Providing electricity to the unconnected 1.1 billion people in developing countries is one of the top political priorities of the international community, yet the costs of reaching this objective are very high. The present paper examines whether the objective and the associated costs are...

More than 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity. The UN have proclaimed the goal of providing electricity to all by 2030. In recent years, Pico-Photovoltaic kits have become a lower cost alternative to investment intensive grid electrification. Using a randomized controlled trial we...

We study how the objective of the contributions affects the willingness to contribute to real-life public goods. We conducted three treatments of a fundraising experiment among religious Jewish students in which the contributions were assigned to finance sustainable supplies and the ongoing...

A series of crises, culminating with COVID-19, shows that going "Beyond GDP" is urgently necessary. Social and environmental degradation are consequences of emphasizing GDP as a measure of progress. This degradation created the conditions for the COVID-19 pandemic and limited the efficacy of...

In this article, we present a first empirical reflection on 'smart development,' its measurement, possible 'drivers' and 'bottlenecks.' We first provide cross-national data on how much ecological footprint is used in the nations of the world system to 'deliver' a given amount of democracy,...

The economic expansion witnessed in the last 0,08% of modern human history is an anomalous event. It has been compared to a "rocket ship that took off five seconds ago, and nobody knows where it's going." This paper explores the destiny of this rocket ship. It shows that economic growth cannot...

The effect of demographic change on the labor force and on fiscal revenues is topical in light of potential pension shortfalls. This paper evaluates the effect of demographic changes between 2010 and 2030 on labor force participation and government budgets in the EU-27. Our analysis involves the...

Circular economy (CE) is a sustainable development strategy that is being proposed to tackle urgent problems of environmental degradation and resource scarcity. CE's 3R principles are to reduce, reuse and recycle materials. The principles account for a circular system where all materials are...

Does economic development have an unavoidable ecological cost? We examine the ecological impacts of one of India's signature place-based economic policies involving massive tax benefits for new industrial and infrastructure development following the creation of the new state of Uttarakhand. The...

This paper offers an evaluation of a supported women's self help program with over 1.5 million participants in one of the poorest rural regions of the world (Uttar Pradesh, India). Methodologically, it shows how indicators from the direct capability measurement literature can be adapted for...