The ambitious United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been criticized for being universal, broadly-framed, inconsistent and difficult to quantify, implement and monitor. We contribute by quantifying and prioritising the SDGs and their impact on sustainable development. We employ structural equation models (SEM) to investigate, which of the underlying pillars of SDGs (economic, social and environment) are the most effective in achieving sustainable development. Our results reveal that the developed countries, benefit most by focusing on social and environmental factors whereas the developing countries, benefit most by retaining their focus on the economic and the social factors.

Clean water is not only the product of expensive treatment technology, but also of upstream ecosystems. Yet, the effect of land use on downstream water quality is poorly understood. We investigate the value of ecosystem water purification as an input to the production of drinking water in Sweden. We employ a recently modified empirical approach, complementing ex-ante modelling. We capture plant operator behaviour, rather than assuming rational individuals that value ecosystem services as a factor in the drinking water production function. The GMM technique is applied to estimate the marginal contributions of different land uses to water quality and chemical costs of treatment plants. The analysis is based on upstream land-use data, raw water quality, and chemical costs for a large share of Sweden’s municipal surface water treatment plants, for the period 2000 to 2012. Our results show that upstream forests lead to lower levels of E. coli (a pathogen associated with disease outbreaks) in downstream water and indicate the same effect on turbidity (not significant). We also find that turbidity increases treatment costs, but the effect of E. coli remains unclear. Consequently, in addition to water treatment equipment, decision-makers should consider investment in upstream ecosystems. 

Food insecurity and malnutrition are still major challenges for large proportions of households in Sab-Saharan Africa. The empirical literature on food demand, however, suggest mixed evidence on the roles of income and other socio-economic attributes on food demand. This study analyses the food demand amongst households in Rwanda, based on nationally representative household expenditure and demographic (EICV4, 2013/14) survey data. The results show that poor households consume food containing higher carbohydrates and starches. Further, the study finds that majority of rural households spend sparingly on micronutrients from animal products, suggesting that effective targeted food policy interventions for poor and rural households may play important role in reducing incidence of malnutrition through improving food diets.… Read more

The increased immigration in Western Europe has been linked by some political parties to increased criminality rates. We study the statistical relationship between the proportion of foreign-born to three types of reported criminality - rapes, burglary, and assault. The analysis is based on Swedish municipality level data for 2002-2014, years with signicant immigration. Using non-parametric Gaussian processes models, we find that while reported rape rates have increased, they are likely best explained by changes in reporting. The reported burglary rates have decreased, while reported assault rates are positively correlated to the proportion of foreign-born residents in the municipality.

We investigate the effect of the informal sector and a range of governance indicators on both global and local pollutants for a panel of 58 countries during 1996-2011. The analysis employs a fixed effects-instrumental variable generalized method of moments approach. We find that the size of the informal sector has a significant impact on environmental quality, which is conditional on the level of economic development. For developing countries, the informal sector has a significant positive impact on local pollutants, whereas for the developed countries the informal sector has a significantly negative effect on global pollutants. The findings also reveal that the impact of governance depends on the type of governance measure, the level of economic development and type of pollutant. Control of corruption emerges as the single most important factor especially in the non-OECD countries in improving environmental quality. We argue that the efficacy of an environmental policy for a country with a large informal sector will be low if the policy measures do not address governance, size of the informal sector and environmental policy targets.

Renewable energy (RE) has a strong synergy with some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), thus its successful deployment can potentially result in an impact on these SDGs. In this study, we examine the synergy effect of renewable electricity on selected SDGs via the electricity prices for the European Union (EU) countries. Using panel data and a two-step estimation approach, our findings indicate a strong synergy effect between renewable electricity prices, SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth). The results further reveal that SDG 12 (responsible production and consumption) accounts for most of the future renewable electricity price variation (excluding self-effect), whereas future variation in SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 13 (climate action) are explained mostly by SDG 8 and SDG 12, respectively.

It is widely recognized that combating malnutrition for women is central not only for their own health but also for the attainment of nutritional adequacy for future generations, including infants, children and adolescents. Attaining adequate nutrition for women is necessary throughout their life, but particularly so before, during and after pregnancy, if intergenerational nutritional adequacy is to be attained. Adequacy of nutrition also helps an individual become more productive and saves medical treatment costs that may otherwise have occurred. However, India’s less than satisfactory record of female, infant and child nutrition underscores the need to take urgent steps, particularly if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be attained. With this as the background the present chapter focuses on the role of agriculture in providing adequate nutrition for women and the methods through which women in the rural sector can leverage existing institutions and programs to ameliorate nutritional inadequacy. This would require the design of informative indices of nutritional attainment and close cooperation in policy between governments, civil society organizations and international advisory groups. The chapter reviews some ways in which these can be attained.

The ambitious UN-adopted sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been criticized for being inconsistent, difficult to quantify, implement and monitor. Disparaging analysis suggests that there exists a potential inconsistency in the SDGs, particularly between the socio-economic development and the environmental sustainability goals. Critiques also raise questions on the measurability and monitoring of the broadly framed SDGs. The goals are non-binding, with each country being expected to create their own national or regional plans. Moreover, the source(s) and the extent of the financial resources and investments for the SDGs are ambiguous. This chapter quantifies and examines the inconsistencies of the SDGs. It further inspects which of the underlying social, economic or environmental pillars are that most effective for achieving sustainable development. Analyses of the data reveal that the developed countries need to remain focused on their social and environmental policies. The developing countries, on the other hand, are better off being focused on their economics and social policies in the short run, even though environmental policies remain significant for sustainable development.

Do microfinance institutions (MFIs) operate in a monopoly, monopolistic competition environment or are their revenues derived under perfect competition markets? We employ the Panzar–Rosse revenue test on a global panel data to assess the competitive environment in which MFIs of five selected countries operate: Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru and Philippines, over the period 2005–2009. We estimate the static and the dynamic revenue tests, with analyses of the interest rate and the return on assets. We control for microfinance-specific variables such as capital-assets-ratio, loans-assets and the size of the MFI. The analyses also account for the endogeneity problem by employing the fixed-effects two-stage least squares and the fixed-effects system generalized method of moments. Our results suggest that MFIs in Peru and India operate in a monopolistic environment. We also find weak evidence that the microfinance industry in Ecuador, Indonesia and Philippines may operate under perfect competition.