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on Community banking and credit unions |
| By: | Tania Masi; Roberto Ricciuti |
| Abstract: | Governments in resource-rich countries may use a sizable share of the revenue from their underground wealth to buy support through public employment. This occurs in both democratic governments (which need to be re-elected) and autocratic governments (which have to prevent riots and regime change). Using the Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators dataset provided by the World Bank, we analyse the effect of natural resources on public employment in developing countries from 2000 to 2018. We find that resource rents may have an effect on public sector characteristics. However, uncovering the heterogeneous effects of different types of natural resources, we find that oil and gas wealth may increase public employment in countries that are not fully democratic, while forest wealth has a positive impact for all values of democracy. At the same time, the public sector wage premium is positively affected by oil and forest in non-democratic countries and by gas when the level of democracy is very high. |
| Keywords: | natural resources, public sector, rentier states, patronage employment |
| JEL: | P16 N5 C23 O57 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12973 |
| By: | Forgaci, Claudiu; Nattino, Francesco; Stan, Angelica; Alidoost, Fakhereh; Montezuma, Mila Avellar; Bektaş, Bilge Nur; de Boer, Lieke (Max Planck Institute for Human Development); Cannatella, Daniele; d'Avila, Rodrigo; Ellenbroek, Ilse |
| Abstract: | Riverfront regeneration increasingly features in current sustainable urban transformations worldwide. However, this phenomenon is not yet grasped in its full complexity, which challenges our understanding of what constitutes a sustainable transformation. In this paper, we argue that adopting a morphological approach that treats rivers and cities equally is essential for understanding urban river spaces and their transformations. Drawing on 17 worldwide cases of river space transformation, we identify recurring challenges and opportunities, including climate adaptation, land-use change, data availability, context sensitivity, and knowledge transfer. We inventory current methods, datasets, and tools to assess their suitability and sufficiency for answering current research questions and enabling new ones. We also posit that integrated and scalable approaches are needed to combine qualitative and quantitative methods, support cross-case comparison, and remain adaptable to local conditions. As a first foundational step towards local integrated and global cross-case analyses, we introduce urban river space delineation as the basis for comparable analysis and present rcrisp, an open-source tool for automated and scalable morphological delineation of urban river spaces. Finally, we emphasise that advancing this agenda requires community and capacity building across disciplines and sectors, so that methods and tools can be shared, refined and extended. By connecting cases, methods and communities, the paper calls for collective action to build a common language and evidence base for sustainable urban river space transformation. |
| Date: | 2026–09–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:crw3h_v1 |
| By: | Carin van der Cruijsen; Nicole Jonker |
| Abstract: | In an increasingly digital retail payments landscape, it is essential that households are well prepared for incidents that temporarily disrupt their ability to make digital payments for everyday purchases. This study examines whether Dutch households are prepared for such disruptions and whether official preparedness advice has translated into recommended behaviour. We use survey evidence from 5, 672 Dutch respondents collected after the May 2025 official recommendation to hold €70 per adult and €30 per child in cash for a 72-hour outage of electronic payments and to maintain multiple means of payment. Awareness is high, but incomplete: 71% of respondents know the cash recommendation, while 58% hold the recommended amount or more. This implies a preparedness gap, especially among financially constrained households. Awareness is strongly associated with compliance; respondents who know the advice are 21 percentage points more likely to meet it. Non-compliance appears partly behavioural rather than purely informational or financial; the most frequently cited reason is not having got around to following the advice. Our analysis of several events, including communication about the cash advice, suggests that targeted communication may support compliance with the cash advice. Digital fallback capacity is more widespread than cash fallback preparedness, with 70% of respondents having multiple digital payment instruments for point-of-sale purchases. The findings imply that resilience policies should not only safeguard payment infrastructure but also address the informational, behavioural and practical barriers that prevent households from preparing. |
| Keywords: | payment disruptions; consumer preparedness; cash holdings; digital payments; advice compliance; payment resilience |
| JEL: | D12 D14 D91 E42 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:869 |
| By: | Eleanor A. Power; Monique Borgerhoff Mulder; Samuel Bowles; Matthew O. Jackson; Jeremy Koster; Daniel Redhead; Thomas Rutter; Sahana Subramanyam; Justin Weltz; Nurul Alam; Sarah Alami; Alexandra Alvergne; Curtis Atkisson; Michele Barnes; Bret Beheim; Christine M. Beitl; Madeline Brown; Mark Caudell; Wendy Ch\'{a}vez-P\'{a}ez; Komal Chauhan; Joshua Cinner; Siobh\'{a}n Cully; Augusto Dalla Ragione; Angelina L. DeMarco; Ivan Deschenaux; Federico Fernandez; Juan Pablo Ferreiro; Drew Gerkey; Matthew Gervais; Christopher Golden; Gianluca Grimalda; Werner Hertzog; Paul L. Hooper; Karen Kramer; Geoff Kushnick; Banrida Langstieh; Rodrigo Lazo; Sheina Lew-Levy; Shane Macfarlan; Emmanuel Maliti; Karl J. Mertens; Madalena Monteban; Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti; Daniel Murphy; Kathryn Oths; Alejandro P\'{e}rez Velilla; Emily Post; Sean Prall; Cody Ross; Anirudh Sankar; Brooke Scelza; Michael Schnegg; Edmond Seabright; Mary K. Shenk; Kathrine E. Starkweather; Chun-Yi Sum; Bram Tucker; Bapu Vaitla; Vivek Venkataraman; John P. Ziker |
| Abstract: | Despite theory tying wealth inequality to social structure, empirical evidence has been limited to a few studies based on online social media data. This study uses a very different type of data, expands the global coverage to very different types of societies, and investigates new questions. In particular, we collect data from ~3500 sharing units (households) in 46 communities across the globe, representing considerable human social and cultural diversity. In each, we analyze the relationship between people's material wealth and the structure of social networks: borrowing money, sharing food, working together, socializing, etc. In almost all communities, a sharing unit's material wealth is positively associated with the number of other sharing units it both helps and is helped by. A sharing unit's wealth is also associated with the relative wealth of the sharing units to which it is linked---a form of economic homophily. Notably, communities with greater wealth inequality are also characterized by a network structure in which poorer sharing units are less well connected to wealthier ones. We augment our unique cross-cultural data with other community-level environmental, institutional, and economic attributes, opening new avenues for future research into the co-determination of wealth and social networks. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.25488 |