This chapter explores the impact of the US–China trade war on their respective FTA partners. Covering three crucial sectors – automobiles, electrical machinery, and iron and steel – the chapter tries to understand whether the trade war has benefited the FTA partners of both China and the USA. The study considers two time periods: between 2013 and 2017 as the pre-tariff escalation period and 2018 as the post-tariff escalation period. The chapter comments that the automobile sector of the US has a comparative advantage in the world and the export potential of this sector is more promising than the two other selected sectors. On the other hand, China is the hub of automobile parts, known for electrical machinery and the iron and steel sector. Therefore, China’s export potential in the three selected sectors is very significant and promising for its FTA partners. 

This fieldwork experiment examines barriers to implementing India’s Right to Education (RTE) Act in Delhi’s slums, focusing on Section 12(1)(c), which reserves 25% of private school seats for economically disadvantaged children. Through surveys in three slum communities, we found systemic gaps: low awareness of RTE provisions, bureaucratic delays, and schools charging hidden fees despite tuition reimbursements. While learning outcomes for RTE beneficiaries were stronger than in government schools, disparities persisted due to unequal access to materials and coaching. The paper highlights policy failures in accountability and recommends grassroots awareness campaigns, stricter monitoring, and equitable resource distribution to uphold RTE’s promise.

We conducted a lab experiment involving 610 undergraduate students at the University of Cincinnati to evaluate the impact of informational nudges on risk perception and disapproval of prescription pain-reliever misuse (PPM). The nudges, derived from NSDUH data, highlighted harmful outcomes associated with PPM in youth and were presented in four variations based on message framing (positive vs. negative) and minimal engagement (inclusion vs. exclusion of a comprehension check). A control group received no nudges. We find that positively framed messages combined with minimal engagement significantly enhanced both the perception of great risk and strong disapproval of regular (once or twice every month) misuse compared to the control group while negatively framed messages with minimal engagement only significantly increased strong disapproval for regular misuse. These effects were strongly influenced by gender and individual behavioral traits. However, we find no significant effects of the informational nudges on risk perception and disapproval for occasional (once or twice every in a lifetime or once or twice every year) and habitual (once or twice every week) misuse frequencies. The findings underscore the importance of framing and engagement as well as tailored messaging strategies in shaping young adults' attitudes toward PPM.

This paper analyzes the association between individuals’ age of initiating prescription pain-reliever misuse and their socioeconomic and health conditions post-misuse or after an initial misuse episode (26 years and older). We find that individuals who initiate prescription pain-reliever misuse in pre-adulthood compared to adulthood have statistically significantly higher odds of living in poverty, being on a government assistance program, having lower levels of education, and experiencing lower overall post-misuse health conditions. Moreover, importantly, delaying initiation of misuse by one year in pre-adulthood significantly lowers the odds of having such adverse socioeconomic and health outcomes after an initial misuse episode, now also including the odds of having illicit drug dependence. However, such a delay in adulthood does not lead to any statistically significant reduction in the odds.

India is one of the few countries engaged in licit opium cultivation under strict government regulation and a structured licensing system in the three Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. Government of India(GOI) is the sole purchaser of the opium gum produced by the farmers. India is the only country authorized under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) to produce opium gum. The CBN implemented a forewarning mechanism within its Minimum Qualifying Yield (MQY) policy since 1997–98, enabling farmers who met the threshold to automatically qualify for cultivation licenses in subsequent years. The MQY system was replaced in 2019–20 by a morphine-based metric (MMY), piloted experimentally alongside the MQY in 2018–19. This shift aimed to incentivize higher morphine content in opium production. This study provides the first empirical analysis of the MQY forewarning’s impact on farmer productivity in terms of their average per hectare opium yield. Employing a spatial dynamic panel model, we quantify regional interdependencies and policy effects. Results demonstrate significant contemporaneous spatial spillovers and short-run mean reversion, underscoring the role of localized policy design and cross-regional diffusion in productivity outcomes.