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The purpose of this paper is to review policy or guidance on the implementation of Section 5(4) written by NHS mental health trusts in England and health boards in Wales.

A Freedom of Information request was submitted to all trusts in England (n=57) and health boards in Wales (n=7) asking them to provide a copy of any policy or guidance on the implementation of Section 5(4). Documents were analysed using content analysis. Specific attention was given to any deviations from the national Mental Health Act Codes of Practice.

In total, 41 (67.2 per cent) organisations had a policy on the implementation of Section 5(4). There was a high level of consistency between local guidance and the Mental Health Act Codes of Practice. There were however; different interpretations of the guidance and errors that could lead to misuse of the section. Some policies contained useful guidance that could be adopted by future versions of the national Codes of Practice.

The research has demonstrated the value of examining the relationship between national and local guidance. Further research should be undertaken on the frequency and reasons for any reuse of the section.

Greater attention should be given to considering the necessity of local policy, given the existence of national Codes of Practice.

This is the only research examining the policy framework for the implementation of Section 5(4).

The present study aims to construct and compare Composite Environmental Sustainability Index (CESI) for 20 emerging countries for the period 1990–2020.

The study constructs CESI using the principal component analysis (PCA). Furthermore, for the preparation of index weights, varimax rotation is used to get component loadings.

The study finds that the overall CESI values lies between 2 and 4.8 for the 20 emerging countries considered in the study. This study depicts a diverse picture of environmental sustainability among emerging countries. The study also shows the trend of CESI values from 1990 to 2020. The bottom three countries whose CESI is very low compared to others are Iran, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. However, Brazil, Columbia and Chile are top three highest scorers in 2020.

The study contributes to the literature by constructing a composite index comprising of three sub-indices to measure the environmental sustainability of an economy. These sub-indices include seven indicators that are more inclusive and comprehensive. To the authors' knowledge, this is a pioneering attempt in the construction of the index for emerging countries.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which the cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism matters for international differences in climate change policy performance. This study postulates that individualistic societies, relative to their collectivistic counterparts, are more likely to address global climate change.

The main hypothesis is tested using data for a world sample of up to 92 countries. To achieve causal inference, this study isolates exogenous sources of variation in individualistic cultures, based on blood distance to the UK and historical pathogen prevalence.

The core results suggest that individualistic countries are characterized by greater climate change policy performance. This study also finds evidence that individualism affects climate change policy adoption through enhancing governance and female political representation. Subnational analyses based on data from the World Values Survey indicate that survey participants with an orientation toward individualism tend to self-report positive attitudes to pro-environmental policies.

The main findings help improve the understanding of the deep origins of climate change policy performance, which is relevant for formulating policies that help mitigate the consequences of changing climate conditions.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study to link cultural traits of individualism and climate change policy performance across countries.

To investigate whether CO₂ intensity falls at a diminishing rate as countries grow richer.

Regression of CO₂ intensity on the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, including squared and cubic terms, for a panel of countries and individual countries.

CO₂ intensity falls at a diminishing rate as countries grow richer.

Many studies have found that CO₂ intensity falls with GDP per capita, but whether it does so at a diminishing rate has not been investigated. This result suggests that structural changes in GDP (more services) as countries get richer will provide little or no help toward decarbonization. It is shown that the extraction of minerals critical for industrial production has increased on par with real GDP. This could explain why CO₂ emissions fall at a diminishing rate.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, for the first time, the relationship between the prices of rare earth materials and economic growth. Renewable technologies and many high-demanded technologies need significant supplies of such materials.

The paper uses a panel of the six most significant rare earth producers around the globe, as well as certain panel methodologies.

The empirical analysis indicates the presence of a positive impact of such minerals prices on economic growth. Causality methodologies also indicate unidirectional causality between GDP and the prices of rare earth materials, with the causality running from these prices to economic growth. The findings survive a number of robustness checks.

The claim that natural resources are a curse that makes the countries worse off is not supported for the case of rare earth materials. The results are expected to be of high importance, because these particular rare earth materials are extensively used in a huge list of technological products with high demand and low costs, while they are hard to be replaced.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of corruption on the environmental quality in Tunisia. Indeed, the post-revolution period is characterized by a remarkable increase in the rates of corruption.

The direct and indirect effects of control corruption on economic growth and CO₂ emissions in Tunisia have been examined using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration framework among corruption, growth and CO₂ emissions.

Results substantiate a positive and significant relationship between control of corruption and economic growth, a negative and significant relationship between control of corruption and environmental quality (CO₂) and a negative and significant relationship between control of corruption and energy consumption. The findings suggest that while the control of corruption contributes to economic growth, its positive effect could be transposed indirectly via its impacts on environmental quality.

A strategy against corruption will reduce CO₂ emissions; however, its positive effect on economic growth indirectly contributes to reverse this relationship.

Natural disasters can undermine decades of development and threaten hundreds of lives. Previous research studies highlighted that natural disasters can cripple economic growth of one or many countries. The purpose of this paper is to ask the usefulness of natural disasters governance for macroeconomic performance and countries’ resilience. For that, this research emphasizes on the effects of natural disasters economic damages on the macroeconomic performance.

The used technique is the unbalanced panel data model which allows testing a big cross-section of population despite when one temporal observation for an individual is unavailable. The methodology focuses on testing the effect of natural disasters’ economic damages upon the main macroeconomic aggregates. For the study relevance, various tests were carried out by taking into account the different levels of development. So, two groups have been studied: developing countries (LDCs group) and developed countries (DCs group).

Findings point up that the effects of natural disasters’ economic damages differ from aggregate to another. In spite of the differences according to the development levels, effects are more serious for developing countries.

The originality of paper is justified by the lack of empirical studies that have questioned the links between natural disasters, macroeconomic performance and countries’ resilience. Furthermore, this study can be distinguished by the analysis of the effects for various aggregates at once and, in the same time, by allowing the comparison of these impacts by level of development.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of floods and the role of financial development on per capita gross state domestic product (GSDP) growth, controlling for growth-enhancing factors across Indian states.

The paper uses the pooled mean group (PMG) method using state-level panel data for 19 Indian states over the period 1981-2011.

The PMG estimate shows that floods negatively affect the per capita GSDP growth in the long run. The results show that the mean of economic losses, the population affected and the area affected by floods increase by 10 per cent, leading to a decline in per capita GSDP growth by 0.0303, 0.0633 and 0.0232 per cent, respectively, in the long run. Furthermore, the population affected by floods exerts a higher adverse impact on the per capita GSDP growth compared to other flood measures. The results further show that states with better financial development experience a higher per capita GSDP growth, supported by additional capital expenditure, enrolment in higher education, better road infrastructure and higher urbanization. The crime rate is negatively correlated with per capita GSDP growth.

The results based on PMG estimates suggest that not only floods but also crime activities adversely affect the per capita GSDP growth across Indian states. Better financial market increases the per capita GSDP growth in the long run. This study not only contributes to empirical growth literature but also provides some useful policy suggestions. Moreover, the results lead to the conclusion that long-term flood management policies are essential to mitigate the adverse impact of floods on per capita GSDP growth across Indian states.

Waste management is a crucial aspect of sustainable development, but is it economically sustainable for marginalized informal firms? The study tries to answer this question by revisiting the Porter–Wagner dilemma about the association between environmental management (EM) and firm performance (FP). The study looks into the various liquid waste management practices (LWMPs) adopted by them and the overall impact of LWMPs on firms' economic performance.

The study uses the latest available cross-sectional data source on Indian informal firms by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), 73rd survey round 2015–16. First, ordered logistic regression was used to analyse the factors that impact a firm's adoption of a particular LWMP. Subsequently, to capture the heterogeneity among the firms based on productivity and size, a quantile regression (QR) was employed to analyse the impact of LWMPs on firm productivity. Additionally, the propensity score matching technique was used to address endogeneity concerns.

The authors find that bigger, urban-located and female-owned firms adopt cleaner LWMPs that positively impact their economic performance. Furthermore, the QR analysis observed that the most productive firms could extract higher returns from adopting cleaner LWMPs, indicating the relevance of the Porter–Wagner dilemma, i.e. environmental and economic sustainability are possibly symbiotic, thus having a feedback mechanism.

To the authors’ limited knowledge, this is the first study analysing the relationship between EM and FP among the informal sector firms, which are away from any regulations or obligations. Since sustainability is a two-way process, policies should be devised that incentivise sustainable business practices.

The modernization of the agro-based industry has encouraged the application of inorganic fertilizers to increase productivity. However, such fertilizer emissions may pose harmful environmental effects in the long run. This study aims to empirically explore the matter by applying the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the Indian agro-based industry.

The study builds two models considering nitrous oxide emission levels from inorganic (synthetic) and organic (manure) fertilizers to evaluate the safer option for the environment. The validity of an industry-specific EKC (IEKC) is tested for the models considering time series data from 1975 to 2019. Here, the autoregressive distributed lag model is applied for the 45 years long time series analysis to test the hypothesis with respect to inorganic and organic fertilizers emissions.

The existence of the IEKC is rejected by the inorganic fertilizer emissions model. Its U-shaped curve implies that applying such fertilizers will gradually cause degrading environmental effects. On the other hand, the organic fertilizer emissions model supports the existence of an inverted U-shaped IEKC. It proves that organic fertilizers are a better choice for safeguarding the environment in the long run.

Applying the EKC hypothesis on an industrial level can signify whether an industry worsens the environment in the long run. However, very few studies have explored such an application of the hypothesis in the past. Moreover, the literature could not find any previous study exploring the environmental effects of inorganic and organic fertilizers by analyzing the EKC hypothesis. The hypothesis can offer such insights with simplified empirical assessment.