Socio-economic Planning Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Women empowerment through self-help groups: A study of scheduled tribe communities in four districts of West Bengal, India","authors":"Purna Jana,&nbsp;Buddhadev De,&nbsp;Ramesh Chandra Das","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102616","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102616","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>It is a general view that women empowerment is an essential reagent for quality of life and socio-economic development, particularly in rural and tribal communities where gender led inequality continues. The present study investigates the roles of some socio-economic factors swaying empowerment among the women led Self-Help Group (SHG) members and non-members in four tribal-dominated districts of West Bengal, India, namely, Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, Purulia, and Bankura. For the purpose, primary survey data is collected from the districts and the Women Empowerment Index (WEI) is computed using the UNDP (2010, 2019) methodology. After that, the study analyses the derived WEI through descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and t-tests to compare between the SHGs and non-SHGs members. Then, multiple regression models are run to assess the impacts influencing factors such as age, education, family income and year of participation to the group. Findings demonstrate that education and family income are critical factors influencing women empowerment, augmenting decision-making abilities, autonomy, and involvement in home and community endeavours. Participation in SHGs enhances these outcomes, especially in Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, and Purulia, illustrating the significance of group-based interventions in promoting financial inclusion, social networking, and skill development. District-level analysis indicates variability: Paschim Medinipur and Purulia demonstrate robust positive correlations of empowerment with income and education, while Jhargram displays modest effects, and Bankura depicts minimal of such associations. To capture the district specific variability, the study finally pooled the data and the results of the pooled OLS with districts dummies and some interaction terms of the selected indicators demonstrate that education, income and participation to the group are significant along with the significant district dummies but the interaction effects are insignificant. These findings underscore the importance of SHGs in empowering the women, particularly from the backward sections of the society in rural India.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102616"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrated decision-making in sustainable closed-loop dual-channel food supply chains","authors":"Amir Hossein Kamali,&nbsp;Fariba Goodarzian,&nbsp;Fariborz Jolai,&nbsp;Ata Allah Taleizadeh","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102605","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102605","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasing adoption of dual sales channels and the growing emphasis on sustainability have made decision-making in food supply chains considerably more complex. In addition, the Food Standards Agency's authorization of simultaneous human food and animal feed production has created new opportunities for integrating food-waste recovery and circular-economy practices within food supply chains. Despite extensive research on dual-channel and sustainable supply chains, relatively little attention has been devoted to the simultaneous optimization of pricing, facility location, inventory control, routing, and food-waste recycling decisions within a closed-loop supply chain framework. To address this gap, this study develops a novel mixed-integer nonlinear programming model for a multi-product, multi-echelon, sustainable closed-loop dual-channel food supply chain. The proposed framework integrates strategic, tactical, and operational decisions while considering economic, environmental, and social sustainability objectives. This study contributes to the literature by jointly optimizing pricing, facility location, inventory control, routing, and food-waste recycling decisions while incorporating the conversion of food waste into raw materials for animal feed production. To solve large-scale instances, three hybrid multi-objective metaheuristic algorithms are developed by integrating NSGA-II with the Artificial Jellyfish Search (AJS), the Forensic-Based Investigation (FBI), and the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA). From a business-analytics perspective, the proposed framework functions as a prescriptive decision-support approach that converts supply chain data into coordinated strategic, tactical, and operational decisions and provides a foundation for integration with data-driven and AI-enabled analytics systems. Computational experiments demonstrate that AJS-NSGA-II outperforms the competing hybrid algorithms in four of the six evaluation metrics. Sensitivity analysis indicates that increasing direct-channel adoption from 28% to 36% enhances both economic and environmental performance, whereas a shift toward the indirect channel can reduce profit by up to 7.6%. Furthermore, increasing the food-waste recovery rate from 0.30 to 0.45 improves the economic objective by approximately 7.4%, while simultaneously enhancing environmental performance. These findings demonstrate the value of integrated decision-making and provide actionable guidance for supply chain managers regarding channel-management strategies, food-waste recovery investments, and sustainable network design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102605"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-run dynamics and cyclical patterns of R&D and innovation: evidence from Italy","authors":"Andrea Ciccarelli,&nbsp;Audrey De Dominicis,&nbsp;Greta Torquati","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102622","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102622","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the long-run relationship between research and development (R&amp;D) expenditure and patent-based innovative output in Italy, focusing on the role of institutional funding sources and territorial heterogeneity. Using a dataset considering Italian macro-areas (1995–2022) within a knowledge production function framework, we apply a Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, based on the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator, to estimate cointegrating relationships and short-run dynamics. The principal results show that business R&amp;D expenditure has a significant positive long-run association with patenting activity. Conversely, both government and higher education R&amp;D expenditures exhibit significant negative long-run coefficients, pointing to possible institutional misalignment and crowding-out effects. The medium-term cyclical analysis based on the Baxter-King filter indicates that higher education R&amp;D tends to display the highest positive co-movement with patenting activity across macro-areas (although this synchronization is statistically significant only in the North-West), consistent with a delayed, structural contribution rather than an immediate effect. The major conclusion is that the effectiveness of R&amp;D policies depends critically on institutional coordination, the timing of impacts, and regional characteristics. Policies should be redesigned to mitigate crowding-out by targeting early-stage research, recognize heterogeneous temporal dynamics, and account for territorial specificities to strengthen long-term innovation performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102622"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From adoption to empowerment: How artificial intelligence enhances firm productivity","authors":"Wantong Yang,&nbsp;Ning Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102619","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102619","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) adoption reshapes firm productivity and supports organizational and environmental transformation. Drawing upon a firm-level panel dataset covering Chinese publicly traded companies between 2003 and 2022, we develop a firm-level AI adoption indicator based on asset structure and apply a multi-dimensional fixed effects model with double machine learning to identify causal effects. Results show that AI significantly enhances total factor productivity (TFP), with stronger impacts in state-owned, high-technology, pollution- and capital-intensive firms, and in regions with weaker institutional environments. Mechanism analysis suggests that AI facilitates internal restructuring, supply chain optimization, and operational efficiency gains. Moreover, AI adoption is linked to nonlinear stock market responses and lower pollution intensity, revealing both financial and green spillovers. This study sheds light on the economic implications of AI adoption from a micro-level perspective and provides empirical foundations for understanding the organizational restructuring and performance feedback associated with digital transformation in firms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102619"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing corporate sustainability: A decision-oriented ESG composite indicator","authors":"Alessandro Magrini,&nbsp;Giulio Magnanensi,&nbsp;Elisa Fusco,&nbsp;Andrea Spertilli Raffaelli","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102618","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102618","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Existing composite indicators for the assessment of corporate sustainability suffer from methodological limitations in the selection of elementary indicators and the aggregation scheme, which reduce their usefulness for decision-making. This paper proposes a novel composite indicator based on ten hard elementary indicators covering the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillars for a seven-year panel of 153 firms worldwide, aggregated using the Multi-Directional Benefit-of-the-Doubt (MDBoD) model. Through this approach, each firm receives not only an overall score, but also disaggregated scores at the pillar and indicator levels, which reflect the firm’s potential improvement relative to best-performing peers. The proposed composite indicator is therefore decision-oriented, as these scores allow managers and investors to determine which ESG dimensions should be prioritized. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in ESG improvement priorities across peer groups, with the governance pillar emerging as the main priority in the manufacturing and construction, energy and resources, and finance groups, whereas the environmental pillar is the primary priority in the services and logistics group. Moreover, four performance profiles are identified based on ESG levels and trends: high-performing, emerging, declining, and low-performing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102618"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149200149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Thematic analysis of post-disaster urban recovery processes through social media discourse: The case of Antakya's Revitalization","authors":"Neslihan Topcu,&nbsp;Serhat Basdogan","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102617","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102617","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Post-disaster urban recovery processes generate intense public debate in digital environments, yet systematic analysis of how governance legitimacy is discursively constructed and contested on social media remains limited. This research was conducted in the context of the Antakya Revitalization Project following the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquakes of 6 February 2023. It aims to thematically examine the digitally articulated discourse patterns produced in user-generated content on YouTube, Twitter/X, and Instagram in relation to post-disaster urban design and recovery governance. The research covers the period from April 2023 to June 2025, allowing observation of discursive evolution from the early intervention stage through the implementation phase. Data were analyzed using a thematic analysis framework grounded in the digital public sphere tradition. Qualitative coding was supplemented by descriptive frequency and chi-square analyses to enhance the validity and reliability of the findings. The analysis reveals that participation, inclusivity, and transparency constitute the dominant thematic clusters in online discourse, with recurring narrative demands for active involvement in decision-making and recognition of local needs. A platform-comparative reading further indicates that discursive registers differ across platforms: YouTube comment threads exhibit more sustained evaluative narratives oriented toward governance and implementation; Instagram discourse is more densely anchored in cultural identity and aesthetic evaluations; and Twitter/X yields more condensed, agenda-setting articulations. The research is limited by its focus on an ongoing recovery process and by the structural unevenness of digital voice. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that bottom-up narratives are discursively forceful within the online debate surrounding Antakya's reconstruction. The research demonstrates the analytical value of thematic social media discourse analysis as an early legitimacy-monitoring and feedback mechanism within post-disaster socio-economic planning systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102617"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Governing sustainability: Board characteristics and ESG performance in state-owned enterprises","authors":"Paolo Agnese,&nbsp;Francesca Romana Arduino,&nbsp;Sergio Hoffmann","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102615","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102615","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores whether selected board characteristics affect environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance by analyzing a global sample of listed State-owned enterprises (SOEs) from 2013 to 2024. Using a two-way fixed effects (FE) model, our findings indicate that greater board independence, board gender diversity, and the presence of a CSR Sustainability committee are associated with higher ESG outcomes. The research has significant implications for companies, policymakers, and regulators. It contributes to the literature by showing that, even in entities owned or controlled by the government or any governmental body, board characteristics play a key role in shaping corporate sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102615"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the link between religion and subjective well-being in Europe. Are education and innovation the third wheel?","authors":"Luigi Aldieri,&nbsp;Giuseppina Autiero,&nbsp;Luca Esposito","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102620","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102620","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper empirically explores the relationship between religious beliefs, happiness and life satisfaction in Europe, considering the role of education. We use the European Values Study 2017, which includes Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern European countries and countries at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. The analysis is extended to innovation contexts. An instrumental variable approach is employed to address endogeneity in religious variables. The findings reveal that the importance of God is positively correlated to life satisfaction and negatively to happiness but the sign shifts to positive when religious beliefs are endogenous. Religious attendance is positively linked to happiness and life satisfaction. Education appears to have no bearing on how religiosity and SWB are related.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102620"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A composite indicator for assessing regional and temporal disparities in the quality of education in Spain (2012–2022)","authors":"Virgilio Pérez,&nbsp;Cristina Aybar,&nbsp;Jose M. Pavía","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102624","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102624","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Education is fundamental in the long-term development of economies and societies, serving as a key driver of economic growth, social stability, and innovation. Accurately measuring its multiple dimensions is essential for evaluating the quality of educational systems across time and space. Grounded in human capital, lifelong-learning, capability/equity, and public value theories, and after scrutinising over one hundred indicators, this study develops a new composite index for Spanish regions (2012–2022) based on nine indicators, complementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Quality-of-Life Indicators (QLIs). Using the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto Index (AMPI), the analysis reveals overall improvements in Spain's educational system, though with significant regional disparities. The northern regions, led by the Basque Country, achieve the highest scores, while Murcia and Andalusia rank lowest. Public spending strongly correlates with educational quality, underscoring the need for investment. However, persistent regional inequalities suggest other structural factors or local policies also play a role. By proposing a robust measure, this research lays the groundwork for future studies exploring how exogenous variables and investment interact to influence educational equity and effectiveness.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102624"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149159576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robust optimization for bioethanol supply chain networks: Balancing sustainability, resilience, and responsiveness","authors":"Seyed Vahid Ahmadi,&nbsp;Seyed Hossein Iranmanesh,&nbsp;Aliyeh Kazemi","doi":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102565","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.seps.2026.102565","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rising global demand for sustainable energy has increased attention on bioethanol as a renewable resource. This study presents a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model to design and optimize a sustainable, resilient, and responsive bioethanol supply chain network. The model supports strategic and tactical decision-making, including supplier selection, facility location, capacity expansion, production planning, and distribution flows. To account for uncertainties in supply chain parameters, a multi-objective robust interval stochastic possibilistic programming approach is introduced. Additionally, a modified meta-goal programming method, based on the Torabi–Hassini approach, is used to improve computational efficiency. The framework's effectiveness is demonstrated through a real-world case study, with results indicating that the proposed approach outperforms deterministic and multi-choice models across various performance metrics. The findings affirm that robust optimization techniques can effectively manage uncertainties in bioethanol supply chains. This research contributes to the literature by integrating sustainability, resilience, and responsiveness into a comprehensive optimization framework, thereby enhancing decision-making under uncertainty and more effectively capturing the complexities of real-world problems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":22033,"journal":{"name":"Socio-economic Planning Sciences","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102565"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148634955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}