The economy at the time of COVID-19: Theoretical and political debates in the USA

This chapter discusses how economists in academia have analysed the impacts of COVID-19 on the US economy. Their study starts with a bibliometric analysis to identify academic output on the topic, which informs a more in-depth literature review. The literature review shows that many economists point to an increase in inequality and a lack of deep changes in the government's policy. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Intersection Between Gender Equity and Solving Infertility Issues

For several decades or perhaps centuries now, we have been discussing gender equity and related issues like male hegemony, acceptance and equal treatment of women/LGBTIA at workplace, sensitization of children and adults towards equity and empowerment. The aim of this paper is to explore and understand whether the same challenges and opportunities also exist when solving for infertility, specifically from the child's perspective. Traditionally the focus on issues of infertility is from the adult perspective, this paper aims to look at it from the child's perspective-the child born to solve infertility. Infertility is very traumatic and inequitable and few people talk about it and how will this silence help solve issues? Any child/human needs happiness and protection to thrive, how does inequity provide an environment for either? In fact, neither infertility nor gender equity are just "social justice" issues but are a "right to live" issue. The underlying issues envelope individuals to the extent it suffocates their "right to life" issues like being able to live freely at peace and happiness. While the circumstances of one's birth either based on gender or caste or religion or race or creed or physically challenged or mentally challenged or born differently via Surrogacy are NOT in any person's control, the issues surrounding their ability to live freely and pursue happiness in peace are often intersecting. As COVID has taught all of us in 2020 that there is great uncertainty coupled with complex issues and entire life gets disrupted overnight for individuals, families, communities, governments. We overcome that collectively. Similarly, inequity causes uncertainty and entire life gets disrupted for the affected. We must work together to overcome it. It is important to delve into this intersection of similar issues and raise awareness together instead of a piece-meal approach. Looking at the issues collectively may help us understand each other, build harmony and eventually work together to solve issues. Sometimes, we get caught up in a "Me First" approach with an end result of "We Last". There are multiple issues crisscrossing each other;like a Rubik's cube of inequity. Rather than debating the differences, let us work together on the commonalities of the underlying issues. This exploration is a hope that we can come together objectively and begin solving Rubik's issues of inequity. Perhaps we start at the point of the intersecting issues, a commonality among us. And move away from a "Me First, We Last" paradigm. Lastly, as MeToo movement has shown that it is not just about sexual harassment or assault but when one tries to "solve" by asking for equity and justice, they often fall prey to decades and perhaps centuries of inequity, patriarchy, power, money, suppression of lies, stereotypes;not something which can be solved by one person and it takes time. Similarly, "solving" infertility issues also takes time and is not something to be solved by one (girl) child when facing the same issues. At the very least, is exploitation and abuse of a voiceless girl child to "solve infertility" in adult an equitable solution and by denying rights of a girl child, what have we really achieved from the perspective of gender equity?

Post COVID-19 Impact on Construction Industry: Challenges and Solutions

COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic, with an enormous impact, resulting in human and economic losses. With anomalous lockdowns and closures, construction work all over the globe has come to a halt. Suspension of ongoing construction activities has engendered the construction and real estate industry to deal with critical issues like risk of global recession, shortage of building materials, workforce crunch, disruptions in supply chain, financial crisis and time overrun in construction projects. To this end, there is a need for innovative and practical feasible solutions to meet the challenges posed against the construction industry. The government, construction sector and scientific community can play a dominant role through collaborative and cohesive approach by adopting economical, social, managerial policies and technological solutions at different stakeholders' level. This paper highlights the key issues and challenges pretence by pandemic and paves a way for minimizing the effect and drawing a recovery plan. © 2023 DMICS.

Analysis of the spillover effects between green economy, clean and dirty cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies have been widely used as financial instruments over the past decade. Given the development of the cryptocurrency market and the increasing awareness of greener and more energy-efficient tokens, their connection to the green economy has become a popular topic for understanding economic and policy issues. However, the literature still lacks clear evidence on how cryptocurrencies interact with green economy indicators. Therefore, this study examines the correlations and spillover relationships between green economy indices, five black cryptocurrencies, and five clean cryptocurrencies for the U.S., Euro, and Asian markets. To this end, it applies the novel quantile spillover index approach of Ando et al. (2018) to daily data from November 9, 2017, to April 4, 2022. The empirical results show that the overall linkage is stronger for green economy indices and clean cryptocurrencies than for dirty cryptocurrencies. Moreover, green economy indices show net receiving behavior, while cryptocurrencies' results differ across variables, quantiles, and time. In addition, a notable point for clean cryptocurrencies is 2020, which was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall spillover effect is very high for all quantiles for the three markets, especially for Asia. This outcome signifies the safe harbor property for diversification purposes of the green economy. The results presented in this study are important for investors, regulators and, policymakers, cryptocurrency founders as they seek to be financially integrated and develop a more sustainable business. © 2023

Solving the housing crisis in Nunavut, Canada.

In Canada, there are vast differences between the state of accommodation/housing, health, social inequalities, education and economic conditions for people in the northern and southern regions of the country. Overcrowding in Inuit Nunangat is a direct result of the promises made by past government policy that led to Inuit people settling in sedentary communities in the North on the understanding that they would be provided with social welfare. However, these welfare programmes proved to be either insufficient or non-existent for Inuit people. Therefore, Inuit are living in overcrowded homes in Canada, resulting in a severe housing shortage, poor-quality housing and homelessness. This has led to the spread of contagious diseases, mould, mental-health issues, gaps in education for children, sexual and physical violence, food insecurity and adverse challenges for the youth of Inuit Nunangat. This paper proposes several actions to ease the crisis. First, funding should be stable and predictable. Next, there should be ample construction of transitional homes which could be used to accommodate people before moving them into proper public housing. Policies regarding staff housing should be amended, and if possible, these vacant staff houses could provide shelter to eligible Inuit people, which could help lessen the housing crisis. The advent of COVID-19 has made the issue of affordable and safe housing more serious because without safe housing, the health, education and well-being of the Inuit people in Inuit Nunangat are in peril. This study focuses on how the governments of Canada and Nunavut are dealing with this issue.

From Bosnia and Herzegovina to China in the 21st Century: A Case Study of Personal Migration Histories

This study is the first to examine recent migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China in the 21(st) century. It gives an overview of new Chinese geopolitical and economic circumstances, a historical analysis of migration flows between China and the rest of the world from the 19th to the 21st century, and a survey of recent emigration flows from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second part presents the results of an empirical study of labour migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China and the experiences of 25 migrants, which was conducted using structured interviews The research results show that most in the group plan to stay in China permanently. Some would like to move to North America or Australia. It is characteristic that there are no gender gaps in terms of qualifications or career ambitions. The measures to combat COVID-19 implemented by the Chinese government affected the respondents in different ways.

From Bosnia and Herzegovina to China in the 21st Century: A Case Study of Personal Migration Histories

This study is the first to examine recent migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China in the 21st century. It gives an overview of new Chinese geopolitical and economic circumstances, a historical analysis of migration flows between China and the rest of the world from the 19th to the 21st century, and a survey of recent emigration flows from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second part presents the results of an empirical study of labour migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China and the experiences of 25 migrants, which was conducted using structured interviews The research results show that most in the group plan to stay in China permanently. Some would like to move to North America or Australia. It is characteristic that there are no gender gaps in terms of qualifications or career ambitions. The measures to combat COVID-19 implemented by the Chinese government affected the respondents in different ways. [ FROM AUTHOR]

EVALUATING LEARNING EFFECTIVENESS TOWARDS ONLINE LEARNING: APPLICATION OF DESIGN THINKING AND READING COMPREHENSION FOR CASE READING ON ECONOMIC ISSUES DURING COVID-19

This study focuses on developing an effective online teaching strategy to improve students' cognition engagement and application ability by applying design thinking and case readings on current economic issues for private university students in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. The teaching method combines design thinking and the reading comprehension process by the two principles of divergence and convergence. The design thinking method provides stepwise guidance for building understanding and analyzing competence on current economic issues. The reading comprehension process strengthens students' reading skills and learning capability. This combination increases student engagement and concentration in economic case readings during online learning. The research participants comprised 189 first-year students studying economics courses. After implementing the innovative teaching strategies, the results show that the more students are involved in frequent readings, the better are their economics semester grade. The findings revealed that their post-quiz scores improved significantly, and the semester grade increased by 3.44 points. Increasing the reading engagement on current economic issues cases also affected the learning outcomes for absentees. Using design thinking to introduce case reading comprehension, empathy has been suggested as an essential factor affecting the effectiveness of reading learning. This theoretical model can offer directional insights and guidance on developing an effective strategy in online economics education. © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced suicide rates differentially according to socioeconomic indices and ethnicity? More evidence is needed globally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed many people's mental health globally. Whilst the evidence generated thus far from high-income countries regarding the pandemic's impact on suicide rates is generally reassuring, we know little about its influence on this outcome in lower- and middle-income countries or among marginalised and disadvantaged people. There are some signals for concern regarding the pandemic's potentially unequal impact on suicide rates, with some of the affected demographic subgroups and regions being at elevated risk before the pandemic began. However, the evidence-base for this topic is currently sparse, and studies conducted to date have generally not taken account of pre-pandemic temporal trends. The collection of accurate, complete and comparable data on suicide rate trends in ethnic minority and low-income groups should be prioritised. The vulnerability of low-income groups will likely be exacerbated further by the current energy supply and cost-of-living crises in many countries. It is therefore crucial that reassuring messaging highlighting the stability of suicide rates during the pandemic does not lead to complacency among policymakers.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people who inject drugs accessing harm reduction services in an rural American state.

BACKGROUND: The impact of public health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic on people who inject drugs (PWID) has varied across regions. In other countries, recent research has shown that PWID access to harm reduction services, despite rapid adaptations, has been negatively impacted. Our study describes these impacts in a rural state. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with PWID, community partners, and healthcare providers in the rural state of Maine (USA). We explored how changes made during the pandemic impacted access to harm reduction services, including basic services (i.e., shelter), syringe service programs, safe drug supply, low barrier treatment, and peer support. Interviews were analyzed using the framework method to apply Penchansky's model of access, with Saurman's modification, which includes six dimensions of access-accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability, accommodation, awareness. RESULTS: We interviewed thirty-six stakeholders (N = 9 community partners, N = 9 healthcare providers, N = 18 PWID). Policies such as mobile outreach expansion, mail delivery of equipment, and relaxed telemedicine regulations facilitated accessibility to syringe service programs and low barrier buprenorphine treatment. Public health policies, such as social distancing and screening policies, reduced contact, which subsequently reduced acceptability and awareness of many services. Elimination of the one-for-one needle exchange in some areas increased, acceptability (i.e., perception of service), and affordability for PWID. However, some areas actually began enforcing a one-for-one needle exchange policy, which reduced affordability, acceptability, and awareness of services. CONCLUSIONS: Changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted all dimensions of access to harm reduction services among PWID. While some barriers to harm reduction services were unavoidable during the pandemic, we found that specific policy decisions mitigated service barriers, while other policies exacerbated them. Relaxing needle exchange policies were particularly helpful in facilitating access to harm reduction services by giving community organizations flexibility to adapt to the evolving needs of PWID. These results can inform policies and service delivery to optimally mitigate the negative impacts on PWID during, and beyond, the pandemic.

Political and Economic Patterns in COVID-19 News: From Lockdown to Vaccination

The purpose of this study is to analyse COVID-19 related news published across different geographical places, in order to gain insights in reporting differences. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major outbreak in January 2020 and was followed by different preventive measures, lockdown, and finally by the process of vaccination. To date, more comprehensive analysis of news related to COVID-19 pandemic are missing, especially those which explain what aspects of this pandemic are being reported by newspapers inserted in different economies and belonging to different political alignments. Since LDA is often less coherent when there are news articles published across the world about an event and you look answers for specific queries. It is because of having semantically different content. To address this challenge, we performed pooling of news articles based on information retrieval using TF-IDF score in a data processing step and topic modeling using LDA with combination of 1 to 6 ngrams.We used VADER sentiment analyzer to analyze the differences in sentiments in news articles reported across different geographical places. The novelty of this study is to look at how COVID-19 pandemic was reported by the media, providing a comparison among countries in different political and economic contexts. Our findings suggest that the news reporting by newspapers with different political alignment support the reported content. Also, economic issues reported by newspapers depend on economy of the place where a newspaper resides. Author

A Global Survey of Technological Resources and Datasets on COVID-19

—The application and successful utilization of technological resources in developing solutions to health, safety, and economic issues caused by COVID-19 indicate the importance of technology in curbing COVID-19. Also, the medical field has had to race against tie to develop and distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. This endeavour became successful with the vaccines created and approved in less than a year, a feat in medical history. Currently, much work is being done on data collection, where all significant factors impacting the disease are recorded. These factors include confirmed cases, death rates, vaccine rates, hospitalization data, and geographic regions affected by the pandemic. Continued research and use of technological resources are highly recommendable—the paper surveys list of packages, applications and datasets used to analyse COVID-19 © 2022, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications. All Rights Reserved.

Family Disruption and Parenting During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Using unique data from an economically and racially diverse sample of 448 caregivers with young children (ages 4-9 years) in Ohio, we assess multiple sources of family social and economic disruptions and their associations with parenting activities during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. Caregivers reported extensive social and economic challenges during this time, while also increasing (on average) their time spent in play/learning activities. Time spent in discipline was less likely to increase during this period. We found significant associations among disadvantaged social conditions/experiences and parenting, and that some effects were moderated by 2019 household income status. Unexpectedly, changes in economic conditions, particularly caregiver job loss, were associated with higher odds of increases in reading/telling stories time across household income groups. Overall, findings indicate that social conditions associated with the stay-at-home period of COVID-19 might have been more disruptive to parenting for caregivers with young children than the short-term economic changes.