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on Community banking and credit unions |
| By: | Hafez Ghanem |
| Abstract: | Africa is facing a massive electricity deficit that is impacting its economic and social development, and its ability to catch up with the rest of the world. It is imperative that the continent increase its electricity production to connect the 600 million people who are currently without access and to improve the quality of service for the millions who are suffering from frequent blackouts and load-shedding. Economic development in the 21st century will crucially depend on the digital economy and on artificial intelligence (AI), and both are big consumers of electricity. The last decade has seen major advances in nuclear technology and the development of small modular reactors (SMRs). Recently the World Bank has changed its policy to allow it to finance nuclear energy projects in developing countries. This policy brief examines whether those developments are an opportunity for Africa. Are SMRs the solution to Africa’s electricity problem? The policy brief is divided into six sections. After this introduction, section 2 describes Africa’s electricity deficit and its impact on the continent’s development. Section 3 explains why Africa needs more mini grids. Section 4 describes the evolution of SMR technology. Section 5 compares the costs and benefits of nuclear energy using SMRs to the cost and benefit of renewables and of natural gas. Section 6 concludes by trying to answer the question of whether Africa should go full speed toward adopting SMR technology. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:pbecon:pb37_26 |
| By: | Havishaye Puri (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)); Tanu M. Goyal; Shravani Prakash; Anjhana Ramesh |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an empirical estimate of its contribution to employment, adapting the international classification frameworks used by UNESCO and the European Union (EU) to the Indian context through a mapping of cultural domains and value chain stages to the National Industrial Classification (NIC-2008). Applying this framework to unit-level data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2017-18 and 2025, the paper estimates that approximately 57 million workers, amounting to nearly 9 per cent of India's total workforce, are engaged in cultural and creative activities. Moreover, there has been a 40 per cent increase in the culture-creative workforce over seven years and female employment has doubled. Yet, at present, there is concentration of employment in low-value manufacturing and real wages for women have stagnated. |
| Keywords: | Cultural economy, Cultural and creative industries, Employment estimation, Wagelevels, Wage differentials, India, icrier |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdc:wpaper:437 |
| By: | Francisco Arizala; Diana Ricciulli-Marín; Johanna Schauer |
| Abstract: | This paper studies market power in Mexican industries over the period 2008-23 using establishment-level data from the Mexican Economic Census. We document a substantial increase in the average price markup over marginal costs, from 12 percent in 2008 to 27 percent in 2023. The sources of this increase vary across sectors and time: services, particularly wholesale and retail trade, account for most of the increase in markups until 2018, while manufacturing, led by transportation equipment and export-oriented industries, plays a larger role in more recent years. Rising markups in services are associated with greater local labor market concentration, suggestive of increasing monopsony power. In manufacturing, markup growth is linked to higher capital expenditure, consistent with firms sustaining larger markups to recover higher fixed costs. Moreover, rising markups in manufacturing are positively associated with total factor productivity, whereas in services they are uncorrelated with productivity. Overall, these findings suggest that while market power has increased over time, its underlying drivers have shifted from monopsonistic power in labor markets to higher fixed costs, with more favorable efficiency implications in recent years. |
| Keywords: | Market power; markups; concentration; productivity; capital |
| Date: | 2026–08–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/181 |
| By: | Karolina Hozova (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague); Tomas Havranek (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague & Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London & Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS)); Zuzana Irsova (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague & Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS)) |
| Abstract: | Appointing more women to corporate boards is widely expected to also raise firms´ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. We provide the first meta-analysis of this relationship, drawing on 533 estimates from 106 studies that measure ESG performance with Bloomberg or LSEG ratings. The average reported effect of a one-percentage-point increase in board gender diversity is about 0.28 ESG points, but much of it does not survive scrutiny. Correcting for publication bias with a battery of linear and non-linear methods lowers the effect to between roughly 0.08 and 0.17 points. A best-practice estimate that also imposes sound study design puts it near 0.12 for most of the world, markedly higher for the Middle East, and near −0.11 for the Southeast Asian markets that dominate the Asian evidence. The differences that remain across studies are systematic, driven mainly by geography and by the choice of estimation method rather than by the ESG-rating provider or the controls a study includes. Board gender diversity may be well worth pursuing on its own merits, but the evidence that it reliably raises ESG scores is weaker than the published record suggests. |
| Keywords: | board gender diversity, ESG ratings, meta-analysis, publication bias, Bayesian model averaging |
| JEL: | G34 M14 J16 C83 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2026_25 |
| By: | Nouzha Chekrouni |
| Abstract: | Globally, public policies for youth face a twofold challenge: addressing structural socioeconomic challenges—such as unemployment, precariousness, and regional disparities—while accommodating a growing demand for effective civic participation. (ILO, 2023; United Nations, 2020) In Africa, this challenge takes on a unique dimension given the demographic weight of the youth population and the persistent fragility of local democracies. (AfDB, 2020; Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2023) Elections are one of the barometers of democracy, and the year 2026 marks a turning point. With several simultaneous legislative elections taking place across the continent—including Morocco’s legislative elections on September 23—the issue of youth participation in decision-making processes has taken on renewed urgency. Compounding this electoral context is an unprecedented structural transformation: artificial intelligence is reshaping labor markets, civic spaces, and the dynamics of governance that young people will have to navigate in the coming decade. (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2026) This Policy Brief traces the path from the general to the specific: from global issues to African-specific contexts, and on to the Moroccan experience. A common thread runs through the entire analysis: the risk of perpetuating existing inequalities—gender, spatial, and territorial—in the design and implementation of youth policies. This risk is systemic, not residual. (Kabeer, 1999; Moser, 1993) |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:pbecon:pb31_26_2 |
| By: | Merja Kauhanen; Aart-Jan Riekhoff; Susanna Sten-Gahmberg |
| Abstract: | Using linked survey and register data, we provide new nationally representative evidence on platform work in Finland, examining its prevalence, heterogeneity, and combination with multiple jobholding. Platform work participation is most strongly associated with immigrant background. Onsite and online platform workers exhibit systematically different profiles — immigrant background and urban residence are distinctive predictors of onsite platform work while lower income is independently associated with online participation. We also provide the first nationally representative evidence on the intersection of platform work and multiple jobholding in a Nordic coordinated market economy. Conventional multiple jobholding concentrates among higher-income and higher-educated workers consistent with portfolio theory, while platform work without strictly defined multiple jobholding follows a necessity pattern more prevalent among lower-income workers. Platform multiple jobholding conforms to neither framework, exhibiting income invariance and a distinctive gender gap absent from conventional multiple jobholding. |
| Keywords: | platform work, multiple jobholding, onsite platform work, online platform work |
| JEL: | J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pst:wpaper:361 |