The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change issues present evident interdependencies which justify the spread of connected beliefs. We examine possible changes in individuals’ pro-environmental behavior in light of this pandemic, using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. A questionnaire survey was submitted to the same sample of individuals, before and during the pandemic. Our evidence, based on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has not led to a weakening in TPB construct relationships, or in related Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB). Conversely, through our Partial Least Squares-Multi-Group Analysis (PLS-MGA), we show that individuals with greater awareness of interdependencies between the COVID-19 and climate change exhibit both higher Intention and reinforced Pro-Environmental Behaviors. This finding reveals interesting policy implications in terms of innovative behavioral drivers that should be employed to steer public support towards climate-oriented initiatives.

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Purpose This paper aims to improve knowledge of individual heterogeneity in affecting the entrepreneurial attitude, taking socioeconomic drivers under control thanks to a cross-country analysis. The authors operate a “selection” of proxy for individual heterogeneity, mainly based on gender, demographical features, personal attitude and intrinsic motivation. Design/methodology/approach This exploration is supported by an empirical analysis based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), for the period 2001-2012, and for a selection of 37 countries. It is expected that gender and further individual variables have an impact on the probability to become a nascent entrepreneur (e.g. age, level of education, self-confidence, social perception of self-employment as career choice). This paper evaluates the degree of consistency of these variables across very dissimilar countries. Findings Gender and confidence on own skill play a significant and consistent effect on the entrepreneurial attitude, so these personal features are, per se, the driving-strength of entrepreneurial intent. Conversely, fear of failure and belief on the status are not always statistically significant, or not homogenous in their relationship: socioeconomic or country-specific characteristics are strong and sort out in an unpredictable relationship between these variables and the willingness to run new ventures. Research limitations/implications A limited selection of individual features constrained by availability of information from the GEM data set. Practical implications The motivation of this paper is to focus-back attention on intra-individual features that may affect entrepreneurship and to support evidence of whether individual heterogeneity is able to affect the entrepreneurial attitude, taking socioeconomic drivers under control. Social implications An institutional and political commitment should be intensified to reduce the waste of opportunities that is associated with any forms of self-exclusion from entrepreneurship, such as those based on gender (being women) or (low) self-esteem. Originality/value Due to the “individual” perspective, this paper adds to previous studies that exploited the GEM data set because they mostly follow an institutional conceptual framework.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how psychological variables are related to real-life insurance consumption. Specifically, we focus on whether emotions and psychological traits can improve the predictability of insurance demand, taking traditional socioeconomic variables under control.\ud Design/methodology/approach: The approach used was in-person survey, based on a traditional questionnaire, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and a psycho-physiological task (Iowa Gambling Task – IGT).\ud Findings: A selective role of emotions and psychological traits has been proven to exist when comparing different insurance policies. Life and casualty insurance are affected by emotional arousal to losses; indemnity insurance by fear of the unknown, whereas health insurance by impulsivity. \ud Research limitations/implications: Our findings indicate that individual insurance consumption may be amplified by not cognitive components. Future research should concentrate on testing the effect of further psychological traits related to pure risk coverage.\ud Practical implications: Our results may be of interest for insurers in order to know what drives insurance demand with respect to different kinds of pure risks.\ud Social implications: For policymakers, it is important to understand how psychological factors affect consumer behavior in order to incorporate such perspective into modern insurance policy measures. An analysis of such factors may also increase the self-consciousness of insurance consumers and enrich consumer self-protection.\ud Originality/value: We propose an interdisciplinary approach to analyze insurance demand and test different kinds of insurance coverage, suggesting not homogenous hedging behaviors in relation to specific ambiguous events

In March 2020, the European Commission published the EU Taxonomy, a classification system of economic activities that can be considered environmentally sustainable. Motivated by this policy initiative, we propose a bibliometric analysis, based on the Web of Science database for the period January 1990–March 2020, regarding the extant scientific production related to the EU Taxonomy environmental objectives and macro-sectors. We find that a considerable number of scientific works—161,595 publications—have investigated Taxonomy-related areas, showing that the EU Taxonomy defined a working method, based on the cooperation among regulators, academics, and industry, representing a valuable example of evidence-based policy making. Furthermore, topic modelling analysis shows that extracted papers focused on improvements in production processes, innovation, and environmental performance. Thus, exploiting time and geographic patterns of the scientific publications, we perform a multivariate analysis to investigate its relationship with subsequent levels of pollution. Our evidence shows that, for the past, a higher level of EU Taxonomy-related publications is associated with a lower level of CO2 emissions, supporting the view that scientific production has a societal impact in terms of environmental sustainability. Accordingly, now that EU Taxonomy-related topics have been incorporated into policy measures, further positive environmental effects are expected from here on out.