Investigation of Employee Related Airport Ground Access Strategies from a Post-COVID Perspective

Until recently, addressing the environmental externalities associated with the use of the private car and single occupancy vehicles has been the focus of the airport ground access policies worldwide. However, with the emerging unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have already changed the way we live, work, and travel, encouraging a change in commuter behavior has become even more important. This has necessitated that existing strategies be reconsidered in favor of adapting to a highly uncertain ‘‘COVID-19 world.'' Historically, there has been a dearth of literature relating to airport employees' ground access even though as a group employees represent an important segment of airport users with complex access requirements. This paper therefore focuses on airport employee related airport ground access strategies considering an emerging understanding of the future impacts of COVID-19 on global air travel. Pre-COVID strategies are investigated by conducting a documentary analysis of the most recent ground access strategies of 27 UK airports. The findings reveal that airport ground access strategies were mainly focused on setting targets and producing policy measures in favor of reducing car use and increasing the use of more sustainable transport modes including public transport, car sharing, and active travel (walking, cycling). However, measures encouraging public transport and car sharing will be more difficult to implement because of social distancing and fear of proximity to others. Instead, initiatives encouraging remote working, active travel, and improved staff awareness will be at the forefront of the future ground access strategy development. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2021.

Age, Gender, and Disease as Determinants of Social Distancing: Germany as a Case Study.

A mix of guidance and mandated regulations during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic served to reduce the number of social contacts, to ensure distancing in public spaces, and to maintain the isolation of infected individuals. Individual variation in compliance to social distancing in Germany, relating to age, gender, or the presence of pre-existing health conditions, was examined using results from a total of 39 375 respondents to a web-based behavioral survey.Older people and females were more willing to engage in social distancing. Those with chronic conditions showed overall higher levels of compliance, but those with cystic fibrosis, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and epilepsy showed less adherence to general social distancing measures but were significantly more likely to isolate in their homes. Behavioral differences partly lie in the nature of each condition, especially with those conditions likely to be exacerbated by COVID-19. Compliance differences for age and gender are largely in line with previous studies.

Polarized opinions on Covid-19 and environmental policy measures. The role of social media use and personal concerns in German-speaking countries

The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are polarizing people's opinions worldwide, particularly with regard to restrictive policy measures. We examine the effects of social media use and personal concerns on opinions toward selected COVID-19 and environmental measures, and whether public opinion toward the two crises shows similar polarization patterns. The data is derived from an online survey conducted in German-speaking countries in the summer of 2020. Our analyses show that opinions toward COVID-19 measures are more polarized than toward environmental measures, and that personal concerns play a far greater role than social media use in shaping opinions toward policy measures for both crises. Only few platforms show significant and divergent effects, which we attribute to their different characteristics and potentials for the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers. We also observe a generational effect, suggesting that older individuals are more likely to support COVID-19 measures, while younger generations tend to do so for environmental measures. Furthermore, we find an unexpectedly high number of people who are completely opposed to all policy measures for both crises, again mainly due to personal concerns and attitudes. The results are discussed in the context of the time period in which the survey was conducted, as well as in relation to current developments, and from the perspective of the free-rider problem as a possible explanation for the one-sided polarization observed. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The impacts of policy measures on Japanese SMEs during the pandemic

Using monthly firm-level survey data, this study examines the effects of the three major government support measures on labour costs of Japanese SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy measures were useful for supporting troubled SMEs to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn. However, they may have supported not just otherwise viable corporations, but also unprofitable but still operating corporations – often referred to as ‘zombies'. Our empirical results suggest that policy measures have heterogeneous effects on corporate activities. ‘Employment adjustment subsidies' and ‘COVID19 subsidies' had persistently mitigated the decline of labour costs, suggesting that employment and wage adjustments might have been inappropriate for improving labour productivity. On the other hand, ‘funding supports' by banks, which were accompanied by the obligation to repay the principal in the future, had a negative and persistent impact on labour costs. The results suggest that, unlike the other support measures, funding supports were policies that may have improved labour productivity by reducing labour costs during the pandemic.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic-related policies on new firm creation: an analysis of the Italian case

This work contributes to disaster research by exploring the impact on new firm creation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic-related policies. We develop hypotheses on the individual and combined effects of pandemic severity and public policies aimed at controlling the spread of the disease (shutdown policies) or protecting the economy from its negative consequences (demand stimulus and firm support policies). Then, we test these hypotheses using data on Italy in the first and second 2020 pandemic waves. Results show that pandemic severity negatively affected new firm creation during the first wave. Shutdown policies had negative effects too, especially in the regions where the pandemic was less severe. The effects of demand stimulus policies were positive and stronger the less severe the pandemic was while the impact of firm support policies was negative in the regions where the pandemic was more severe. All these effects vanished in the second wave.Plain English SummaryDisasters cause slowdowns in new firm creation that disaster recovery policies may aggravate or alleviate. Our analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy reveals that this major disaster resulted in a large drop in new firm creation rates. During the first pandemic wave, the drop was concentrated in the regions where the pandemic was more severe. Examining the effects of the shutdown policies implemented to contain the spread of the disease and the measures designed to protect the economy provides useful guidelines for policymakers. First, we show that shutdown policies inhibit new firm creation. Policymakers can however alleviate this negative effect by implementing less strict measures in the areas not severely affected by the disaster. Second, despite we understand that policymakers need to provide relief to existing firms in the most affected industries to avoid business failures, we indicate they should simultaneously invest in stimulating demand in these industries to sustain also new firm creation.

Understanding Stay-at-home Attitudes through Framing Analysis of Tweets

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of public policy measures have been developed to curb the spread of the virus. However, little is known about the attitudes towards stay-at-home orders expressed on social media despite the fact that social media are central platforms for expressing and debating personal attitudes. To address this gap, we analyze the prevalence and framing of attitudes towards stay-at-home policies, as expressed on Twitter in the early months of the pandemic. We focus on three aspects of tweets: whether they contain an attitude towards stay-at-home measures, whether the attitude was for or against, and the moral justification for the attitude, if any. We collect and annotate a dataset of stay-at-home tweets and create classifiers that enable large-scale analysis of the relationship between moral frames and stay-at-home attitudes and their temporal evolution. Our findings suggest that frames of care are correlated with a supportive stance, whereas freedom and oppression signify an attitude against stay-at-home directives. There was widespread support for stay-at-home orders in the early weeks of lockdowns, followed by increased resistance toward the end of May and the beginning of June 2020. The resistance was associated with moral judgment that mapped to political divisions. © 2022 IEEE.

Syrian SMEs in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Adaptation, and Policy Measures

SMEs constitute the backbone of the Syrian economy and have suffered manifold challenges due to the continuous Syrian war. COVID-19 added further pressures on Syrian SMEs and forced them to take certain adaptation strategies to survive. This paper aims to investigate the main challenges that face Syrian SMEs during the pandemic and illustrate how they respond to adversities that emerged from governmental intervention to control the spread of the virus. It also discusses the measures initiated by the government to support SMEs during the pandemic. Through interviewing persons from the Syrian SMEs' ecosystem, we find that high interest rates on SMEs' loans decline on demand as well as high inflation represent the main challenges. SMEs respond to these challenges by marketing products online, stock procurement, and strengthening connections with stakeholders. We recommend the Syrian authorities reduce lending rates and increase loan sizes available to SMEs to help them overcome the pandemic adversities. Innovative sources of funding, such as venture capital and equity partnerships, could reduce the funding costs of SMEs. Moreover, SMEs will immensely benefit from training in digital tools to enhance their expansion and survival opportunities. Furthermore, bazaars should be organized during the year to give SMEs the opportunity to gain continuous access to markets. In addition, incubation services should be revised, particularly to SMEs with great potential to grow, to create the suitable environment for them to scale and flourish. © 2023 by the authors.

How does a Rational Agent Act in an Epidemic?

The evolution of a disease in a large population is a function of the top-down policy measures from a centralized planner and the self-interested decisions (to be socially active) of individual agents in a large heterogeneous population. This paper is concerned with understanding the latter based on a mean-field type optimal control model. Specifically, the model is used to investigate the role of partial information on an agent's decision-making and study the impact of such decisions by a large number of agents on the spread of the virus in the population. The motivation comes from the presymptomatic and asymptomatic spread of the COVID-19 virus, where an agent unwittingly spreads the virus. We show that even in a setting with fully rational agents, limited information on the viral state can result in epidemic growth. © 2022 IEEE.

EFFECTIVENESS OF ACTIVE LABOR MARKET POLICY MEASURES IN LATVIA

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world of work has been both devastating and far-reaching. In order to reduce the unemployment rate, it is necessary to increase motivation and incentives to look for a job, to improve readiness for work and help to find a suitable job, as well as to expand employment opportunities. Public employment services have become an important point for jobseekers, giving workers and employers access to a number of passive and active labour market support mechanisms. Active labour market policies are a key tool through which welfare states seek to improve the employment prospects of the unemployed. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the impact of active labour market policies and programs are needed to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of policies in responding to the needs of different groups. This study analyzes the data obtained from the survey of the unemployed with the aim of finding out how actively the unemployed cooperate with the state employment service and use services offered by it, as well as to reveal the possible shortcomings and shortcomings of this society, so that it is possible to eliminate them and increase the efficiency of this cooperation. © 2022, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies. All Rights Reserved.

The impact of COVID-19 and policy measures on commuting in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, one of the main goals of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is to increase accessibility and, at the same time, to reduce the negative externalities created by transport, such as congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. Within the Ministry, there was a clear need for a national and integrated monitoring instrument to measure the impact of policy measures on travel behaviour. To satisfy this need, we carried out a national traveller survey in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This paper describes some of the results of these surveys. Annual analyses include the trends in car ownership and mode choice for different purposes, with particular attention to commuting behaviour. It appears that travel time, convenience and flexibility play an important role in mode choice. Travel costs are less important and COVID-19 did not play a decisive role. It appears that free parking or availability of parking space has the most considerable impact on car use for commuting. In October 2019, employees travelled on average 3.8 days per week to work. In October 2020, mainly because of COVID-19, this number decreased to 2.9 travelling days and in October 2021, the number of travelled increased to 3.1. We examined the relationship between changes in car use for commuting between 2019, 2020 and 2021, and external developments in living and working, changes in the level of service of different transport modes and policy measures, both by the government and by employers. In addition, we investigated the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on car use for commuting and this appeared to be an important factor, although external factors also play an important role. Finally, we estimated the effect of these changes in car use for commuting on congestion and CO2 emissions.

Impacts of COVID-19 on transport and responses to pandemic control in the Philippines

The Philippines, like any other country, especially in Southeast Asia, was not prepared in facing the threat of COVID-19 pandemic. The Government at the outset of the pandemic in early 2020 activated its Inter-Agency Task Force to handle the pandemic and how to address this. This endeavor would provide an overlook on how the country was affected by the pandemic and what were the strategies and approaches that were initiated and implemented to minimize the transmissions of the COVID-19 and negative impacts on the economy. After investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy and notably on the transport environment, strategies and actions as well as suggestions for future policies to contain impacts of pandemics are made in a form of a planning policy framework.

Impacts of COVID-19 on the transport sector in China: Facts and insights from early stages

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in the last season of 2019 seriously impacted the transportation industry. Countries around the world adopted various restrictions and policies to prevent the spread of the pandemic, which resulted in a sharp drop in the demand for transportation. To analyze the impact of the pandemic on China’s transportation sector at the early states and propose measures that may be taken to recover from the impact of COVID-19, the existing policies and impacts were reviewed. The government preparedness, recovery measures during/after pandemic, and their effects are analyzed. This chapter summarized the influence of COVID-19 to transportation system as well as the lifestyles and the whole society, and stated that future research could delve more deeply into this area. The research findings provided solid policy implications and experiences for constructing sustainable transportation system and improve flexibility, reliability, and resilience of traffic governance in postpandemic era.

Collective thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic and transport from a worldwide expert survey

The WCTRS (World Conference on Transport Research Society) COVID-19 Task Force implemented a worldwide expert survey between the end of April and late May 2020. Of 357 experts who participated in the survey, more than 100 experts provided their open opinions. Although time has passed since this survey, the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time of writing suggests that these opinions are still relevant for policymakers. This chapter discusses what can be learned from those experts’ open opinions, especially in association with both immediate and long-term policymaking.

Measures for the betterment of the labor market position of non-standard working regimes in the cultural and creative sector in the Netherlands

This article reflects on possible effects on income and earning capacity of creative workers of three measures that were recently introduced or that are being discussed to combat the vulnerability of non-standard working conditions in the cultural and creative sector in the Netherlands: the Balanced Labor Market Act, the Fair Practice Code for Culture, and a call for certain unified agreements, for instance in the form of minimum tariffs for self-employed workers. Each of these measures separately has its merits and the intention to improve working conditions. Therefore, the power lies in their joint introduction, which combines general legislation with a moral benchmark and subsector-specific solutions. However, in this combination several unintended consequences loom, such as the possible separation between professional and amateur creative workers, a higher threshold for talent to enter the sector, threats to artistic and aesthetic innovation, and the prioritization of fairness over equality. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Cultural Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

From Pandemics to the Unconventional: Monetary Policy in EMs: The Case of Croatia

The emergence of the pandemic has once again highlighted the possibilities of unconventional monetary policy and enabled the expansion of monetary policy instruments in emerging and developing economies. For most of these European countries, the interest rate channel of monetary policy may not be very strong;they are used to balance sheet policies. The balance sheet of the Croatian National Bank (CNB) has also increased in lockstep with the balance sheet of the European Central Bank over the past decade, as have the excess reserves of the banking system. Although the fuel for these increases has been the accumulation of international reserves rather than the purchase of domestic securities, the banking liquidity channel has operated in the same manner. Since the COVID -19 crisis, the CNB has acted within the framework of various measures taken by the government as well as other regulatory institutions. At the same time, the CNB intervened heavily in the foreign exchange market and used a number of monetary policy operations to support kuna liquidity. In addition to standard structural and regular operations and the reduction of the reserve requirements, the CNB initiated for the first time a program to purchase government securities through the secondary market. The CNB used all conventional and unconventional instruments available to central banks in emerging markets, adapted them to specific domestic circumstances and successfully fulfilled its mandate. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

POLICY MEASURES FOR ECONOMIC RESILIENCE OF VISEGRAD GROUP AND UKRAINE DURING THE PANDEMIC

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented healthcare and economic resilience challenges for the world. This study systematizes the policy measures taken by the Visegrad Group and Ukraine to support national economies in response to the pandemic. The paper is based on a grouping method to systematize the policy measures, and a tabular method to present the results of the policy measures classification. Following systematization results, the policy measures for ensuring the economic resilience under the pandemic are classified as quarantine and compensatory measures. Additionally, quarantine measures were classified into prohibitions, restrictions, and recommendations. Compensatory measures were classified by the type of policy and grouped according to the global dimension in periodization of the COVID-19 waves. The analysis of quarantine measures in Ukraine and Visegrad Group also shows that prohibitions had been used most frequently and for the longest time in Ukraine, particularly they included school closures, public transport closing, and restrictions on internal movement. Meanwhile, fiscal, macroprudential, and microprudential measures prevailed among the compensatory measures. Simultaneously, 38% of all fiscal measures were direct grants to households and enterprises. The largest number of various measures (78) were implemented in Poland, linking quarantine and compensatory measures. The least compensatory measures were implemented in Ukraine (19) and Slovakia (15). Overall, policy measures helped to avoid a worse scenario of pandemic impact but did not help to overcome the effects of the pandemic fully. © 2022 The author(s).

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic-related policies on new firm creation: an analysis of the Italian case

This work contributes to disaster research by exploring the impact on new firm creation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic-related policies. We develop hypotheses on the individual and combined effects of pandemic severity and public policies aimed at controlling the spread of the disease (shutdown policies) or protecting the economy from its negative consequences (demand stimulus and firm support policies). Then, we test these hypotheses using data on Italy in the first and second 2020 pandemic waves. Results show that pandemic severity negatively affected new firm creation during the first wave. Shutdown policies had negative effects too, especially in the regions where the pandemic was less severe. The effects of demand stimulus policies were positive and stronger the less severe the pandemic was while the impact of firm support policies was negative in the regions where the pandemic was more severe. All these effects vanished in the second wave. © 2022, The Author(s).

Environmental Benefits From Carbon Tax in the Chinese Carbon Market: A Roadmap to Energy Efficiency in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Because of China’s global responsibilities to address climate change, the country has made a commitment to limiting the growth of future emissions using policy measures, such as funding mitigation research and regulating energy efficiency requirements directly. Extensions of these policies, such as the measures to improve energy efficiency, use of carbon taxes, and changes to the mix of electricity generation in the country, are also of interest to China. This article applied a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to examine the effects of such energy efficiency and climate change policy options in the post-COVID-19 era in the China economy. The study findings show that even modest measures can have significant effects on emissions with marginal economic impacts, given the current level of development in the China electricity generation and transportation sectors. It is estimated that a 5 RMB per ton carbon tax will reduce emissions by 4.1% and GDP by 0.27%. Emissions drop by 8.2% and GDP drops by 0.54% when energy efficiency increases by 2% across the China economy, respectively. As a final result, a 5% shift away from burning coal would reduce emissions by 9.0%, while GDP would increase by 1.3%. It has been shown that even low carbon taxes can encourage a notable cleaner energy system. Copyright © 2022 Wei, Ayub and Dagar.

How resilient are mountain livelihoods against extreme events? Learnings from Central Mexico in a COVID-19 world

People living in mountains tend to be more vulnerable in their livelihoods. In Mexico, the pandemic of COVID-19 hit hard and has raised challenges in trying to prevent parts of the population from falling back into extreme poverty. To better understand these challenges, we explore how federal government policy on the containment of COVID-19 has been applied in mountain regions during the first half-year of 2020 and describe how stakeholders working and living in the Valley of Mexico are coping with the situation (status: September 2020). Results from a systematic literature review and eight semi-structured interviews indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic underlined existing problems such as high rates of informal labor and income insecurity. We find that sources of contagion were linked to the organization of the food supply chain between city and mountain regions or to socio-cultural practices, and there are no specific strategies for helping people living and working in mountain regions to deal with the socio-economic effects of the pandemic. All respondents in our pilot study have been affected in some way by the pandemic: income loss, food security, or access/restriction to their workplaces. The majority of the respondents do not agree with the measures for containment of COVID-19 implemented by the federal government. We could identify coping mechanisms of our respondents, which include the reduction of consumption, diversification of income sources, and claiming support from the government. However, there is a legitimate threat of falling back to (extreme) poverty or experiencing social deprivation, if the challenges of the current pandemic will not be addressed quickly and more efficiently in the rural mountain areas of the Valley of Mexico. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

Distribution of COVID-19 government support and its consequences for firm liquidity and solvency.

We utilize several unique firm-level datasets in order to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the government support aiming to curb the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The results, drawing on the experience of a small open European country, suggest the distributed COVID-19 subsidies save non-negligible number of jobs and sustain economic activity during the first wave of the pandemic. General distribution rules designed on the fly may bring close to optimal results in terms of the support allocation, as relatively more productive, privately owned, foreign-demand oriented firms are prioritized and firms with a high environmental footprint or zombie firms record a relatively lower chance of obtaining government funding. By assuming constant cost elasticities to sales, we show that the pandemic deteriorates strongly firm profits and increases significantly the share of illiquid and insolvent firms. Government wage subsidies somewhat mitigate firm losses and have statistically significant effect, but relatively mild compared to the size of the economic shock. Our estimates also confirm that larger firms, receiving smaller relative size of the support, have more space to cover their additional liquidity needs by increasing trade liabilities or liabilities to affiliated entities, while SMEs face higher risk of insolvencies.