̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Shaun Larcom

Religious people coped better with Covid-19 pandemic, research suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 09:21:15 +0000

People of religious faith may have experienced lower levels of unhappiness and stress than secular people during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, according to a new ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge study released as a working paper.

̽��ֱ��findings follow recently published Cambridge-led research suggesting that worsening mental health after experiencing Covid infection – either personally or in those close to you – was also somewhat ameliorated by religious belief. This study looked at the US population during early 2021.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge economists argue that – taken together – these studies show that religion may act as a bulwark against increased distress and reduced wellbeing during times of crisis, such as a global public health emergency.

“Selection biases make the wellbeing effects of religion difficult to study,” said Prof Shaun Larcom from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy, and co-author of the latest study. “People may become religious due to family backgrounds, innate traits, or to cope with new or existing struggles.”

“However, the Covid-19 pandemic was an extraordinary event affecting everyone at around the same time, so we could gauge the impact of a negative shock to wellbeing right across society. This provided a unique opportunity to measure whether religion was important for how some people deal with a crisis.”

Larcom and his Cambridge colleagues Prof Sriya Iyer and Dr Po-Wen She analysed survey data collected from 3,884 people in the UK during the first two national lockdowns, and compared it to three waves of data prior to the pandemic.

They found that while lockdowns were associated with a universal uptick in unhappiness, the average increase in feeling miserable was 29% lower for people who described themselves as belonging to a religion.*

̽��ֱ��researchers also analysed the data by “religiosity”: the extent of an individual’s commitment to religious beliefs, and how central it is to their life. Those for whom religion makes “some or a great difference” in their lives experienced around half the increase in unhappiness seen in those for whom religion makes little or no difference.**

“ ̽��ֱ��study suggests that it is not just being religious, but the intensity of religiosity that is important when coping with a crisis,” said Larcom.

Those self-identifying as religious in the UK are more likely to have certain characteristics, such as being older and female. ̽��ֱ��research team “controlled” for these statistically to try and isolate the effects caused by faith alone, and still found that the probability of religious people having an increase in depression was around 20% lower than non-religious people.

There was little overall difference between Christians, Muslims and Hindus – followers of the three biggest religions in the UK. However, the team did find that wellbeing among some religious groups appeared to suffer more than others when places of worship were closed during the first lockdown.

“ ̽��ֱ��denial of weekly communal attendance appears to have been particularly affecting for Catholics and Muslims,” said Larcom.

For the earlier study, authored by Prof Sriya Iyer, along with colleagues Kishen Shastry, Girish Bahal and Anand Shrivastava from Australia and India, researchers used online surveys to investigate Covid-19 infections among respondents or their immediate family and friends, as well as religious beliefs, and mental health.

̽��ֱ��study was conducted during February and March 2021, and involved 5,178 people right across the United States, with findings published in the journal European Economic Review in November 2023.

Researchers found that almost half those who reported a Covid-19 infection either in themselves or their immediate social network experienced an associated reduction in wellbeing.

Where mental health declined, it was around 60% worse on average for the non-religious compared to people of faith with typical levels of “religiosity”.***

Interestingly, the positive effects of religion were not found in areas with strictest lockdowns, suggesting access to places of worship might be even more important in a US context. ̽��ֱ��study also found significant uptake of online religious services, and a 40% lower association between Covid-19 and mental health for those who used them.****

“Religious beliefs may be used by some as psychological resources that can shore up self-esteem and add coping skills, combined with practices that provide social support,” said Prof Iyer, from Cambridge’s Faculty of Economics.

“ ̽��ֱ��pandemic presented an opportunity to glean further evidence of this in both the United Kingdom and the United States, two nations characterised by enormous religious diversity.”

Added Larcom: “These studies show a relationship between religion and lower levels of distress during a global crisis. It may be that religious faith builds resilience, and helps people cope with adversity by providing hope, consolation and meaning in tumultuous times.”

Two Cambridge-led studies suggest that the psychological distress caused by lockdowns (UK) and experience of infection (US) was reduced among those of faith compared to non-religious people.

Getty/Luis Alvarez

People in church praying with covid-19 restrictions

Notes

* ̽��ֱ��increase in the mean measure for unhappiness was 6.1 percent for people who do not identify with a religion during the lockdown, compared to an increase of 4.3 percent for those who do belong to a religion – a difference of 29%.

**For those that religion makes little or no difference, the increase was 6.3 percent. For those for whom religion makes some or a great difference, the increase was around half that, at 3 percent and 3.5 percent respectively.

*** This was after controlling for various demographic and environmental traits, including age, race, income, and average mental health rates prior to the pandemic.

**** ̽��ֱ��interpretation is from Column 1 of Table 5: Determinants of mental health, online access to religion. Where the coefficients of Covid {Not accessed online service} is 2.265 and Covid {Accessed online service} is 1.344. Hence the difference is 2.265-1.344 = 0.921 which is 40% of 2.265.

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Catholic Church can curb carbon emissions by returning to meat-free Fridays

fpjl2 — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 09:58:57 +0000

In 2011, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales called on congregations to return to foregoing meat on Fridays. Only around a quarter of Catholics changed their dietary habits – yet this still saved over 55,000 tonnes of carbon a year, according to a new study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Researchers say that, in terms of CO2 emissions, this is equivalent to 82,000 fewer people taking a return trip from London to New York over the course of a year.

̽��ֱ��current Catholic leader, Pope Francis, has called for “radical” responses to climate change. ̽��ֱ��researchers argue that if the Pope reinstated meatless Fridays across the global church, it could mitigate millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases annually.

For example, they say that if Catholic bishops in the United States alone issued an 'obligation' to resist meat on the last day of the working week, environmental benefits would likely be twenty times larger than in the UK.

“ ̽��ֱ��Catholic Church is very well placed to help mitigate climate change, with more than one billion followers around the world,” said lead author Professor Shaun Larcom from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy.

“Pope Francis has already highlighted the moral imperative for action on the climate emergency, and the important role of civil society in achieving sustainability through lifestyle change.

“Meat agriculture is one of the major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. If the Pope was to reinstate the obligation for meatless Fridays to all Catholics globally, it could be a major source of low-cost emissions reductions,” Larcom said. “Even if only a minority of Catholics choose to comply, as we find in our case study.”

Traditionally, the practice of refraining from meat one day a week saw many Catholics – and indeed large sections of the population in predominantly Christian countries – turn to fish on Fridays as a protein substitute.

̽��ֱ��overall Catholic share of the British population has remained largely stable for decades at just under 10%, say economists behind the study, published as a working paper awaiting peer-review on the Social Science Research Network.

Larcom and colleagues combined new survey data with that from diet and social studies to quantify the effects of a statement issued by the Catholic Church for England and Wales re-establishing meat-free Fridays as a collective act of penance from September 2011 onwards after a 26-year hiatus.

Commissioned survey results suggest that 28% of Catholics in England and Wales adjusted their Friday diet following this announcement. Of this segment, 41% stated that they stopped eating meat on Friday, and 55% said they tried to eat less meat on that day. For those who said they just reduced consumption, the researchers assumed a halving of meat intake on a Friday.*

People in England and Wales eat an average of 100 grams of meat a day, according to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). Researchers calculated that even the small reduction in meat intake by a section of the Catholic population was equal to each working adult across the whole of England and Wales cutting two grams of meat a week out of their diet.

̽��ֱ��team then calculated the carbon footprint for this tiny fall in meat consumption by comparing emissions generated from average daily diets of meat eaters and non-meat eaters in England and Wales. ̽��ֱ��average high protein non-meat diet, including foods such as fish and cheese, contributes just a third of the greenhouse gas emissions per kilo compared to the average meat eater.

Assuming the Catholics who did adapt their diet switched to high protein non-meat meals on Fridays, this equates to approximately 875,000 fewer meat meals a week, which saves 1,070 tonnes of carbon – or 55,000 tonnes over a year, according to researchers.

In addition to their central calculation, the researchers used a natural experiment approach across the United Kingdom to compare meat consumption in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where Catholic bishops did not attempt to reintroduce meatless Fridays, with that in England and Wales from 2009 to 2019.

Using NDNS diet diary data the team pinpointed mealtime changes on Fridays only, and found meat consumption fell by around eight grams per person in the 'treatment jurisdiction' of England and Wales following the re-establishment of the Catholic obligation, compared to the rest of the UK.

There could be many reasons for this dietary shift – meat intake has fallen across the country over this time – but the team argue the reduction at least partly resulted from the return of meatless Fridays. As such, they say that the carbon footprint calculations using a two-gram per week drop are likely to be conservative.

Researchers also tested for 'religious impacts' using longitudinal survey data that questioned UK Catholics on their religious lives. No discernible effect on either church attendance or strength of personal religious belief was detected over the period in which meat-free Fridays were reintroduced.

“Our results highlight how a change in diet among a group of people, even if they are a minority in society, can have very large consumption and sustainability implications,” said co-author Dr Po-Wen She, a fellow of Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy.

Co-author Dr Luca Panzone from Newcastle ̽��ֱ�� added: “While our study looked at a change in practice among Catholics, many religions have dietary proscriptions that are likely to have large natural resource impacts. Other religious leaders could also drive changes in behaviour to further encourage sustainability and mitigate climate change.”

For Christians, the practice of meat-free Fridays dates back to at least Pope Nicholas I’s declaration in the 9th century. Catholics were required to abstain from eating meat ('flesh, blood, or marrow') on Fridays in memory of Christ’s death and crucifixion.

However, fish and vegetables, along with crabs, turtles and even frogs, were permitted. ̽��ֱ��researchers point out that the practice was observed so fervently among some American Catholics that it led to the invention of the Filet-o-Fish meal by the burger chain McDonald’s.

Even a small dietary change by a minority of UK Catholics had significant environmental benefits, say researchers, who argue that a papal decree reinstating meatless Fridays across the global church would save millions of tonnes of carbon a year.

If the Pope was to reinstate the obligation for meatless Fridays to all Catholics globally, it could be a major source of low-cost emissions reductions

Shaun Larcom

Ashwin Vaswani via Unsplash

Pope Francis in Vatican City

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First COVID-19 lockdown cost UK hospitality and high street £45 billion in turnover, researchers estimate

fpjl2 — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 09:00:37 +0000

̽��ֱ��UK’s first national lockdown from March 2020 and its immediate aftermath saw a massive shift in consumer habits that was initially mandated but then lingered as shops and restaurants opened but risks from the virus remained.

A new study from the universities of Cambridge and Newcastle used data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to compare retail, hospitality and online sales in the UK between March and August 2020 with average figures for the same months for the years 2010-2019.

Researchers took an approach normally used to estimate cumulative excess deaths to try and measure the impact of the COVID-19 shock on sales of UK retailers and restaurants.

They say their economic models suggest that shops predominantly selling food, such as supermarkets, saw a 5-10% bump in sales in lockdown, adding up to an additional £4 billion in earnings over 'business-as-usual' expectations.

This is 'consistent with large-scale stockpiling', they say, as people prepared for an indefinite future of home-cooked meals.

With many shops shut and people stuck indoors, online sales experienced a major boost, peaking at around a third higher than business-as-usual estimates during the first lockdown – an increase that amounts to an additional £4 billion.

Non-food high street shops, those selling everything from books to clothes, saw sales evaporate during the first lockdown when they had to shut, costing around £20 billion in turnover. Sales returned to normal once national lockdown lifted.

̽��ֱ��shortfall for bars, pubs and restaurants was 'dramatic', say researchers, with the first UK lockdown causing sales to fall as much as 90% below the business-as-usual level, equating to around a £25 billion revenue loss.

Hospitality sales saw some recovery post-lockdown, as government schemes such as ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ kicked in, but were still 25% below estimated business-as-usual revenues by the end of summer.

Writing in the journal Global Food Security, researchers say they found no evidence of a post-lockdown fall in food-shop sales as people used up their stockpiles, or an 'overshoot' on the high street due to 'pent-up demand' during lockdown.

“Lockdown restrictions led to behaviour changes in consumers and retailers that caused huge fluctuations in sales,” said Dr Shaun Larcom from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who co-authored the study with his Cambridge colleague Dr Po-Wen She and Dr Luca Panzone from the Newcastle ̽��ֱ��.

“Shopping frequency dramatically reduced, and footfall vanished from many commercial areas, with people going online or using local outlets within residential areas when they had to shop.”

“Consequences of lockdown, such as long queues outside supermarkets, led to ‘forced experimentation’. Consumers had to explore new purchasing methods,” said Larcom, from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy.

“Many people shopped online for the first time. They also bought directly from wholesalers or even farms, and trialled different types of home cooking. When people are forced to experiment, it can lead to behavioural changes that last well beyond the life of a crisis.”

̽��ֱ��researcher say that, while online sales peaked during lockdown, they remained above pre-lockdown levels in August 2020, which they suggest may be early signs of a more permanent 'structural change' in shopping habits.

Recent media reports suggest that the UK Treasury is considering a one-off tax for online retailers who saw profits boosted by the lockdowns.

In February 2020, stores primarily selling food had sales figures almost identical to business-as-usual (BAU) estimates produced by the researchers’ econometric models: £12.6 billion. Sales for March ran at £17.5 billion – around 10% higher than the £16 billion BAU estimates – but had returned to BAU levels by July.

For online retail, sales sharply diverged from BAU estimates by May – £5.3 billion against a predicted value of £4.1 billion (+29%) – and peaked in June at £6.8 billion compared to £5 billion BAU estimate (+36%). While online sales then started to fall, they were still above BAU estimates by the end of summer.

Non-food shops had February sales figures almost equal to their BAU estimates: £11.6 and £11.9 billion respectively. Actual sales tumbled as the pandemic took hold, with an April nadir of £5.9 billion compared to BAU estimates of £13 billion (-54.6%). Sales then started to recover, and by August only just lagged BAU estimates.

Sales in 'food and beverage serving services' suffered most in terms of lost revenue. In February, turnover was £5.7 billion, just shy of the £6 billion BAU estimate. By March this had slumped to £4.3 billion against a prediction of £6.7 billion.

April sales for bars, pubs and restaurants were just £0.7 billion compared to a BAU estimate of £6.7 billion: an approximate shortfall of 90%. While this gap shrank it remained startling. Even with the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme, August sales were £5.2 billion compared to a BAU estimate of £7 billon (-25%).

“Understanding the monetary impact of the pandemic is important to gauge the magnitude of the damage, and can help government design policies to assist these sectors,” said Panzone from the ̽��ֱ�� of Newcastle.

“Food services and non-food retailers lost a huge share of their yearly business, compared to food stores and online retailers that actually gained from lockdown. One-size-fits-all policy approaches across retail won’t work,” he said.

However, UK supermarkets and online retailers made an additional £4 billion each thanks to the coronavirus lockdown that began in March last year, according to econometric models.

When people are forced to experiment, it can lead to behaviour changes that last well beyond the life of a crisis

Shaun Larcom

Gary Butterfield

Central Leeds during the first UK lockdown

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‘Traditional authority’ linked to rates of deforestation in Africa

fpjl2 — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 11:43:49 +0000

̽��ֱ��first study to link precolonial African leadership and current levels of deforestation has shown a strong correlation between areas with historic leadership structures more susceptible to corruption and higher rates of forest loss today.

̽��ֱ��study suggests that a “legal pluralism” exists across large parts of Africa where many local leaders continue to hold sway over natural resources through precolonial “traditional authority”; old power often not recognised by the state.

By using satellite image data from 2000 to 2012 and analysing it in combination with historical anthropological data, researchers found a relationship between high deforestation and precolonial succession rules of ‘social standing’: village heads appointed through wealth or status rather than for example hereditary lineage or democratic election.

Those areas with ‘social standing’ leaderships in precolonial times have approximately 50% more deforestation than the average rate of forest loss for Africa over this period.

Leaders who draw on traditional authority are often vested with resource control rights by local communities, regardless of whether the state recognises these rights. ̽��ֱ��study’s authors say that those local leaders who can claim power through their own influence – or ‘social standing’ – are more likely to use natural resources to leverage short-term economic gains.

̽��ֱ��research team, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy and its Centre for Development Studies, cite cases of loggers providing gifts such as motorcycles and paying traditional leaders to secure ‘logging permits’, despite the leaders having no state authority to grant them.

They say the findings suggest that conservationists need to go beyond state law and engage with local leaders who, despite having no apparent authority, may have a vital influence over Africa’s shrinking forests and biodiversity. ̽��ֱ��study has been published in the Journal of Land Use Policy.

“This work highlights the importance of legal pluralism in relation to deforestation in Africa, and should encourage those who want to conserve Africa’s remaining forests to look below the surface of state law to where resource use decisions are actually made: at the local level by leaders who often have little or no state authority,” said Dr Shaun Larcom who conducted the study with Cambridge colleagues Dr Terry van Gevelt and Dr Aiora Zabala.

“While such a shift in focus undoubtedly increases the complexity of research and of the policy agenda, it may actually be necessary if we want to make meaningful inroads into deforestation in Africa and the rest of the developing world,” he said.

While most of Africa’s remaining forests are protected, owned and managed by the state, rapid deforestation continues, despite ongoing international efforts aimed at state capacity building and reducing official corruption.

Over the period from 2000 to 2012 Africa lost approximately 18 million hectares of its forests. However, when these losses are broken up into ethnic boundaries that existed prior to European colonisation, the rate of deforestation varies considerably in relation to the type of local governance structure formerly in place, says study co-author Dr Zabala.

“African countries are among the ones with fastest acceleration of deforestation worldwide. Complex governance legacies pose a major challenge for the implementation of policies to address forest loss,” Zabala said.

̽��ֱ��most common precolonial leadership structure was hereditary succession. Other structures used as base cases for the analysis were local leaders elected from above and those elected democratically.

But it was the analysis of leadership appointment through social standing that proved most distinctive, with 0.8 percentage points more deforestation compared to base cases. Compared to an average loss of 1.6 percentage points over the same period, this suggests that these regions have around 50% higher than average deforestation rates.

Social standing is “appointment by age, seniority, influence, wealth or social status”, says Dr van Gevelt. “In practice, this means that those with the most power can claim local leadership, and consequently secure further control over local natural resources,” he said. Ethnic groups where these practices occurred in precolonial times include the Kabre people of Benin and the Isoko people of Nigeria.

̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that there are likely to be more ownership disputes in these areas, where the legitimacy of local leaders is weaker and more ‘up for grabs’ than in an hereditary power structure, for example. Leaders from ‘social standing’ areas may grant logging access to forests to raise funds for what Larcom describes as “patrimonial largesse”: the need to give generously to the local community in order to retain social standing, and consequently leadership.

“Acknowledging the reality of legal pluralism – where both the state and non-state authorities, often with different sources of authority, compete in the same regulatory space – and the importance of non-state regulators, both as a force for good and harm in relation to deforestation in Africa, might be the missing link needed for halting large scale deforestation in Africa,” added Larcom.

“In addition to focusing on state corruption, those wishing to halt rapid deforestation also need to focus on non-state corruption.”

New analysis reveals a strong correlation between precolonial institutions in Africa and current levels of deforestation. Researchers suggest that many of these structures still operate at a local level, controlling and exploiting natural resources under the radar of the state, and that such legacies of governance pose a major challenge for implementing conservation policies.

Acknowledging the reality of legal pluralism [...] and the importance of non-state regulators, both as a force for good and harm in relation to deforestation in Africa, might be the missing link needed for halting large scale deforestation in Africa

Shaun Larcom

jbdodane

Rougier Gabon

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London Tube strike produced net economic benefit

sc604 — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 23:25:59 +0000

Analysis of the London Tube strike in February 2014 has found that despite the inconvenience to tens of thousands of people, the strike actually produced a net economic benefit, due to the number of people who found more efficient ways to get to work.

̽��ֱ��researchers, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, examined 20 days’ worth of anonymised Oyster card data, containing more than 200 million data points, in order to see how individual Tube journeys changed during the strike. Since this particular strike only resulted in a partial closure of the Tube network and not all commuters were affected by the strike, a direct comparison was possible. ̽��ֱ��data enabled the researchers to see whether people chose to go back to their normal commute once the strike was over, or if they found a more efficient route and decided to switch.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that of the regular commuters affected by the strike, either because certain stations were closed or because travel times were considerably different, a significant fraction – about one in 20 – decided to stick with their new route once the strike was over.

While the proportion of individuals who ended up changing their routes may sound small, the researchers found that the strike actually ended up producing a net economic benefit. By performing a cost-benefit analysis of the amount of time saved by those who changed their daily commute, the researchers found that the amount of time saved in the longer term actually outweighed the time lost by commuters during the strike. An Oxford working paper of their findings is published online today.

̽��ֱ��London Tube map itself may have been a reason why many commuters did not find their optimal journey before the strike. In many parts of London, the actual distances between stations are distorted on the iconic map. By digitising the Tube map and comparing it to the actual distances between stations, the researchers found that those commuters living in, or travelling to, parts of London where distortion is greatest were more likely to have learned from the strike and found a more efficient route.

Additionally, since different Tube lines travel at different speeds, those commuters who had been travelling on one of the slower lines were also more likely to switch routes once the strike was over.

“One of the things we’re looking at is whether consumers usually make the best decision, but it’s never been empirically tested using a large consumer dataset such as this one,” said co-author Dr Ferninand Rauch from Oxford’s Department of Economics. “Our findings illustrate that people might get stuck with suboptimal decisions because they don’t experiment enough.”

According to the authors, being forced to alter a routine, whether that’s due to a Tube strike or government regulation, can often lead to net benefits, as people or corporations are forced to innovate. In economics, this is known as the Porter hypothesis.

“For the small fraction of commuters who found a better route, when multiplied over a longer period of time, the benefit to them actually outweighs the inconvenience suffered by many more,” said co-author Dr Shaun Larcom of Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy. “ ̽��ֱ��net gains came from the disruption itself.”

“Given that a significant fraction of commuters on the London underground failed to find their optimal route until they were forced to experiment, perhaps we should not be too frustrated that we can’t always get what we want, or that others sometimes take decisions for us,” said co-author Dr Tim Willems, also from Oxford’s Department of Economics. “If we behave anything like London commuters and experiment too little, hitting such constraints may very well be to our long-term advantage.”

Reference:
Larcom, Shaun, Ferdinand Rauch and Tim Willems (2015), " ̽��ֱ��Benefits of Forced Experimentation: Striking Evidence from the London Underground Network", ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford Working Paper.

Further commentary from the authors is available here.

New analysis of the London Tube strike in February 2014 finds that it enabled a sizeable fraction of commuters to find better routes to work, and actually produced a net economic benefit.

For the small fraction of commuters who found a better route, when multiplied over a longer period of time, the benefit to them actually outweighs the inconvenience suffered by many more

Shaun Larcom

Jase Curtis

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