion, its effects, the role of housing associations in tackling its consequences and possible interventions that may arise

Negative brand beliefs and brand usage

This research focuses on consumer brand usage segments and the responses they give to negative attributes in brand image studies. Analysis was conducted across three markets and four approaches for measuring brand beliefs with respondents who were current users, past users or had never tried a brand. The major finding of this study was that past users of a brand consistently have the highest tendency to elicit negative beliefs about brands. Further, those who have never used a brand typically have a lower propensity than current brand users to elicit negative brand beliefs. These results suggest that negative beliefs about a brand are developed as a result of purchase behaviour, rather than as mechanisms to reject a brand prior to purchase. These findings have implications for the role of negative beliefs in consideration of set formation and the trial of a new brand. They also provide insight into the patterns that may be expected when measuring and interpreting negative brand beliefs across different usage groups

Devolved governance systems

This article assesses the extent, nature and outcomes of the recently devolved health service governance in the four countries which comprise the United Kingdom. This four-part configuration can be seen as a natural experiment in comparative governance which could therefore carry important lessons not only for the UK but in other countries too. While remaining under the aegis of the National Health Service, each constituent devolved administration has a developed a substantially different governance system. These systems reflect fundamental issues and priorities concerning the decentring of authority, the production and deployment of authority, the suite of incentives required and the preferred role of quasi-market mechanisms. The paper makes an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each governance regime

Will Border Carbon Adjustments Work?

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).The potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) restrictions in some nations to drive emission increases in other nations, or leakage, is a contentious issue in climate change negotiations. We evaluate the potential for border carbon adjustments (BCAs) to address leakage concerns using an economy-wide model. For 2025, we find that BCAs reduce leakage by up to two-thirds, but result in only modest reductions in global emissions and significantly reduce welfare. In contrast, BCA-equivalent leakage reductions can be achieved by very small emission charges or efficiency improvements in nations targeted by BCAs, which have negligible welfare effects. We conclude that BCAs are a costly method to reduce leakage but such policies may be effective coercion strategies. We also investigate the impact of BCAs on sectoral output and evaluate the leakage contributions of trade and changes in the price of crude oil.This study received support from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is funded by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors