Katsuhiro Sakurai (p)

Amit Batabyal

This study develops a simulation model for evaluating water environment policies in Finland. First, we construct a model of the structure of economic activities and water pollutant discharges in Finland. Here, economic activity means production in certain industrial sectors and consumption in households in Finland, which are the sources of water pollutant discharges. The target area of this study is Finland, which has a land area of about 338,000 km2, more than 70% of which is covered by forests and semi-natural forests. Including wetlands and water bodies, about 90% of the country is a natural environment. The capital city, Helsinki, is located at the southernmost point and faces the Gulf of Finland, with a population of 658,457 (2021). Economic activities in the capital and other cities emit several types of water pollutants, including total nitrogen (T-N) and total phosphorus (T-P). In addition, parts of Finland border the Baltic Sea, and water pollutants from terrestrial activities enter the sea through rivers. The Baltic Sea and other surrounding waters of Finland are still assessed as eutrophic waters. In order to improve the water quality of Finland's inland waters and surrounding sea areas, it is also necessary to clarify the discharge structure of water pollutants from socioeconomic activities and the natural environment, and to conduct analysis for evaluating water environment policies using model simulations.

Carolina Foglia (p)

Katsuhiro Sakurai

Loneliness is a personal experience, distinct from the objective circumstances of being alone or lacking social connections. It can have negative impacts on health, including increased risks of anxiety, depression, obesity, and a weakened immune system (Cacioppo et al., 2015). Although older adults are more prone to experiencing it, due to life transitions like retirement, studies have indicated that the young population is also affected. The Covid-19 pandemic may have heightened the rates of loneliness among young people, as the JRC indicates that the number of 18–25-year-olds feeling lonely more than doubled between 2016 and 2020 (Baarck et al., 2021; Berlingieri et al., 2023). However, the JRC's analysis reveals that out of 328 projects aimed at addressing loneliness, only 8.4% are designed for young people, while 53% target older individuals. Thus, it is crucial to prioritize interventions to prevent consequences on their health, well-being, education, and productivity outcomes.
About the socioecological perspective on loneliness, as not only limited to individual characteristics but also regional ones, there is a considerable interest in loneliness and urbanization, due to the increase of people living alone (MacDonald et al., 2020). Research suggests that the risk of depression is 20% higher for citizens than those who live outside the city (Sundquist et al., 2004). However, urban centres are more likely to provide entertaining activities, positively affecting mental well-being.
The aim of this study is to gather the perception of citizens on loneliness and his moderators or predictors, having assessed that, among the respondents to the Survey on Quality of Life in European Cities, 2024 edition, 38% those in the age class 15-34 reported feeling lonely all the time within the previous 4 weeks. Established individual predictors of loneliness, like gender, education, and household composition test as significant empirically and age is negatively associated with feeling lonely. Results show that higher levels of deprivation are linked to increased feelings of loneliness. Indeed, Eurostat (2022) data claim that people under the age of 18 are more affected by severe material and social deprivation. Moreover, the empirical analysis confirmes that features of the built environment, like green and public spaces, together with the quality of the neighbourhood are negatively associated with loneliness. It may be likely that the greater tendency towards youth loneliness is because policies and interventions are lacking, thus government are asked to engage in reducing this phenomenon, envisaging the factors to be levered.

Amit Batabyal (p), Hamid Beladi

Carolina Foglia

We think of the cleanup of water pollution in the Ganges river in India as a local public good and ask whether this cleanup ought to be decentralized or centralized. We depart from the existing literature on this subject in two important ways. First, we allow the heterogeneous spillovers from cleaning up water pollution to be positive or negative. Second, we focus on water pollution cleanup in three cities---Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi---through which the Ganges flows. Our model sheds light on two broad issues. First, we characterize efficient water pollution cleanup in the three cities, we describe how much water pollution is cleaned up under decentralization, we describe the set of cleanup amounts under decentralization, and we discuss why pollution cleanup under decentralization is unlikely to be efficient. Second, we focus on centralization. We derive the tax paid by the inhabitants of the three cities for pollution cleanup, the benefit to a city inhabitant from water pollution cleanup, how majority voting determines how much pollution is cleaned up when the spillovers from cleanup are uniform, and finally, we compare the amounts of pollution cleaned up with majority voting with the efficient pollution cleanup amounts.