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Single-use plastic bags given to shoppers by retailers have increasingly become a key target for sustainability initiatives, with bans being introduced around the world. The rationale for such bans is based on the environmental impact of single-use bags, compared to their multi-use alternatives. The arguments for bans are underpinned by assumptions about how consumers will respond to the changes, yet do not account for the known patterns of buyer and consumer behaviour from the social sciences. This lessens the delivery of desired outcomes and hampers implementation strategies. This chapter draws upon this established knowledge to demonstrate how such marketing knowledge of fundamental buyer and consumer behaviour is critical when developing and implementing a public policy programme, using the example of a retail ban on the use of single-use plastic bags in Australia. It illustrates how these known patterns hold in this context and shows how social marketing can be used to help shape programme implementation and uptake and the reinforcement of new positive behaviours.

Recent changes in smoking laws have influenced gambling behaviour at electronic gaming machine (EGM) venues. In this chapter, we review the literature that examines the interrelationship between gambling, problem gambling, and smoking in order to gauge the indirect effects of smoking bans in gaming venues. We then perform an analysis on the consequences of a smoking ban in Victoria, Australia, that was instituted on 1st September 2002. This analysis investigates the nature of the pattern of drops in local EGM revenue and the impact on the state tax revenue.

We investigate the positive and normative consequences of child-labor restrictions for economic aggregates and welfare. We argue that even though the laissez-faire outcome may be inefficient, there are usually better policies to cure these inefficiencies than the imposition of a child-labor ban. Given this finding, we investigate the potential political-economic reasons behind the emergence and persistence of child-labor legislation. Our investigation is based on a structural dynamic general equilibrium model that provides a coherent and uniform framework for our analysis.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump ran for office promising a ‘total and complete shutdown’ of Muslims entering the United States. This essay, based on policy research, data analysis and interviews, provides extensive details of what became of that promise from legal, social and humanistic perspectives. Issued during his first week in office as US President, the ‘Muslim Ban’ Executive Order immediately produced chaos at airports globally, as US visas and ‘green cards’ suddenly became invalid for entry to the United States for persons travelling on the passports of seven Muslim majority countries. Over time, the Trump administration amended the Muslim Ban through new executive orders and proclamations that removed unlawful components, changed the countries affected, or altered the policy's justification. Although all these iterations faced legal challenges, a majority of the US Supreme Court ultimately acquiesced to President Trump and ruled in favour of the ban's legality. Throughout this period, the US immigration process rattled on like a machine, encouraging would-be (but banned) migrants to continue pursuing their paperwork and paying their fees, even though entry visas would prove unavailable. Waivers for family reunification were overwhelmingly denied at the consular level, and tens of thousands of otherwise eligible migrants lost substantial amounts of money in pursuit of the elusive visa. Protests erupted at US airports when the ban was initially implemented, revealing a political solidarity with Muslims rarely seen before. These events ended when enforcement of the ban was moved to remote locations, to US consulates abroad.

Welfare reform banned newly arrived immigrants who came to the US after 1996 from receiving federally funded benefits for five years. One assessment of the success of the five-year ban is the effect it has on behaviors that determine economic success and the likelihood of becoming a public charge. In this chapter, we investigate the effect of the five-year ban on the employment, hours of work, and wages of low-income women. Our results indicate that welfare reform in general caused a significant increase in the employment of low-educated, unmarried mothers regardless of citizenship. Among non-citizens, welfare reform was associated with a 10 percentage point (26%) increase in employment, a two-hour (15%) increase in hours worked per week, and a 10 percent decrease in wages. Surprisingly, we find little evidence that the five-year ban had any additional effect on the employment, hours of work, and wages of low-educated and unmarried, non-citizen mothers.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of banning cryptocurrencies on stock markets.

The paper uses an event study approach and data from stock market indices in nine countries that imposed a ban. It uses the constant mean model and the market model, with two different benchmarks for global returns, to analyze if any of the stock indices show abnormal returns on or around the announcement of a cryptocurrency ban.

The analysis shows that banning cryptocurrencies did not affect the returns of stock markets in any of the countries studied, indicating that the cryptocurrency market and stock markets are decoupled from each other, or the ban was not effectively implemented.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the potential spillover effect of a cryptocurrency ban on stock markets. It also bridges two strands of literature: the relationship between cryptocurrencies and traditional assets, and the impact of cryptocurrency regulation on their returns.

Patron banning is widely used in response to disorderly behaviours in/around licensed venues, but there has been limited analysis of specific policies. This paper explores key findings in relation to police-imposed barring notices in Western Australia (WA).

WA Police provided de-identified data for 4,023 barring notices imposed between 2011 and 2020 and offender records for each recipient, to 30 June 2020. The data were analysed to identify patterns and trends in relation to ban length, recipient type and associated offending.

Mean ban lengths increased across the period (from 4.46 months in 2015 to 6.82 months in 2019). Longer initial bans (of 6–12 months) were associated with a lower likelihood of a subsequent ban – with each additional month associated with an 11.4% increase in the likelihood of not receiving a second ban. Across the dataset, some notable anomalies were identified for individuals categorised as prolific offenders.

Research examining the effects of patron banning is limited but, to date, has generally not supported presumptions of improved patron behaviour. WA adopts an individualised approach to barring notice lengths, following review of the incident and offender. The findings suggest that, while barring policy is appropriate, a number of operational refinements can help WA Police to optimise their behavioural effect/s.

Despite overall reductions in levels of smoking in the UK, rates of offender smoking remain high. In 2016, it was announced that prisons in England and Wales would gradually introduce a smoking ban. The purpose of this paper is to explore offenders’ perceptions around the upcoming smoking ban.

A total of eight focus groups were conducted in four prisons across the North of England. Both smoking and non-smoking offenders participated in the focus groups, and thematic analysis was used to explore the findings.

Themes generated from the data were “freedom and rights”, “the prison environment” and “guiding support”. Participants discussed how the smoking ban was viewed as a punishment and restricted their freedom, with perceptions as to why the ban was being implemented centring around others trying to control them. Participants expressed concerns around the financial implications of the smoking ban on already stretched prison resources. Participants also recommended improving the nicotine replacement therapy on offer, and increasing the range of leisure activities within the prison to prepare for the smoking ban.

Overall, it was apparent that participants’ awareness of the smoking ban was generally poor. It is recommended that offenders need to be made more aware of the smoking cessation support they will receive and given the opportunity to ask questions about the smoking ban. Increasing offenders’ awareness of the ban may reduce stress associated with a perceived lack of choice around their smoking behaviours.

Concern about the equity gap in the UK has existed for more than 60 years. Despite various government measures and institutional responses (e.g. the development of a venture capital industry) an equity gap still persists. Current debate has recognized the role of the informal venture capital market as a source of risk capital for SMEs. Argues that this market is both inefficient and underdeveloped, due largely to information deficiencies which hinder contact between potential investors and entrepreneurs seeking finance. Against this background, identifies the role of business angel networks (BANs) as a key means of stimulating the flow of informational venture capital in the UK. In particular, a government scheme to provide pump‐priming assistance to establish five local BAN demonstration projects is shown to have achieved impressive results. However, with the recent emergence of a number of private sector BANs, the continued role of government is now being questioned. Further demonstrates that public sector BANs, operating on a local scale, are filling a different market niche from that of private sector BANs, which operate predominantly on a national scale. Concludes that the top priority for policy is to ensure that all parts of the UK are served by local BANs. An appropriate way forward might be to build on experimental networking arrangements between local, public sector BANs and national, privately operated BANs.