That question is what motivated researchers Ebenezer Arthur Duncan of the University of Professional Studies in Accra and Samuel Affran of the University of Education Winneba to survey 800 commercial drivers and private car owners across four of Ghana’s busiest urban corridors: Accra, Tema, Kumasi, and Takoradi. Their study, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy, applied Social Cognitive Theory, a framework developed by psychologist Albert Bandura that holds that behavior emerges from the interplay of personal factors, environmental conditions, and behavior itself. In this setup, tax incentives such as import duty exemptions and VAT waivers on electric vehicles were treated as environmental factors, while environmental awareness, meaning knowledge and concern about the ecological consequences of transport choices, was treated as a personal factor.

The technical machinery behind the analysis was partial least squares structural equation modeling, or PLS-SEM, a statistical technique well suited to behavioral research with non-normal data and complex models. The team recruited participants through established transport union hubs, including the Ghana Private Road Transport Union and PROTOA, using a multi-stage purposive-convenience sampling approach. Quotas were set by city to reflect relative commercial activity: 280 participants from Accra, 160 from Tema, 200 from Kumasi, and 160 from Takoradi, split evenly between 400 commercial drivers and 400 vehicle owners. A power analysis indicated a minimum sample of 647 for detecting small effects, so the obtained 800 comfortably exceeded that threshold. Questionnaires were administered face-to-face between January and March 2025, with 899 distributed and 800 valid responses, yielding an 89 percent response rate.

The instrument contained 25 reflective items on five-point Likert scales, adapted from established scales for tax incentives, environmental awareness, adoption intention, sustainable energy consumption, and perceived greenhouse gas emissions. Illustrative items included statements such as government tax exemptions reduce the cost of owning an electric vehicle, human activities are causing serious damage to the environment, and transport activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. The instrument was contextualized to Ghana’s transport setting, reviewed by two transport scholars and two sustainability scholars, and piloted with 40 drivers and owners in December 2024 before the main survey. Reliability and validity checks were rigorous: indicator loadings ranged from 0.730 to 0.883, Cronbach’s alpha values spanned 0.843 to 0.902, and average variance extracted exceeded 0.5 for all constructs. Heterotrait-monotrait ratios, all below the conservative 0.85 threshold, confirmed that the constructs were statistically distinct.

The headline result is that both tax incentives and environmental awareness were positively associated with stronger intentions to adopt electric vehicles. Drivers who reported higher perceived tax benefits also reported more sustainable energy consumption practices, such as reducing vehicle idling to save energy. But the most striking finding concerns perceived greenhouse gas emissions. Contrary to what the researchers hypothesized, both tax incentives and environmental awareness were positively associated with higher perceived emissions, not lower. The perceived emissions construct captured beliefs about emissions rather than metered data, so the pattern cannot be interpreted as evidence that incentives or awareness actually increase emissions. Instead, the authors point to a perception-based rebound effect, in which perceived cost reduction from incentives is associated with higher perceived driving intensity, and to an awareness-action gap, in which heightened concern is linked to higher perceived emissions when alternatives remain limited.

Environmental awareness emerged as the stronger predictor overall. Its effect on adoption intention was medium in size, with a beta of 0.470 and an effect size of 0.207, while tax incentives had a smaller effect, with a beta of 0.210 and an effect size of 0.040. Tax incentives and environmental awareness jointly explained 38.7 percent of the variance in adoption intention, 30.1 percent of the variance in sustainable energy consumption, and 46.1 percent of the variance in perceived greenhouse gas emissions. Predictive relevance, assessed through Q-squared values, was confirmed for all three outcomes. Model fit was marginally acceptable, with a standardized root mean square residual of 0.079 and a normed fit index of 0.857, and 60 to 70 percent of the variance in outcomes remained unexplained, a reminder that infrastructure, grid carbon intensity, and other unmeasured factors matter enormously.

The moderation results add a layer of nuance that could reshape how policymakers sequence interventions. Environmental awareness strengthened the link between tax incentives and adoption intention: the effect of incentives on adoption rose from a beta of 0.158 at low awareness to 0.262 at high awareness, supporting the idea that awareness amplifies the pull of fiscal measures. But awareness dampened the links between incentives and both sustainable energy consumption and perceived emissions. In other words, drivers with high environmental awareness relied less on incentives to conserve energy, suggesting that awareness campaigns may reduce dependence on fiscal measures for conservation behavior. The moderation effects themselves were very small to small in magnitude, so the authors caution against overstating their practical importance.

The demographic profile of the sample reveals who Ghana’s commercial vehicle sector actually is: predominantly male at 90 percent, middle-aged, with moderate education and income levels. Other commercial vehicles constituted the majority at 56.25 percent, followed by taxis at 18.75 percent, buses at 15 percent, and trucks at 10 percent. Driving tenure varied widely, with 30 percent of respondents having more than 15 years of experience. This profile matters because it suggests that any transition strategy must account for a workforce that is experienced, unionized, and operating within tight economic margins, where fuel costs and vehicle prices are salient daily concerns rather than abstract policy variables.

The authors are careful to draw boundaries around what their findings can and cannot support. The cross-sectional design precludes causal inference, and the language throughout is associational rather than explanatory. The purposive-convenience sampling at union hubs is a non-probability method, so the findings are analytically transferable to similar urban contexts with nascent electric vehicle markets, fuel import dependence, limited charging infrastructure, and unionized transport operations, but they cannot be statistically generalized to all of Ghana or to rural areas. Self-efficacy and observational learning, core concepts in Social Cognitive Theory, were treated as background rather than directly measured, which limits claims to an SCT-informed examination rather than a full test of the theory. The study also did not test whether adoption intention actually leads to lower emissions or higher sustainable consumption, leaving mediation for future research with longitudinal and metered data.

For Ghana’s policymakers, the study suggests a sequenced approach rather than a single lever. Union-based awareness programs in the four cities could be evaluated before scaling fiscal incentives, and linking incentives to usage data for commercial fleets could help verify whether intentions translate into actual behavior. Directing electric vehicle-related tax revenue toward solar charging infrastructure at union hubs is proposed for further evaluation. The authors also suggest monitoring for perception-based rebound, with the recognition that the data cannot support claims about actual emissions. What emerges is a picture of a transition that depends as much on drivers’ minds as on their wallets, where awareness and incentives interact in complex ways, and where the gap between intending to go electric and actually cutting emissions remains a challenge that only metered data and grid reform can close.

Subject of Research: Electric vehicle adoption intentions among commercial drivers and vehicle owners in Ghana's urban transport corridors

Article Title: Accelerating Ghana’s sustainable transport transition: the role of electric vehicles in achieving SDG 7 and SDG 13

Article References: Duncan, E. A., & Affran, S. (2026). Accelerating Ghana’s sustainable transport transition: the role of electric vehicles in achieving SDG 7 and SDG 13. Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy, 5, Article 1930955. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsuep.2026.1930955

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fsuep.2026.1930955

Keywords: electric vehicles, Ghana, SDG 7, SDG 13, tax incentives, environmental awareness, sustainable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, Social Cognitive Theory, PLS-SEM, commercial drivers, transport policy

The timing is no accident. Formalizing the informal economy sits at the heart of Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.3 and the International Labour Organization’s Recommendation No. 204, adopted in 2015, which calls on member states to ease the transition of workers and economic units into the formal economy while protecting fundamental rights and income security. Ethiopia, a signatory to the Recommendation, has pledged to promote decent jobs and prevent further informalization. Yet the stakes are enormous: in a country where rapid urbanization collides with limited formal job creation, the informal sector absorbs unemployed youth, migrants and low-skilled workers at a scale the formal economy cannot match, while offering them little in the way of productivity, legal protection or access to credit.

What distinguishes the new study is its conceptual framing. Rather than treating formalization as a simple act of registration, the authors interpret it through two complementary theoretical lenses: the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, which analyzes how financial, human, physical, social and natural assets interact with institutional conditions to shape livelihood strategies, and Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, which asks whether people possess the substantive freedoms to achieve outcomes they value. Seen this way, formalization is meaningful only when it genuinely expands entrepreneurs’ capabilities, including access to finance and markets, better working conditions, social protection and greater economic security. A business license, in other words, is worthless if the institutional environment makes it impossible or irrational to use.

Methodologically, the study is a qualitative case study built on sixteen key informant interviews with officials from four institutions directly involved in regulating and supporting informal businesses: the Trade Office, the City Labour and Social Affairs Office, the Revenue Authority Office, and the Micro and Small Enterprise Development Office. One informant was selected from each institution in each of four purposively chosen cities, Nekemte, Gimbi, Shambu and Dambi Dollo, ensuring equal representation across urban settings that are rarely studied. The researchers triangulated interview data against government policies, legal documents and statistical publications, then applied thematic analysis using both deductive codes derived from their theoretical framework and inductive codes emerging from the interviews themselves. The study received ethics approval from Wollega University’s Research Ethics Review Committee in August 2025.

The pathways to formality that emerged from the data form a coherent package of institutional reforms. First, officials described decentralizing registration and licensing services down to the kebele, the lowest administrative tier, and in some cases deploying mobile registration services and designated focal points in local markets. As one informant explained, this reduces travel time and cost for small operators who might otherwise spend a full day’s earnings simply reaching an office. Second, the government has introduced presumptive tax systems, simplified registration procedures and temporary tax exemptions for newly formalized businesses, acknowledging that fear of heavy tax burdens and opaque procedures keeps many traders outside the fiscal system entirely. Third, access to finance emerged as a critical lever, with informants noting that most informal operators depend on personal savings or informal lending groups that are insufficient and unreliable for anyone hoping to register, pay taxes or expand.

Two further pathways round out the picture. Linking formalization to social protection, including government-sponsored social security schemes and employee benefits, gives both employers and workers a tangible reason to formalize, since many informal enterprises offer no health insurance or occupational safety protections at all. And skills development matters: the Micro and Small Enterprise Development Office provides training in bookkeeping, business planning and customer management, targeting the entrepreneurial, financial and managerial deficits that limit both business growth and the capacity to meet formal sector requirements. The authors are careful to note that international evidence tempers optimism about any single measure. Experiments in Benin and Malawi found that registration support alone often failed to improve business outcomes, and Georgia’s simplified tax regime produced only short-lived compliance gains, suggesting that these pathways work best in combination rather than isolation.

What, then, do businesses gain when they do formalize? The study identifies five interlocking benefits. Registered enterprises enter the tax net through business licenses, value-added tax and income tax, broadening municipal revenue and, in principle, funding better public services and infrastructure. Legal status also functions as an institutional gateway to finance: with business licenses and tax identification numbers in hand, operators acquire the legitimacy that banks require before extending loans. Employment quality improves as well, though the authors draw a subtle distinction between job creation and job upgrading, formalization may contribute less to generating new jobs than to making existing ones more stable, legally protected and decent. Formalized firms also gain access to government training, technology and market programs that boost productivity and competitiveness, and the aggregate effect is a more inclusive urban economy in which marginalized groups such as migrants, women and youth acquire legal identity and labor rights.

Yet the barriers are formidable, and the study’s most striking finding concerns readiness. Many informal operators, informants reported, are struggling simply to survive, lacking the capital and fixed business premises that would make formalization feel like an opportunity rather than a burden. As one official put it, operators see formalization as an additional cost rather than a benefit when their immediate concern is meeting basic livelihood needs. A second constraint is institutional: Ethiopia’s policies, laws and regulations do not adequately recognize the diverse structures and operating realities of informal economic units, creating a mismatch between formal regulatory design and livelihood realities. A third is implementation. Although numerous initiatives are underway, from simplified registration to credit schemes, their effectiveness is undermined by fragmented policy frameworks, weak coordination among responsible institutions, and inadequate adaptation to the circumstances of the businesses they are meant to serve.

The theoretical payoff of the study is its reconceptualization of formalization as an institutionally enabled livelihood transition rather than a matter of individual compliance. The Sustainable Livelihood Framework explains how limited financial and physical assets constrain the strategies operators can feasibly pursue, making formalization unattractive when it demands resources that are already scarce. Sen’s Capability Approach adds that the mere existence of formalization procedures does not mean operators have the substantive freedom to use them. Together, these lenses shift the policy question from whether informal businesses are willing to formalize to whether the institutional environment makes formalization feasible, beneficial and sustainable, a reframing with real consequences for how governments design and evaluate their programs.

The authors’ recommendations follow directly from this logic. Registration and licensing should become simpler and more accessible through decentralized, mobile and market-based services. Formalization should be paired with tangible benefits, including predictable tax arrangements, transitional incentives, affordable credit, business premises, training and social protection, with financial support singled out as especially critical because lack of capital can prevent businesses from formalizing in the first place. Policies should differentiate among informal businesses rather than applying uniform requirements that disproportionately burden the most vulnerable, and institutions responsible for registration, taxation, finance, enterprise development and labor protection should coordinate through a unified local mechanism. Finally, success should be measured not by the number of businesses registered but by whether formalization actually expands access to livelihood assets, social protection and decent employment. The study’s limitations, a qualitative design that cannot quantify effects, a reliance on official perspectives rather than operators’ own voices, and a focus on four cities, point toward mixed-methods and comparative research. But its central message travels far beyond Wallaga: informality persists not because workers are unwilling, but because institutions have yet to make formality worth the price of admission.

Subject of Research: Formalization pathways, socioeconomic benefits and constraints of the urban informal sector in Ethiopia's Wallaga Zones

Article Title: Investigating pathways to socioeconomic benefits and constraints of urban informal sector formalization in Wallaga Zones of Ethiopia

Article References: Bishe, H. B., Sajitha, O. G., & Ayana, I. D. (2026). Investigating pathways to socioeconomic benefits and constraints of urban informal sector formalization in Wallaga Zones of Ethiopia. Discover Global Society, 4(1), Article 270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44282-026-00628-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00628-8

Keywords: informal sector, formalization, Ethiopia, urban economy, social protection, access to finance, Sustainable Development Goals, decent work, small enterprises, tax incentives, livelihoods, qualitative research

The study, led by Yi-Hua Lin and Chien-Chih Chen of National Taipei University of Education together with Kuo-Sheng Chen of National Chengchi University and Jessica Lin of Newcastle University, deliberately avoids the most common yardstick in endowment research: the size of the fund. Instead, the authors apply policy instrument theory, a framework from political science that classifies the tools governments use to steer behavior, from compulsory mandates and legal authorization to financial incentives and voluntary, information-based nudges. Their question is configurational rather than causal: what combinations of policy instruments create the institutional conditions under which donated money can be legally separated from state budgets, accumulated over decades, professionally managed and independently audited?

Taiwan provides the study’s central puzzle. In 1999, the island introduced a university fund system intended to push public universities toward revenue diversification and financial self-responsibility, a reform widely seen as a step toward the autonomy enjoyed by universities in the United States or the United Kingdom. Yet more than two decades later, donation-based resources remain weakly institutionalized. Under Taiwan’s unified public finance framework, donations are recognized, but they are folded into the same budgeting, accounting and audit machinery that governs appropriated public funds. There is limited legal space for a gift to be set apart, invested for the long term, or managed with the strategic independence that endowment governance normally requires. The result, the authors find, is that even willing donors and willing universities operate inside a system that cannot easily hold and grow charitable capital.

The contrast with Singapore is instructive. The city-state combines compulsory, mixed and voluntary instruments into a coherent package. Legal authorization gives universities and their affiliated foundations distinct standing to receive and manage gifts; matching grant schemes multiply the value of private donations by coupling government money to philanthropic dollars; tax incentives reward donors; and audit mechanisms keep the resulting funds accountable. Singapore’s Ministry of Education has explicitly promoted alumni ties and community support for tertiary education, and institutions such as Nanyang Technological University maintain structured giving programs. The policy mix, the study argues, does not merely encourage donations, it constructs the legal and financial plumbing through which donations become durable endowment capital.

Hong Kong offers perhaps the most mature example of matching grants in the region. Through successive rounds of its Matching Grant Scheme administered under the University Grants Committee, the government has matched private donations to the eight publicly funded universities, converting philanthropic enthusiasm into enlarged endowment pools while embedding transparency and reporting requirements. A new round of a Research Matching Grant Scheme covering 2025 to 2029 extends the logic to research funding, as outlined in a 2024 proposal to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The scheme’s design illustrates what the authors call a mixed instrument: government does not compel giving, but it changes the payoff structure so that every private dollar works harder, and it simultaneously imposes governance conditions that shape how the money is held and spent.

China presents a third configuration. University foundations have proliferated across the mainland, giving institutions dedicated legal vehicles for receiving and managing donations, supported by tax-exemption rules for charitable organizations. Research on Chinese foundations documents both the promise and the friction of this model: tax-exempt status varies, and voluntary disclosure practices differ widely across foundations, shaping donor trust. The study notes that philanthropic culture in China is also inflected by what sociologist Fei Xiaotong famously described as a differential mode of association, in which giving flows preferentially along networks of kinship, locality and personal connection. Governance arrangements interact with this social texture, producing foundation-based endowment development that is expanding rapidly but unevenly.

Methodologically, the researchers coded legislative texts, policy documents and governance frameworks across the four jurisdictions, drawing on documentary and data sources assembled in comparative tables and an explicit analytical coding scheme. The authors are careful about what their design can and cannot claim. Because comparable longitudinal donation data are unavailable across the four systems, they frame their conclusions as institutional and configurational inference rather than causal proof that any single instrument increases donation volume. This evidence-bounded stance is a deliberate contribution to comparative higher education method, echoing broader debates about how qualitative comparative research can balance contextual sensitivity with comparability, and about policy assemblage and policy mobility in education studies.

The theoretical payoff lies in showing that endowment development is a governance outcome before it is a fundraising outcome. Drawing on the new institutionalism in political science, the authors treat rules, budgets and audit regimes as the substrate on which philanthropic markets either flourish or stall. Where Singapore, Hong Kong and China deploy configurations of legal authorization, matching grants, tax incentives, foundation governance and audit mechanisms, Taiwan’s single unified public finance framework provides recognition without separation. Donations exist, but they cannot easily be legally distinguished, accumulated across years, or strategically managed, which in turn weakens the incentives for universities to build professional advancement operations and for donors to commit large, long-horizon gifts.

From this comparison the study distills concrete policy implications for Taiwan, each framed cautiously. The authors suggest piloting legally distinguishable endowment vehicles that would allow donated funds to be separated from appropriated budgets without dismantling public financial oversight. They propose piloting matching grants, in the manner of Hong Kong’s schemes, while separately evaluating complementary tax incentives so that each instrument’s effects can be assessed on its own terms. They recommend selectively exploring differentiated financial governance, allowing leading universities more autonomy in managing donated assets under strengthened accountability. Finally, they emphasize transparency and communication, arguing that public trust in how donated money is held, invested and spent is itself a policy instrument that governments can sharpen.

The broader significance of the research extends beyond Taiwan. As governments worldwide push universities toward diversified revenue in an era of flat or declining public appropriations, the study warns that simply exhorting institutions to fundraise is unlikely to work if the underlying legal and financial architecture cannot accommodate endowments. Policy instrument configurations, the authors conclude, should be examined as institutional conditions for endowment-related governance, a lens that reframes university philanthropy not as a test of institutional charm but as a design problem in public finance. For East Asian higher education, where world-class ambitions increasingly collide with constrained state budgets, that reframing may prove one of the most consequential ideas in the debate over how universities pay for their futures.

Subject of Research: Comparative analysis of governance arrangements and policy instruments shaping university endowment development in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China

Article Title: Governance arrangements and policy instruments in university endowment development: a comparative analysis of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China

Article References: Lin, Y.-H., Chen, C.-C., Chen, K.-S., & Lin, J. (2026). Governance arrangements and policy instruments in university endowment development: a comparative analysis of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-026-01771-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10734-026-01771-6

Keywords: university endowments, higher education governance, policy instruments, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, matching grants, tax incentives, university finance, foundation governance, comparative education