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This special issue advances a multi-scalar, empirically grounded understanding of circular bioeconomy transitions in agriculture and food systems by integrating systems-level analyses with farm- and household-level evidence from diverse developing and emerging economies. The key findings include (1) circular bioeconomy research in agrifood systems in Australia and New Zealand is rapidly expanding but highly fragmented, dominated by technical perspectives with inconsistent definitions and limited social science engagement, with Australia emphasising technological recycling and New Zealand focussing more on ecological and social redesign; (2) there is a substantial untapped potential to integrate land, marine, forest and water resources into Indonesia's circular bioeconomy through converting diverse biomass residues into bio-based products, but scaling is constrained by limited technical capacity, infrastructure gaps, policy fragmentation and high investment costs; (3) there exists pronounced heterogeneity in circular bioeconomy readiness, with most southeast Asian countries facing high agrifood emissions and low material-use efficiency, while performance advantages in innovation and efficiency are concentrated in a few economies; (4) technical skill gaps and awareness deficits are the primary, system-shaping constraints on crop-residue bioenergy adoption, with spillover effects that hinder infrastructure, markets and coordination in the circular bioeconomy; (5) adoption of integrated crop-livestock systems increases bio-fertiliser use, reduces chemical fertiliser expenditure among younger farmers and raises farm revenue without increasing costs, demonstrating the economic and environmental viability of farm-level circular bioeconomy practices; and (6) composting spent mushroom substrate delivers the highest productivity gains compared with on-farm deposition and distant dumping, with farmers' management choices shaped by education, extension access, infrastructure quality and mobility. These findings highlight that policies should standardise circular bioeconomy definitions and metrics, invest in farmer knowledge and extension as first-order enablers and coordinate cross-sector infrastructure and governance to unlock scale.
Three key drivers of savings are life-cycle, precautionary, and bequest motives. What is their relative quantitative importance? We revisit this question focusing on the role of preferences and institutions. We address the challenge of disentangling the effects of different saving motives on one's decisions by considering many aspects of people's behavior both before and after retirement. We illustrate why this approach is informative about the underlying preference parameters, and hence allows us to uncover the relative strength of different motives. Our decomposition exercises reveal that the bequest motive is the key driver of savings starting from middle-age and long before retirement. We also find that the life-cycle motive and the precautionary motive due to medical expense shocks play a minor role. The former result is due to the crowding out effect of Social Security. The latter is due to the combined effect of health insurance and the means-tested transfers.
The risks that firms have to face are the micro sources of macroeconomic fluctuations, and stabilizing the economy has become a top priority for most nations in recent years. This paper investigates the impact of intelligent transformation in industrial production on firm-level risks in China. Using robot data from IFR and firm-level data from 2011 to 2020, our analysis reveals that the intelligent transformation in industrial production, proxied by robot application significantly reduces the risks that firms have to take. This finding holds in robustness checks, involving alternative measures, and different fixed effects specifications. Regarding the underlying channel, eased financing constraints, enhanced internal management and stronger pricing power are three significant mechanisms. Additionally, the risk suppression effect of robot application is more pronounced among firms with lower market bargaining power and risk-averse firms.
Youth unemployment is a major political issue in many countries, including Sri Lanka, where unemployment among young is pervasive. Vocational education and training (VET) has been identified as an effective solution to match between the labor demand and supply. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design (FRDD), we examine the effectiveness of VET on youth employment in Sri Lanka. We find that VET improves short-term employment outcomes, but has limited impacts on permanent contracts, career advancement, and wage progression. The economic crisis further exacerbated employment insecurity, leading to a higher job turnover and shift toward self-employment. The heterogeneity analysis across VET courses reveals that those impacts are not uniform, and graduates in selected courses tend to gain more. Our findings underscore the importance of stronger industry linkages, enhanced job security measures, and tailored VET curricula to ensure sustained labor market integration and long-term career progression for vocational graduates in Sri Lanka.
Fluvial morphodynamics-the interaction between water flow, sediment transport, and channel morphology-is a central concern in sustainable river management. However, the long-term effects of flood diversion remain underexplored. This study investigated the decadal-scale morphodynamic responses of the lower Kano River in Japan following the construction of a flood diversion channel in 1965. Using 60 years of cross-sectional and grain-size data, we divided the lower Kano River into four reaches with contrasting characteristics of morphological change. In the 5.4 km reach immediately downstream of the diversion point, we observed more than 1 m of bed incision and a gradual reduction in bankfull discharge. Further downstream, in the subsequent 6.2 km reach, no substantial decrease in bankfull discharge was observed. To interpret these responses, we applied a one-dimensional numerical model and evaluated its ability to reproduce the observed changes. The model reproduced the grain-size responses when using adjusted sediment-supply settings; however, it could not reproduce the bed degradation observed in the 5.4 km reach immediately downstream of the diversion point. The best agreement was obtained when the channel width was reduced to 60% of the observed bankfull width, indicating that a narrower hydraulically effective width governs sediment transport under reduced floods. These findings suggested that the relationship between flood discharge and channel morphology is governed by mechanisms that vary with bed material and channel gradient. The study underscored the importance of incorporating sediment connectivity and reach-specific geomorphic processes into flood management strategies to adapt to unintended morphological changes.
