Stringent sustainability regulations for global supply chains are supported across middle-income democracies

Expanded international trade and globalised production networks are increasing the environmental and social impacts in middle-income countries (GNI per capita $1,136-$13,845). High-income countries (>$13,845) are seeking to mitigate the negative impacts of domestic consumption by imposing new sustainability regulations on global supply chains. Recent evidence suggests that these regulations are broadly supported across high-income countries. However, it remains unclear whether citizens of middle-income countries support aligning domestic sustainability regulations with the measures developed by high-income countries. Concerns about economic competitiveness and foreign imposition could increase public resistance toward such alignment. Alternatively, desires for continued market access in high-income countries and aspirations for strengthening local environmental and labour regulations could foster support for alignment. Based on survey-embedded experiments in the three largest democratic non-OECD economies (Brazil, India, Indonesia), we find surprisingly strong support for domestic-based measures that are aligned with emerging global supply chain sustainability regulations. Our findings suggest that support is largely driven by positive impact expectations, where the future benefits of alignment are perceived as outweighing concerns about increased costs. These results bode well for initiatives to install stricter sustainability regulations for global supply chains that are acceptable not only in high-income economies but also in non-OECD countries.

Effects of improved on-farm crop storage on perceived stress and perceived coping in pregnant women-Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Kenya

BACKGROUND

Food insecurity can be harmful to pregnant women, as pregnancy is a challenging period with increased maternal nutritional requirements to ensure optimal fetal development and health of the mother. Whether food insecurity negatively affects maternal health may depend on how stressful pregnant women perceive this food insecurity to be and how strongly they believe they can cope with it. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), pregnant women from smallholder households suffer from food insecurity due to post-harvest losses (PHL), i.e., loss of crops because of inadequate storage. An agricultural intervention that improves crop storage has been shown to reduce food insecurity. However, it remains to be determined whether this agricultural intervention (treatment) has an additional positive effect on pregnant women's perceived stress levels and coping abilities. This study examines whether pregnant women from treatment households experience lower perceived stress levels and higher perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control housholds.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), short message service (SMS)-based mobile phone surveys were conducted to assess the causal effect of a food security intervention (improved on-farm storage of maize) on perceived stress and coping in pregnant women from smallholder households. Pregnant women were identified through these monthly surveys by asking whether someone in their household was currently pregnant. The significant results revealed that pregnant women from treatment households experienced more perceived stress but better perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control households. Uncertainty due to lack of experience, this might have contributed to the higher perceived stress, as the women could not easily judge the benefits and risks of the new storage technology. However, the technology itself is a tangible resource which might have empowered the pregnant women to counteract the effects of PHL and thus food insecurity.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that pregnant women from treatment households had higher perceived coping abilities but experienced more perceived stress. More research is needed on how this technology impacts maternal mental health in a broader sense and whether biological mechanisms, such as epigenetics, may underlie this association.

Are actual and perceived environmental conditions associated with variation in mental health?

OBJECTIVE

Empirical evidence on the relationship between environmental factors and mental health remains inconclusive. One reason is that there is only scant evidence on the association between mental health and subjective exposure to environmental stressors, relative to objective pollution. We thus focus on how the perceived and actual presence of noise, air pollution, and green spaces relates to mental health.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Our cross-sectional study is based on a large representative sample of the adult population in Switzerland (n = 5729). Using individual-level geocodes of subjects' residence, we combined data from a survey of these individuals with data on objectively measured longer-term environmental conditions (noise, air pollution, green spaces). Subclinical mental health was assessed with the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). When fitting multiple regressions and mediation models, we find that perceptions of environmental stressors are a better predictor of mental distress than objectively measured stressors. In addition, the predictive power of actual nature visits is stronger than the predictive power of mere proximity to green spaces at the place of residence. We found no direct link between actual environmental stressors and mental health, but mediation via perceived environmental stressors. Further, the association between the frequency of nature visits and mental health is mediated by perceived, but not actual pollution.

CONCLUSION

Since actual environmental stressors are not perceived as equally burdensome by all people, their subjective perception is crucial when evaluating policy interventions aimed at improving mental health. Even a relatively low level of environmental stressors, classified as non-harmful to human health in a physical or biological sense, may thus contribute to negative mental health outcomes. The main policy implication is that attractive and accessible green spaces may provide individuals with an enhanced sense of control over their exposure to environmental stressors and thereby reduce negative impacts.

Trade policy announcements can increase price volatility in global food commodity markets

Many countries use trade policy to insulate their domestic markets from price volatility. However, there is a widespread concern that such policies-particularly export restrictions-may amplify global price volatility, adversely affecting other countries. Here, using an original dataset on trade policy announcements on wheat and maize encompassing the food price crises of 2007-2008 and 2010-2011, we show that the announcement of trade policy changes can increase global price volatility. This effect applies not only to export restrictions but also to import liberalization measures and is most pronounced when markets are tight (stocks are low). Policymakers should work towards increasing stock levels to mitigate price volatility effects of trade policy changes. When markets are tight, export restrictions and import liberalizations should be avoided.

Policy framing, design and feedback can increase public support for costly food waste regulation

Stricter regulation of food waste reduction is widely presumed to increase food prices, which could render its implementation politically unfeasible. Here we empirically tested whether specific policy framing, design and feedback could help ensure public support despite potential food price increases. We used survey experiments with 3,329 citizens from a high-income country, Switzerland. A combined framing and conjoint experiment shows that messages emphasizing national or international social norms in favour of reducing food waste (policy framing) can increase public support for more ambitious reduction targets. Also, most citizens support food waste regulation even if this leads to substantial increases in food prices, but only if such policies set stringent reduction targets and are transparently monitored (policy design). Finally, a vignette experiment reveals that voluntary industry initiatives do not crowd out individuals' support for stricter governmental regulation, but potentially crowd in support if industry initiatives are unambitious (policy feedback).

Current surveys may underestimate climate change skepticism evidence from list experiments in Germany and the USA

Strong public support is a prerequisite for ambitious and thus costly climate change mitigation policy, and strong public concern over climate change is a prerequisite for policy support. Why, then, do most public opinion surveys indicate rather high levels of concern and rather strong policy support, while de facto mitigation efforts in most countries remain far from ambitious? One possibility is that survey measures for public concern fail to fully reveal the true attitudes of citizens due to social desirability bias. In this paper, we implemented list-experiments in representative surveys in Germany and the United States (N = 3620 and 3640 respectively) to assess such potential bias. We find evidence that people systematically misreport, that is, understate their disbelief in human caused climate change. This misreporting is particularly strong amongst politically relevant subgroups. Individuals in the top 20% of the income distribution in the United States and supporters of conservative parties in Germany exhibit significantly higher climate change skepticism according to the list experiment, relative to conventional measures. While this does not definitively mean that climate skepticism is a widespread phenomenon in these countries, it does suggest that future research should reconsider how climate change concern is measured, and what subgroups of the population are more susceptible to misreporting and why. Our findings imply that public support for ambitious climate policy may be weaker than existing survey research suggests.

Improved storage mitigates vulnerability to food-supply shocks in smallholder agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic

Millions of smallholder farmers in low-income countries are highly vulnerable to food-supply shocks, and reducing this vulnerability remains challenging in view of climatic changes. Restrictions to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic produced a severe supply-side shock in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, including through frictions in agricultural markets. We use a large-scale field experiment to examine the effects of improved on-farm storage on household food security during COVID-19 restrictions. Based on text message survey data we find that the prevalence of food insecurity increased in control group households during COVID-19 restrictions (coinciding with the agricultural lean season). In treatment households, equipped with an improved on-farm storage technology and training in its use, food insecurity was lower during COVID-19 restrictions. This underscores the benefits of improved on-farm storage for mitigating vulnerability to food-supply shocks. These insights are relevant for the larger, long-term question of climate change adaptation, and also regarding trade-offs between public health protection and food security.

Could revenue recycling make effective carbon taxation politically feasible?

Carbon taxes are widely regarded as a potentially effective and economically efficient policy instrument for decarbonizing the global energy supply and thus limiting global warming. The main obstacle is political feasibility because of opposition from citizens and industry. Earmarking revenues from carbon taxation for spending that benefits citizens (i.e., revenue recycling) might help policy makers escape this political impasse. On the basis of choice experiments with representative samples of citizens in Germany and the United States, we examine whether revenue recycling could mitigate two key obstacles to achieving sufficient public support for carbon taxes: (i) declines in support as taxation levels increase and (ii) concerns over the international economic level playing field. For both countries, we find that revenue recycling could help achieve majority support for carbon tax levels of up to $50 to $70 per metric ton of carbon, but only if industrialized countries join forces and adopt similar carbon taxes.

Stress influences environmental donation behavior in men

Stress has been found to have both positive and negative effects on prosocial behavior, suggesting the involvement of moderating factors such as context and underlying motives. In the present study, we investigated the conditions under which acute stress leads to an increase vs. decrease in environmental donation behavior as an indicator of prosocial behavior. In particular, we examined whether the effects of stress depended on preexisting pro-environmental orientation and stage of the donation decision (whether or not to donate vs. the amount to be donated). Male participants with either high (N=40) or low (N=39) pro-environmental orientation were randomly assigned to a social stress test or a control condition. Salivary cortisol was assessed repeatedly before and after stress induction. At the end of the experiment, all subjects were presented with an opportunity to donate a portion of their monetary compensation to a climate protection foundation. We found that stress significantly increased donation frequency, but only in subjects with low pro-environmental orientation. Congruously, their decision to donate was positively associated with cortisol response to the stress test and the emotion regulation strategy mood repair, as well as accompanied by an increase in subjective calmness. In contrast, among the participants who decided to donate, stress significantly reduced the donated amount of money, regardless of pro-environmental orientation. In conclusion, our findings suggest that acute stress might generally activate more self-serving motivations, such as making oneself feel better and securing one's own material interests. Importantly, however, a strong pro-environmental orientation partially prevented these effects.

Salivary testosterone and cortisol are jointly related to pro-environmental behavior in men

Recently, cortisol has been suggested to moderate the positive relationship between testosterone and antisocial behavior. More precisely, high testosterone levels have been found to be related to aggressive or dominant behavior especially when cortisol levels were low. In the present study, we aimed to extend these findings to pro-environmental behavior as an indicator of prosocial behavior. In a first step, 147 male participants provided information on their everyday pro-environmental behavior by completing an online questionnaire on various energy-saving behaviors. In a second step, subjects provided two saliva samples for the assessment of testosterone and cortisol on two subsequent mornings after awakening. We found that testosterone was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior, but only in men with low cortisol. In conclusion, our findings provide first evidence for the joint association of testosterone and cortisol with everyday pro-environmental behavior. These results further reinforce the importance of considering interdependent hormone systems simultaneously rather than focusing on a single hormone.

Are economically "kinder, gentler societies" also greener?

Several studies examining implications of the modern welfare state arrive at rather positive conclusions: generally, they find that economically "kinder, gentler societies", that is, countries providing stronger state-sponsored social-safety nets for their people, perform better on various accounts, such as social and political stability, or economic performance. Recent research suggests that benign implications also exist for the environment in the sense that investing more in social policies may contribute to stronger environmental protection and higher environmental quality. We present theoretical arguments in favor, but also against this hypothesis, and evaluate it empirically with cross-sectional data for 68 countries. In contrast to previous studies, the results offer only weak and inconsistent support for the claim that social policies and environmental performance are systematically related. This means that governments of economically kinder, gentler societies would be ill advised to hope for positive "spillover effects" of social policies into the environmental realm. The findings also suggest, however, that more disaggregated analyses are necessary, since beneficial effects may exist in some environmental domains, but not in others.

Government regulation and public opposition create high additional costs for field trials with GM crops in Switzerland

Field trials with GM crops are not only plant science experiments. They are also social experiments concerning the implications of government imposed regulatory constraints and public opposition for scientific activity. We assess these implications by estimating additional costs due to government regulation and public opposition in a recent set of field trials in Switzerland. We find that for every Euro spent on research, an additional 78 cents were spent on security, an additional 31 cents on biosafety, and an additional 17 cents on government regulatory supervision. Hence the total additional spending due to government regulation and public opposition was around 1.26 Euros for every Euro spent on the research per se. These estimates are conservative; they do not include additional costs that are hard to monetize (e.g. stakeholder information and dialogue activities, involvement of various government agencies). We conclude that further field experiments with GM crops in Switzerland are unlikely unless protected sites are set up to reduce these additional costs.