We detect multiple pathways to mitigate loneliness among European communities, employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis as the chosen methodology. We examined loneliness among 26 European societies by utilizing the 2014 wave of the European Social Survey and other pertinent data sources. Our study reveals that high internet access and substantial participation in social groups are essential elements in reducing the experience of loneliness. There are three sufficient means to diminish loneliness at a societal level. In societies with less loneliness, the pathways of welfare assistance and cultural engagement are frequently intertwined. CAU chronic autoimmune urticaria The third path, commercial provision, is antagonistic to welfare support due to its prerequisite for a less robust welfare system. A key strategy for creating communities where loneliness is less prevalent centers around enhanced digital connectivity, the growth of a vibrant civil society through active engagement and volunteer efforts, and a social safety net that protects vulnerable people while providing opportunities for social interaction. This article's methodological contribution lies in demonstrating configurational robustness testing, a more comprehensive way of applying the current best practices in fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis robustness testing.

The supply and demand analysis demonstrates the equilibrium point of voluntary cooperation, evident in the presence of externalities. The analysis, utilizing readily available tools, offers a novel perspective on the extensive literature, beginning with Buchanan, Coase, Ostrom, Shapley, Telser, Tullock, and Williamson, thereby showing that a Pigouvian tax is not the sole solution for independently acting individuals harmonized merely by skewed market prices. Costs stemming from externalities are reshaped by voluntary cooperation in ways that differ dramatically from the effects of Pigouvian taxes and subsidies. The paper delves into diverse applications: forest management, volume discounts, residential associations, energy policy, the purview of household activity planning, and the function of workplaces in combating infectious disease.

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police officers, numerous municipalities across the United States pledged to decrease police budgets. We begin by investigating the adherence of municipalities that promised to defund police departments to their commitments. Examination of municipalities' pledges to temporarily reduce police funding demonstrates a pattern where such pledges did not result in decreased police budgets, but rather, later increases that exceeded prior levels. The dominant political equilibrium, which resists reform by protecting police officers, is argued to be shaped by two mechanisms: the electoral incentives of city politicians to deliver jobs and services (allocational politics) and the considerable power of police unions. Public choice scholars, intrigued by predatory policing, propose several further reforms, which we discuss.

Novel externalities manifest in social activities where the spillover's cost or benefit, a nascent element, needs to be empirically determined. The global repercussions of COVID-19 have brought negative novel externalities back into sharp focus. These cases often underscore the limitations of liberal political economy in the face of public emergencies. A contemporary analysis of infectious disease challenges in modern states, in tandem with a re-reading of classical political economy, reveals the comparative effectiveness of liberal democracy in handling these social problems compared to authoritarianism. Trustworthy public information, updated as needed, is vital for effective responses to novel external pressures. This must be supported by a robust, independent scientific community to interpret and confirm such information. Regimes structured as liberal democracies, with their diverse political power sources, independent civil society, and academic freedom, are often characterized by those epistemic capacities. Beyond their established role in bolstering accountability and competition for local public goods, our analysis underscores the theoretical significance of polycentrism and self-governance in enabling effective national policy.

Despite persistent criticism, price hikes during emergencies are still commonly controlled in the United States. While the social impact of shortages is commonly condemned, we have uncovered another, previously undocumented, cost: an enhancement of social interaction brought about by price-gouging regulations during the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic. selleck chemical The pandemic prompted thirty-four U.S. states to activate pre-existing price-gouging regulations by declaring emergencies, whereas another eight states implemented novel regulations alongside their emergency declarations. The emergence of a unique natural experiment was attributable to these states bordering eight others that had also declared emergencies, but without price-gouging safeguards in place. Employing pandemic-related adjustments in regulations and cellphone mobility tracking data, our findings indicate that price controls augmented visits to and social engagement within commercial areas, presumably because regulation-induced shortages necessitated consumers to visit more stores and interact with more people to locate desired goods. This, predictably, sabotages the goals of social distancing plans.
The online version presents additional material, referenced by the link 101007/s11127-023-01054-z.
Supplementary material for the online edition is accessible through the link 101007/s11127-023-01054-z.

The language of 'rights,' encompassing their allocation and the societal entitlements they bestow, increasingly permeates contemporary political and policy discourse. The apparent constitutional design issues surrounding the enumeration of rights and their effect on the government-citizen partnership are not our focus; rather, we explore how the presentation of these rights influences how citizens interact with each other. We build and implement a novel experiment to assess whether social cooperation is swayed by how the right of subjects to undertake a specific action is enumerated and framed, positively or negatively. A positive framing of rights engenders an 'entitlement effect', which lowers social cooperation and discourages individual prosocial behavior.

Throughout the 19th century, federal Indian policy saw an erratic back-and-forth between the contrasting ideologies of assimilation and isolation. Though the impact of historical federal policies on the economic state of American Indian tribes has been studied extensively, no investigation has directly focused on the long-term influence of federal assimilation policies on their economic development. This paper leverages tribal-level differences in federal policy implementation to assess the long-term economic impacts of assimilation. Quantifying the influence of these policies requires a novel measure of cultural absorption, specifically the ratio of indigenous names to common American first names. To gauge the distribution of name types, I compiled the complete list of names and locations of American Indians enumerated in the 1900 United States census. Having classified every name, I then proceeded to calculate the reservation-specific portion of names not originating from indigenous cultures. I hypothesize a connection between cultural absorption in 1900 and average income, from 1970 up to and including 2020. In every census year, historical levels of assimilation demonstrate a consistent link with higher per capita income. Incorporating cultural, institutional, and regional fixed effects does not compromise the robustness of the observed results.

How much a person values lower mortality risk depends critically on how significant the decrease is and when it takes place. Using stated preference methods, we assessed responses relating to three time-sensitive risk reduction strategies, all resulting in the same life expectancy increase (reducing risk within the next decade, or subtracting or multiplying future risk values by a constant factor). The resulting willingness to pay (WTP) reflected the varying timings and life expectancy gains of these approaches. Respondents' choices regarding alternative time paths varied significantly, yet approximately 90% exhibited consistent transitive orderings. Forensic pathology There is a statistically significant association between WTP, gains in life expectancy (7 to 28 days), and respondents' preferred time paths. Differing time periods result in varying estimates for the value per statistical life year (VSLY), generally averaging approximately $500,000, a figure similar to conventional estimates obtained through dividing the estimated value per statistical life by the discounted average life expectancy.

Women infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) can experience cervical cancer, and vaccination against this virus is one of the most effective means of preventing this cancer. Currently, two HPV L1 protein virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines are commercially available for purchase. Regrettably, the cost of HPV vaccines is so high that they are not within the financial reach of women living in developing nations. Thus, the production of a budget-friendly vaccine is greatly sought after. We examine the production of self-assembling HPV16 VLPs within a plant environment in this study. Employing the N-terminal 79 amino acid residues of RbcS as a long-transit peptide for chloroplast targeting, we produced a chimeric protein, which also contained a SUMO domain and the HPV16 L1 protein. The chimeric gene's expression in plants relied on the chloroplast-directed bdSENP1 protein, which specifically identifies and cleaves the SUMO domain. The concomitant expression of bdSENP1 facilitated the detachment of HPV16 L1 from the chimeric proteins, devoid of any additional amino acid residues.