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on Investment |
| By: | Hikaru Ota (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) |
| Abstract: | This study estimates the effect of minimum wage increases on low-wage employment and working hours using an event study analysis based on 138 state-level minimum wage changes in the United States. The results show that employment declines in wage bins below the new minimum wage are largely offset by increases in employment at and above it, yielding a near-zero net employment effect. Applying the same wage bin framework to total usual weekly working hours, the analysis finds no significant reduction in total working hours. However, hours worked per worker decrease significantly in the wage bin at the new minimum wage. This pattern may reflect firms adjusting along the intensive margin, but it may also arise from changes in the composition of workers within that wage bin; the analysis cannot distinguish between these explanations. Nevertheless, the findings demonstrate that stable employment levels can mask underlying changes in hours worked. |
| Keywords: | Minimum wage, employment, labor demand, hours worked, low-wage employment |
| JEL: | J23 J31 J38 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–10–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2026-012 |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University and NBER); Francois Gerard (University College London); Lorenzo Lagos (Brown University); Claire Montialoux (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | How do minimum wages affect informality? We study the near-doubling of the real minimum wage from 2000 to 2009 in Brazil, where 46% of the workforce is informal. Using labor force surveys covering the informal sector, we show the minimum wage exhibits near full passthrough to informal employees working in formal firms, about half of all informal employees. The formal-to-informal reallocation elasticity with respect to the formal-wage is small: -0.28. Our findings illustrate how minimum wages can positively affect living standards for workers thought beyond the reach of labor law, a sizable share of the workforce in developing economies. |
| Keywords: | Brazil |
| JEL: | J23 J46 J88 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:351 |
| By: | Seongmin Seo (Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade) |
| Abstract: | A shrinking school-age population and the preference for universities in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) are together rapidly weakening the ability of regional universities to fill their places and the foundations for developing local talent. The study warns that this could set off a vicious cycle in which a shrinking talent pool weakens industrial competitiveness and reduces jobs, job losses drive people out of the regions, and population outflow further erodes the competitiveness of regional universities. Workforce development outcomes also vary among regional universities. Until fairly recently, flagship national universities achieved outcomes broadly similar to those of SCA universities and had accumulated foundations for teaching and research. Recently, however, signs of weakening competitiveness have emerged, including declining admission competition ratios and employer reputation, which call for a preemptive response before those foundations erode further.<p> Completing the hub development strategy of balanced development policy depends above all on building a system, centered on flagship national universities, that develops talent in the regions to meet the needs of growth industries and keeps that talent there. Each region’s flagship national university should be developed into a core hub for talent development, research and development, and industry-academia collaboration, and should spread its results across the wider region through links with non-flagship universities, firms, and research institutes. Support for regional universities, likewise, needs to move away from scattered support for individual institutions toward a system that extends the capabilities of flagship national universities across the wider region.<p> Existing university support programs and R&D programs should also be linked and reorganized to fit talent development systems for each wider region, centered on flagship national universities, and tied to the workforce needs of each region’s growth industries. |
| Keywords: | regional development; balanced regional development; workforce development; regional universities; labor policy; education policy; labor market dynamics; human capital development; education and train |
| JEL: | I23 I25 J24 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2026–09–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kietia:023664 |
| By: | Katharina Gangl (Nürnberg Institut für Marktentscheidungen); Florian Ritter (Nürnberg Institut für Marktentscheidungen) |
| Abstract: | Die Finanzierung der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung gerät angesichts des demografischen Wandels zunehmend unter Druck. Die von der Bundesregierung eingesetzte Alterssicherungskommission hat daher im Juni 2026 insgesamt 33 Empfehlungen zur Reform der Altersvorsorge vorgestellt. Die Bundesregierung hat angekündigt, das Maßnahmenpaket in allen Punkten umzusetzen. Einige der Kernpunkte waren die Einführung einer neuen Kapitalrente, eine moderate Anhebung der Regelaltersgrenze sowie die Abschaffung der Rente mit 63. Aus Expertenkreisen und Medien kam überwiegend Lob für die Reformvorschläge, es gab aber auch Kritik, beispielsweise am Umfang der Reformen oder an möglichen wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen von steigenden Rentenbeiträgen. In der Politik wurde derweil kontrovers über die Abschaffung der Rente mit 63 diskutiert. Damit stellt sich die Frage, wie die Bevölkerung die Reform wahrnimmt und welche Einzelmaßnahmen unterstützt oder abgelehnt werden. Ebenso ist von Interesse, welche Folgen mögliche höhere individuelle Rentenbeiträge für private Haushalte und den Konsum haben könnten. |
| Keywords: | Rente, Rentenreform, Altersvorsorge, Konsum |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoh:policy:policy-001 |
| By: | Pym Manopimoke; Nuwat Nookhwun; Tanaporn Sriklay; Tanisa Tawichsri |
| Abstract: | In an open emerging market economy, firm inflation expectations are not simply noisy survey responses; instead, they are a state-dependent transmission channel through which global shocks affect firm behavior. Using monthly firm-level survey data from Thailand between 2012 and 2023, we show that short-term expected inflation—though biased and highly dispersed— responds systematically to macroeconomic conditions, particularly global inflation and oil prices. This response is state dependent, with firms exhibiting more attention during periods of higher inflation and stronger economic growth. Moreover, salient global shocks such as negative oil supply news shocks can lead to persistent and upward revisions in inflation expectations, particularly when inflation is high, while domestic shocks such as the minimum wage hike in Thailand during 2012–2013 only had modest and short-lived effects. Finally, using oil supply news shocks as an instrument, we find strong evidence of state-dependence for the influence of firms’ inflation expectations on business decisions. Price-setting and employment decisions are only significant in higher inflation episodes, while higher expected inflation drags firms’ investment, particularly during periods of lower growth. |
| Keywords: | Firm inflation expectations; Emerging markets; Oil shocks; Minimum wage; Price-setting; Investment; Employment; State-dependence |
| JEL: | E31 D84 O11 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pui:dpaper:265 |
| By: | Chaudhary, Manav; Zhiyu Fu, Julie; Li, Jian |
| Abstract: | Many economic questions require estimating the price effect of demand shifts (multipliers) in the bond market. Corporate bonds have salient characteristics that distin guish close versus distant substitutes. We show that accounting for the heterogeneous substitutability between bonds is critical for estimating multipliers correctly. By al lowing for heterogeneous substitution, we find that security-level multipliers are very small—an order of magnitude smaller than the estimate ignoring heterogeneous substi tutability. Nonetheless, portfolio multipliers are substantially larger and monotonically increase with the aggregation level. Furthermore, we find that the multiplier is larger for high-yield bonds, longer-maturity bonds, and bonds with greater arbitrage risks. |
| Keywords: | corporate bonds;inelastic demand;mutual funds;demand-based asset pricing |
| JEL: | G10 G12 G23 |
| Date: | 2026–09–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138916 |
| By: | Silvia Iossa; Saverio Barabuffi |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether universities shape the regional innovation effects of public R&D expenditure and whether this role varies across regional development trajectories. We analyse a panel of 1166 EU NUTS 3 regions over the period 2007-2020, combining data on European public R&D funding, patenting performance, university presence and regional development traps. Toa ddress the endogeneity of public R&D expenditure, we employ a control function aproach. The results show that public r&D expendirue positively affects patenting performance in both university and non-university, but the difference between them is not statistically significant. University presence therefore does not sistematically amplify the returns to public R&D. However, its moderating role becomes more pronounced in regions exposed to development trap risk and in regions experiencing persistent stagnation, while evidence is weaker for trap intensity. These fundings suggest that universities act as contingent rather than unviersal catalyst of public R&D. Their contribution appears particularly relevant in vulnerable and persistently stagnant regional trajectories, but less able to offset sever structural constraints. The study contributes to debates on the geography of public R&D and regional development traps by showing that the effectiveness of research funding depends not only on institutional presence, bu also on the development rajectory in which that institutional capacity is embedded. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.08004 |
| By: | Ricardo Hausmann (Harvard's Growth Lab); Kishan Shah (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Tim O'Brien (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Martina Cometti (Harvard's Growth Lab); Alexia Lochmann (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Yomna Mohei Eldin (Harvard's Growth Lab); Taimur Shah (Harvard's Growth Lab); Lucila Venturi; Ricardo Villasmil (Harvard's Growth Lab); Pablo Andrés Neumeyer |
| Abstract: | The Malawian economy is currently unable to grow despite the immense potential of its people. Per capita income has been declining since 2020, while poverty remains amongst the highest in the world. Equally problematic, Malawi’s growth over the preceding decade was wholly insufficient to keep pace with the rest of the global economy. This kept Malawian per capita income at less than 1% of the U.S. level. Unless problems that have been allowed to fester are reversed, most Malawian families will continue to be subjected to poverty and extreme vulnerability, today and potentially for generations to come. Worse, Malawi is in the midst of a slow-moving macroeconomic crisis which could become deeper and more acute if access to foreign exchange collapses further. Reversing the course of the national economy is ultimately about putting Malawians in a position to pursue opportunities that are currently held back. Even as the nation has faced nearly annual climate-related shocks, Malawians are resilient. It is their access to productive economic networks that holds back opportunity. Other countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia that are landlocked, face weather shocks, and were recently as poor as Malawi have been able to achieve accelerated growth paths through long-term investment and growth in exports. Malawians are meanwhile brimming with untapped potential, and Malawian businesses are as enterprising as any in the world. There are many potential opportunities for growth in Malawi from agriculture, mining, tourism, and others that are severely held back by macroeconomic circumstances. Jumpstarting growth is impossible under current macroeconomic constraints. As growth has lagged, and as Malawi has been subjected to shocks, macroeconomic policy has been put in a bind, which has been increasingly tightening. As late 2025, Malawi faces foreign exchange shortages that have played a critical role in undermining the economy for several years. This shortage has come alongside high inflation, which is undermining the hard-earned incomes of Malawians. Recent investment levels have been insufficient for Malawi’s current needs and have been reliant on increasingly fickle donor support. Private investment is extremely low in Malawi. It is very difficult for both domestic and foreign investors to invest in Malawi’s potential when they cannot import the inputs they need or freely move in and out the dollars their export businesses generate, and when returns are at risk of being inflated away. While solving macroeconomic challenges alone will not create the dynamic export sectors that Malawi needs, it is a necessary condition. The current macroeconomic environment is causing pain and hardship while putting Malawi in an even more vulnerable position. The government has lost access to external credit, leaving it reliant on a vicious cycle of domestic borrowing from banks at high cost and excess money creation to support current spending. Foreign exchange availability teeters on the edge of collapse, with import coverage measured in units of days or weeks. Access to foreign exchange and finance from domestic banks provides a tenuous lifeline, but this system will break at some point if the balance sheets of banks increasingly deteriorate. All the while, as macroeconomic policy targets survival rather than a strategy for addressing the core problems, the damage of these distortions on the economy and lives of everyday Malawians is immense. Macroeconomic anchors are currently ineffective, and Malawians are growing poorer each day. With buffers so thin, Malawi is one shock away from potentially being in an even worse crisis. As a result, Malawi has two economic problems: a medium-term growth challenge and a short-term macroeconomic stabilization crisis. It is important to understand each of these clearly and how they interact. This note points to several key observations on the growth challenge and the path out of the macroeconomic crisis. The report is organized around five key conclusions, which do not neatly align with the stated understanding of the Government of Malawi nor that of the international development community in all cases. First, the path to growth will hinge on expanding exports. Malawi has gotten to this critical point because its traditional sources of foreign exchange (e.g., tobacco and aid) have stagnated or declined while its population grows, and it is hit by increasingly more frequent shocks. Since 2012, this has led to three distinct phases of macroeconomic management to live within lesser means. Growth will require a steady increase in export generation, and strategies should thus pay special attention to what holds back the growth of existing and new exporters. The current macroeconomic regime is clearly untenable but a return to previous regimes is also no longer possible. The regime that allowed for a fixed exchange rate and low inflation over 2017-2020 is no longer possible because it relied on positive net foreign reserves that were available at the time. Policymakers will need to develop a new path that is built on generating exports and foreign investment. Such a path will need to both solve the current macro issues and remove restrictions and barriers in areas like land, access to energy, transport that prevent investors from investing in Malawi in high-potential sectors. Second, the fundamental cause of the short-term macroeconomic crisis is a fiscal deficit that results in excess money creation and, thus, in exchange rate pressure, inflation, and accumulation of domestic debt. Malawi’s government has taken on spending responsibilities it cannot fund with current tax levels and has financed this gap with a combination of expensive debt and printing by the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM). These result in exchange rate pressure, inflation, and an unsustainable domestic debt spiral that threatens to turn into a banking crisis. Thus, solving the macro crisis will require a fiscal adjustment that puts Malawi on a sustainable fiscal path. There are some opportunities on primary expenditure reduction and reducing the high cost of debt services. But there will also need to be a concerted effort on revenue mobilization. With limited available data, it is unclear which tax-related strategies (closing loopholes vs. addressing tax evasion, for example) can have the biggest positive impact, especially in a short-term scenario of an economy under stress. However, international experience and the wider macroeconomic context of Malawi suggest that a bold focus on evasion may be the most important step. If revenue collection can overdeliver, this reduces the need for domestic borrowing and money creation, which makes addressing inflation and the debt path more achievable. Clearer and more transparent fiscal strategies could help to crowd in additional donor budget support. A strong commitment and performance in this realm can also help re-establish credibility for Malawi among the international community. Third, addressing the current macroeconomic crisis and high inflation can only happen if money creation slows. Food price shocks may have played an important role in price increases experienced in 2011-15, but this is not the driver of Malawi’s inflation over the last several years. Inflation is coming overwhelmingly from growth of the monetary base, which is a result of money creation. Money creation has been used to fill a fiscal gap that is occurring at unprecedented levels. Bringing down inflation will be impossible without slowing growth of base money by the RBM, which in turn means slowing government borrowing from the RBM. This suggests that the monetary base or the value of net domestic assets may be viable to use as a policy anchor. Meanwhile, issues in food supply and farmer productivity are an ongoing risk. Malawi has available policy options to increase agricultural productivity and food security that have yet to be mobilized to address food supply risks. Food security will be a key concern in the short run. This note, however, focuses on the underlying economic causes of Malawi’s current macroeconomic predicament, long-term lack of growth, and recurring food insecurity. Fourth, domestic debt is a ticking time bomb that risks turning into a banking crisis. Sustainability requires dealing with both the high price of the stock of domestic debt and the flow of new domestic debt. Any path to growth and any credible fiscal adjustment will require lowering the growing interest rate burden of Malawi’s debt and getting back to debt sustainability. However, this will not be achieved through external debt reprofiling or debt forgiveness alone. What most undermines Malawi’s current situation is the ballooning path of domestic debt accumulation. High domestic borrowing raises rollover risks, keeps interest costs elevated, and pressures the RBM to finance the deficit, thereby fueling inflation and eroding policy credibility. A large and growing share of the fiscal deficit is now explained by interest payments on this debt, creating a vicious cycle of borrowing to service past borrowing. Unless this cycle is addressed, there will be little other fiscal space, and fiscal adjustment will not be possible. External debt operations can play a supportive role, but only if pursued alongside credible fiscal consolidation and declining money growth. There is also limited room for such borrowing to continue, and if the government cannot use this channel to borrow, then it will be forced to either inflate away the debt with hyperinflation or default, resulting in a larger banking crisis. Fifth, the current exchange rate system is not working in terms of stated goals as a macroeconomic anchor. Meanwhile, it is disincentivizing exports and investment making the overall macroeconomic challenges worse. The parallel market has grown as a second-best way for actors in the economy to access foreign exchange. Rather than being a hinderance, it is providing a release valve. At this point, most imports are made at the parallel-market rate, meaning that much of the economy is already off the official rate. Excess money in circulation is leading directly to depreciation of the kwacha in the parallel market and to inflation. Thus, there is more space for policy change than commonly appreciated, especially if there is a clear strategy to deal with the fuel sector which is one of the major sectors to continue to use the official rate. Distortions across the economy from prolonged (and growing) scarcity of officially supplied foreign exchange is a top constraint that holds back the development of new exporters. Rationing of imports at the official exchange rate, and through outright restrictions, not only undermines imported inputs and investment by would-be exporters but also has created an inward-oriented economy that centers on government and donors as markets. Given the consequences on the real economy and the ineffectiveness of the current anchor, the path forward on exchange rate management should be an area of detailed planning and potential experimentation rather than a debate between extremes of a current policy and a free-floating rate. The goal of this policy note is to provide inputs for Malawian policymakers to develop a truly homegrown reform plan and initial path to growth, which could be leveraged to crowd in short-term support of the IMF and other international institutions. Malawi risks an acute macroeconomic crisis alongside constraints that have undermined growth for decades. History shows that effective approaches in economic circumstances like this cannot be externally driven; they must be homegrown. Malawian leaders need to have a clear understanding of the origins, causes, and consequences of macroeconomic challenges, and the boldness to act on challenges with evidence. Likewise, when governments put forth evidence-based strategies for change and make good faith requests for support, it is the responsibility of international development organizations to help. With these two ingredients, a path out of poverty and toward prosperity is possible. There may be a window of opportunity to use the current crisis and a potential future IMF program to implement both macroeconomic and investment reforms that could put Malawi on a higher growth path. To replenish buffers and reserves, and regain the confidence of donors and external lenders, Malawi will need external financing from the IMF. This financing will come with its set of conditionalities. Usually, the dynamic is one where these conditions are imposed on a developing country. But there is an opportunity, instead, to proactively approach the IMF with a clear plan. This plan must make difficult choices on issues like the budget and exchange rate. But such a program can also be an opportunity. It can be the moment to make the reforms to both the macroeconomic and investment environment that allows it to grow into the future, credibly showing investors across the world that Malawi is a place where they can thrive. To do so, will require a focused strategy on what reforms are critical and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise. |
| Keywords: | Macroeconomic crisis, Malawi |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:glh:wpfacu:273 |
| By: | Wintemute, Garen J.; Velasquez, Bradley; Robinson, Sonia; Neumann, Krista; Cruz, Shaina Sta; Shev, Aaron; Tancredi, Daniel Joseph (University of California, Davis); Tomsich, Elizabeth A.; Wright, Mona A.; Pear, Veronica |
| Abstract: | Background: Political violence and the rise of authoritarianism are emerging threats to the nation’s health, stability, and future as a representative democracy. To inform and facilitate prevention efforts, we present new and updated findings on the public’s views on authoritarianism and its support for and willingness to engage in election-related and pro- or anti-government violence. Methods: Findings are from Wave 5, conducted May 15-June 15, 2026, of a nationally representative annual longitudinal survey of adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel that was initiated in 2022. Findings are for the cohort as a whole and for subgroups defined by political party/Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement affiliation. Year-to-year change for items included in 2025 and 2026 is estimated using mean change scores. Cross-sectional findings for 2026 are presented as weighted prevalences and item scores. Results: The completion rate was 90.7%; there were 7, 552 respondents. Nearly 90% of respondents continued to consider it very or extremely important that the US remain a democracy (change 0.01, 95% CI -0.00, 0.03). Agreement with expressions of authoritarianism was much less common; it decreased for the statement, “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy” (change -0.04, 95% CI -0.07, -0.02) and others. In 2026, 2.1% (95% CI 1.6%, 2.7%) of respondents agreed strongly or very strongly that President Trump should be made king, but nearly half (47.7%, 95% CI 46.2%, 49.2%) agreed strongly or very strongly that he should be impeached and removed from office. There was little agreement with 5 actions the federal government might take in 2026 that employed violence to enforce its policies or suppress its critics in the US; the prevalence of strong or very strong agreement ranged between 4.4% and 9.6%. Across 12 items, there was very little agreement with actions—including violence—the federal government might take to subvert elections; strong or very strong agreement ranged between 2% and 4%. Willingness to commit violence was rare. For example, only 1.6% (95% CI 1.2%, 2.1%) were very or completely willing to use violence “to make sure that President Trump remains in office after his term ends.” Decreases from 2025 to 2026 in support for expressions of authoritarianism and for government-initiated violence were common across the spectrum of party/MAGA movement affiliations. Conclusions: With national elections a few months away, Americans remained strongly supportive of democracy, did not endorse authoritarianism, and rejected the use of force by the current federal government to enforce its policies or subvert elections. They were deeply unwilling to engage in violence. These hopeful findings can inform and guide efforts to preserve democracy and prevent political violence. |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xv3yk_v1 |
| By: | Narayanasamy Damodaran, Sanjena |
| Abstract: | Article 6 of the Paris Agreement offers India an opportunity to receive payments from other countries for mitigation outcomes at home, and to channel that revenue towards the vast investment that the low-carbon transition requires. Yet while the country can use international carbon markets to help finance its own decarbonisation, it will need to establish the right framework for approving sales of its Article 6 projects. Without this, there is a risk that India will undermine efforts to hit its near-term climate targets and achieve its 2070 net zero goal. This report explores how the country can establish such a framework. The author argues that India should decide whether to authorise sales of carbon credits under Article 6 based on calibrated questions about what to sell, when to sell it and at what price. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141188 |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany); Michael Wyrwich (University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We examine the long-term relationship between historical levels of self-employment and economic performance in different regions of Germany. A particular distinction is made between West Germany and the eastern part of the country, that came after WWII for forty years under socialist regime. Regional self-employment rates exhibit high correlation over time periods exceeding a century. In West Germany, high and increasing levels of self-employment are significantly associated with high current levels of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per population, despite several major historical shocks. That such a relationship cannot be found in East Germany could be a legacy of the socialist period where the government performed anti-entrepreneurial policies. We also find a positive relationship between historical self-employment and patenting in both parts of the country. This relationship is, however, somewhat weaker in East Germany, which experienced considerably more historical shocks than West Germany. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, self-employment, regional prosperity, patenting, long-term effects |
| JEL: | L26 R11 O52 |
| Date: | 2026–09–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2026-010 |
| By: | Bernard Herskovic; Gill Segal |
| Abstract: | Time fixed effects are not a general-equilibrium control. In network economies, aggregate shocks do not enter firm outcomes uniformly: they propagate through equilibrium prices, costs, and demand, leaving a residual network gradient after time demeaning. When an instrument, treatment, or exposure design even partially aligns with this gradient, standard panel estimators recover the direct effect plus an endogenous network-leakage component. We develop a tractable framework that signs and quantifies this Network-SUTVA bias in closed form, showing how network topology governs its magnitude. Weak instruments magnify the leakage. Difference-in-differences designs are similarly contaminated because controls can be untreated by assignment but treated in equilibrium. Calibrated to the U.S. production network, the distortion can exceed 130% of the true direct effect. We propose observed- and hidden-network diagnostics and remedies, and test them on canonical difference-in-differences designs, showing that standard estimators can confound direct policy responses with systemic network leakage. |
| JEL: | C23 D85 G30 L14 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35807 |
| By: | Stefano Blando |
| Abstract: | Before a flood, governments decide where to invest in protection; after it, how much of the loss to compensate. The European Union informs the first decision with a composite index that ranks every subnational unit by vulnerability. This paper tests the ranking by comparing Italian provinces struck by the same flood between 2005 and 2024. The published index does not order provinces by the losses they suffer, with or without controls for hazard, exposure and income ($\rho$ between -0.06 and 0.09). The failure lies in what it weights. As published, the index mostly measures economic development, while losses follow water: they arrive in recurring groups of provinces that share a river basin, and more than half of the ranking error lies between those groups. In a pre-registered test that rebuilds it and eight rivals at every forecast origin from 2010 to 2020, the index comes last on both questions an allocator asks. On where damage will land, its top ten provinces capture 16 per cent of later damage, less than a random draw; Italy's public flood hazard map, blind to losses, captures 44. On who loses more from the same water, its rank correlation with later losses is 0.03; its own components, reweighted on past losses, reach 0.42. Neither repair needs new data. The misranked loss is paid locally. Of EUR 12.3 billion recorded over 2013-2022, 85 per cent was not covered by national transfers, and prevention funding, scored the same way, does no better than chance. Because correlated losses cluster within borders, national pools in Europe need 39 per cent more reserve than cross-border pools of the same size. The index fails the same way across 1, 142 European units, where the repairs are weaker. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.36349 |
| By: | Colombe, Kenneth; Kroczek, Martin; Kumar, Mukesh; Otto, Felix |
| Abstract: | We reassess Rossi and Villar (2020), who study whether large subsidies for malaria prevention in Senegal increased parental investments in child health. Using the authors' curated analysis files, we first establish computational reproducibility of the published tables and figures. We then conduct a focused and robustness replication of the main difference-in-differences result on child health expenditures and health-seeking behavior. We corroborate the original findings that child health expenditures and health-seeking behavior in more malarious areas "catch up" after the subsidy, primarily via the extensive margin. The replication scope was constrained by the absence of raw data and cleaning scripts, as well as sparse documentation of variable construction in the primary dataset. |
| JEL: | C23 H51 I12 I15 I18 O12 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:331 |
| By: | Stephan, Gesine (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Heusler, Anna (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Lang, Julia (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Osiander, Christopher (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "The IAB survey on ‘Career Development’ aims to gain insights into whether regular employees in Germany feel well-informed about their career opportunities and whether they have already taken steps towards a career change or are planning to do so. Of particular interest was whether the answers to these questions differed between otherwise similar individuals who had, or had not, used the “Career Guidance in Working Life” (BBiE) offered by Germany’s Federal Employment Agency (FEA). Introduced by the FEA in 2020, the BBiE is designed to help those seeking advice to realistically assess their career prospects and make informed decisions about their future career path. Its main target group is employees. The survey was therefore aimed at a) employees who, according to the Federal Employment Agency’s process data, had attended an initial counselling session as part of the BBiE provided by the FEA in 2024, and b) employees with similar observed characteristics who had not used the service (“statistical twins”). Only people aged between 25 and 59 were invited to participate in the survey. In total, 5.5 percent of those persons that were contacted completed the survey in full, and 4.9 percent consented to their responses being linked to the data held about them by the FEA. Among those who had received counselling through the BBiE, the response rate and the linkage consent rate were significantly higher at 7.0 percent and 6.2 percent respectively, compared with 4.1 percent and 3.6 percent for those who had not received counselling. The analyses show that participation in the survey correlates with certain characteristics. In particular, the following groups of people participated more frequently in the survey: women, people with German nationality, those with higher levels of education, older people, people in higher occupational levels, people with higher daily wages, and people who had spent more time in employment and less time receiving wage replacement benefits. Consequently, probit estimates were used to estimate the individual probabilities that invitees would take part in the survey or consent to their data being linked to information about them already held by the FEA. Individual weights were then calculated as the inverses of the estimated probabilities of participation. These weights should be used in descriptive analyses intended to draw conclusions about the population as a whole. Initial analyses of the survey data also reveal that more than half of the individuals who received counseling—based on the process data—stated that they were unfamiliar with the BBiE and had not attended an appointment there. Consequently, a comparison was made between the characteristics of those who were aware of the service and those who were not. This analysis shows, for instance, that individuals who were registered as job seekers at the time of counseling were particularly likely not to recall the session. Presumably, they perceived the vocational counseling appointment simply as a standard counseling meeting at their labor market office." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Date: | 2026–10–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfob:202612 |
| By: | Mann, Brittany |
| Abstract: | This Note examines the Delaware Supreme Court’s decision in Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi and argues that the court correctly upheld federal forum provisions (FFPs) requiring claims under the Securities Act of 1933 to be filed exclusively in federal court. The decision arose in response to the increased use of state courts for Securities Act litigation following Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund, which confirmed concurrent state and federal jurisdiction over such claims. Through an analysis of the Delaware General Corporation Law, the internal affairs doctrine, federal securities regulation, and recent Delaware corporate law developments, this Note contends that FFPs fall within the permissible scope of corporate charter provisions because Securities Act claims occupy an intermediate category of “intra-corporate” matters that are neither purely internal affairs nor wholly external claims. The Note rejects criticisms that the decision improperly expands Delaware corporate law or undermines congressional intent, arguing instead that it is consistent with both federal precedent and Delaware’s longstanding commitment to private ordering. The Note further concludes that validating FFPs promotes judicial efficiency, reduces duplicative state and federal litigation, lowers litigation costs borne by corporations and shareholders, and provides greater predictability in securities litigation while preserving shareholders’ ability to pursue meritorious federal securities claims. [This abstract was written by Microsoft Copilot, a generative artificial intelligence.] |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarc:czxpr_v1 |
| By: | Coordinators:; Oswalt, Sonja N.; Bush, Renate; Murray, Lara T.; Walker, David |
| Abstract: | This publication provides authoritative updates to the Nation’s forest resource statistics reported in “Forest Resources of the United States, 2017” and the 2020 Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment using adapted Forest Inventory and Analysis data. Resource data tables present estimates of forest area, volume, mortality, growth, removals, timber products output, and more in various ways within the context of changes since 1953. Downloadable tables are available via the Research Data Archive at: https://doi. org/10.2737/WO-GTR-107-s1 |
| Keywords: | Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource/Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usdami:413140 |
| By: | Cheng, Zhihui; Taylor, Alyx; Stults-Kolehmainen, Matthew A.; Gerber, Markus; Herold, Fabian; Ross, Michael; Ash, Garrett; Kramer, Arthur F.; Zhao, Mengxian |
| Abstract: | Corrected background: The CRAVE-C is the Chinese-language version of the Cravings for Rest and Volitional Energy Expenditure scale and is intended to assess desires to move and to rest. Studies 1 and 2 used past-week items, whereas Studies 3 and 4 used the momentary right-now frame. This proposed correction re-evaluates CRAVE-C psychometric and exercise-response evidence after a post-publication audit identified inconsistencies in data provenance, scoring, participant linkage, and privacy protection. Corrected methods: Study 1 removed 20 redundant rows from 481 available records, yielding N=461, with an N=460 contact-field sensitivity analysis; all items used a past-week frame. Study 2 compared these 461 de-duplicated Study 1 control records with 33 psychiatric-disorder participants using equivalent past-week items scored 0-10; chronic-illness inference was withdrawn because the original 62-of-113 inclusion rule and equivalent scoring were not recoverable. Study 3 was numerically reanalysed from 81 complete archived analytical rows; participant identity, raw pre/post scores linkable to those rows, reproducible score derivation, and the published N=83 sample remain unverified. Study 4 reports a linkage-restricted sensitivity analysis of 31 uniquely linked records; its historical 18/13 row-block labels are not independently verified participant groups. Corrected results: The corrected Study 1 Chinese 10-item model showed acceptable within-sample fit and internal consistency. In Study 2, the psychiatric-disorder group had lower Move and higher Rest than the 461 de-duplicated controls; no chronic-illness inference is retained. The 81 Study 3 rows reproduced all 28 rounded Figure 3 correlations and the relative-VO2max median split (high n=41; low n=40), with two subgroup-correlation sign corrections; these results are a numerical audit, not a verified participant analysis. Study 4 showed opposite Move/Rest directions across the two historically labelled row blocks within the 31-record sensitivity subset, without recovering the published N=42 analysis. Corrected conclusions: Study 1 supports preliminary evidence for a past-week Chinese 10-item CRAVE-C in 461 retained records, and Study 2 supports an unadjusted 461-control versus 33-psychiatric comparison. Study 3 supports numerical reproduction from 81 archived analytical rows only; its reported sample, demographics, score derivation, and causal or recovery interpretations are not verified. Study 4 remains a 31-record linkage-restricted sensitivity analysis with unverified historical row-block labels. |
| Keywords: | motivation, physical activity, psychometric validation, sedentary behavior, desire |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:325 |
| By: | Löfgren, Åsa (Institutionen för nationalekonomi med statistik); Söderholm, Patrik (Samhällsvetenskap Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik, konst och samhälle) |
| Abstract: | Klimatförändringar i kombination med geopolitiska spänningar och teknisk utveckling har inneburit att den gröna industripolitiken har blivit ett attraktivt verktyg för beslutsfattare som vill kombinera klimat- och energiomställning med ekonomisk utveckling, ökad konkurrenskraft och strategisk autonomi. Med grön industripolitik avses olika former av stödjande insatser där staten påverkar ekonomiska aktiviteter och teknikutveckling i utvalda sektorer med tydligt syfte att minska utsläppen av växthusgaser. I den här rapporten till ESO analyserar Åsa Löfgren och Patrik Söderholm den gröna industripolitikens motiv och utmaningar och hur en sådan politik bör utformas, genomföras och utvärderas. Författarna menar att en framgångsrik grön industripolitik inte är en uppifrån-och-ner process där staten ska välja vinnare. I praktiken är besluten förenade med stor osäkerhet och risk eftersom de rör komplexa tekniska frågor och stora, dyra, investeringar med lång livslängd. För att lyckas med grön industripolitik behövs ett gemensamt lärande i stat och näringsliv, ett ömsesidigt utbyte av kunskap och kontinuerliga justeringar av åtgärder över tid – samt en förståelse för att även misslyckanden kan vara lärorika och driva utvecklingen framåt. |
| Keywords: | Finansiering; Hållbar utveckling; Klimatpolitik; Subventioner |
| Date: | 2026–06–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:esorep:2026_005 |
| By: | Justin Whitehouse; William Betz; Yan Zhang; Peter Coles; Ramesh Johari; Vasilis Syrgkanis |
| Abstract: | Businesses regularly offer gift card programs to drive customer spending and increase engagement. A central question is how much incremental revenue these programs generate, and which channels drive it most efficiently. Measuring the incremental revenue associated with a gift card program is a challenging problem in causal inference, requiring a firm to infer how much each customer would have spent if they never received a gift card. Observational data on past customer purchasing behavior reveal possession of a gift card only when a customer makes a purchase, thus leaving a customer's treatment status systematically censored. In this paper, we develop a novel data fusion approach to overcome this missing data challenge. We identify and estimate incrementality by combining a large observational dataset with a smaller experimental dataset from a different population. Our approach relies on a mild transferability condition, which posits that the conditional relative treatment effect of gift card receipt on the decision to purchase is invariant across the two populations. We develop a flexible, machine learning-based estimator for the incremental revenue and establish its asymptotic normality. We apply our estimator across both first- and third-party channels through which Airbnb distributes gift cards, finding heterogeneity in incrementality across segments of the population. In particular, we find not only that third-party channels are more incremental than first-party ones, but also that "self-gifters" (i.e., customers likely to have purchased their own gift cards) are more incremental than the broader population. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.08558 |
| By: | Donald Coletti; Martin Kuncl; Martin Harding; Dmitry Matveev; Tolga Özden; Yang Zhang |
| Abstract: | Prima est le nouveau modèle utilisé par la Banque du Canada pour ses projections et les analyses qui éclairent ses décisions de politique monétaire. Il s’appuie sur les fondements économiques des modèles antérieurs de la Banque, mais précise davantage la façon dont les pressions sectorielles influent sur les coûts de production et se répercutent sur les prix à la consommation. |
| Keywords: | Modèles et outils; Méthodes économétriques, statistiques et computationnelles; Politique monétaire; Dynamique de l’inflation et pressions inflationnistes; Économie réelle et prévisions |
| JEL: | C C4 C43 C8 C82 E E3 E30 E31 E37 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocsap:26-47fr |
| By: | Samuel Drößler; Ulrich Fritsche; Junbo Huang; Max Weinig |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how households conceptualize inflation and how these qualitative narratives correlate with inflation expectations and policy preferences. Using a representative survey of over 4, 000 German households, we elicit open-ended narratives regarding the 2022–2023 inflation surge and represent them as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) via fine-tuned large language models. We find that German households overwhelmingly interpret the inflation episode through supply-side channels and the war in Ukraine, while demand-side explanations remain comparatively rare. Beyond these aggregate patterns, inflation narratives systematically vary by financial literacy, personal economic experience, and institutional trust. Narrative structure and content correlate with inflation beliefs: supply-side narratives are associated with lower inflation expectations, whereas narratives emphasizing government action or corporate price gouging correspond to higher expectations and lower target inflation rates. A preregistered randomized information provision experiment using real-world newspaper excerpts demonstrates that exposure to news narratives significantly impacts qualitative inflation expectations, whereas quantitative expectations display greater rigidity. However, narrative exposure significantly reduces reliance on prior inflation perceptions, with treatment effects exhibiting mild heterogeneity across levels of financial literacy and prior inflation experience. |
| Keywords: | . |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwc:wpaper:2026-014 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an update of the resource adequacy of the Fund’s concessional financing trusts. Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) finances remain adequate, broadly in line with expectations at the completion of the 2024 PRGT Facilities and Financing Review and the 2025 adequacy update. The lending outlook is largely unchanged, with projected additional demand in 2026-27 expected to offset lower-than-anticipated new loan commitments in 2025. While progress has been made in securing assurances from members under the framework to distribute GRA resources to facilitate the generation of additional PRGT subsidy resources, broader support is essential to reach the 90-percent threshold. On the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), based on updated projections, there are sufficient resources to meet the demand pipeline at least through 2028. The RST’s reserves remain adequate and the interest rate cap for Group A countries remains appropriate, though risks have increased. The Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) remains underfunded and its next comprehensive review provides an opportunity to address its financing challenges. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is nearly complete, although Sudan’s progress towards the Completion Point continues to be delayed. Staff assesses that risks to the finances of the PRGT and RST are appropriately mitigated. Based on its assessment of the trusts, and pending the outcome of the planned CCRT Review and amid ongoing efforts to secure PRGT assurances, staff does not propose any adjustments or policy changes pertaining to the Fund’s concessional financing trusts. |
| Keywords: | Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT); Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST); Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT); Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC); Resource adequacy; Concessional financing; Fundraising; PRGT Review; PRGT lending; RST lending; Credit risk; Debt relief; Subsidy resources; Low-income countries; PRGT subsidy assurances; GRA distribution framework; Interim Placement Administered Account (IPAA); Self-sustained annual lending capacity; Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF); Rst resource; Prgt assurance; Prgt finances; Prgt credit risk; IMF staff; Sovereign debt restructuring; Credit; Debt service; Loans; Global; Middle East; Central Asia |
| Date: | 2026–03–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2026/004 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | This note provides operational guidance on the use of the Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL). After an overview of the instrument explaining its specific nature, the operational issues are grouped into six areas: an outline of the process and specific steps that need to be followed if a member expresses interest in an arrangement; guidance on determining qualification of a member; guidance on access, phasing, ex-post conditionality, review process; guidance on purchases; guidance on communication of expiration or cancellation; and guidance on interaction with other instruments. The note is an aid to the implementation of the policy and its underlying principles. If there is any instance in which a provision of the guidance note or its implementation conflicts with Board policy, Board policy prevails. It will be revised as needed, for example, following relevant policy reviews. |
| Keywords: | Precautionary and Liquidity Line; PLL; Precautionary Toolkit; IMF; Guidance Notes; PLL arrangement; ETF volatility index; Chicago Board option; PLL request; transparency policy; Balance of payments need; Macro-fiscal framework; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Lines of credit; Global |
| Date: | 2025–04–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2025/014 |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University and NBER); Francois Gerard (University College London); Lorenzo Lagos (Brown University); Claire Montialoux (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of union heterogeneity in shaping wages and inequality among unionized workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil and job moves across multi-firm unions, we estimate over 4, 800 union-specific pay premia. Unions explain 3–4% of earnings variation. While unions raise wages on average, the standard deviation in union effects is large (6–7%). Validating our approach, wages fall in markets with higher vs. lower union premia following a nationwide right-to-work law. Linking premia to detailed data on union attributes, we find that unions with strike activity, collective bargaining agreements, internal competition, and skilled leaders secure higher wages. High-premium unions compress wage gaps by education while the average union exacerbates them. Post right-to-work, however, worker support for high-premium unions falls when between-group bargaining differentials are large. Our findings show that unions are not a monolith—their structure and actions shape their wage effects and, consequently, worker support. |
| Keywords: | Brazil |
| JEL: | J31 J51 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:350 |
| By: | Olivier Bos; Martin Pollrich |
| Abstract: | We study mechanisms in which agents' preferences depend both on an object allocation and on a third party's beliefs about private information. A mechanism determines an allocation, transfers, and sends signals to the aftermarket. We compare two informational environments: (i) private transfers, where the aftermarket observes allocations and signals, and (ii) public transfers, where transfers are publicly observable. Our main result shows that any equilibrium outcome implementable with hidden transfers can be approximated arbitrarily well with public transfers. Thus, transfer observability generates at most a vanishing informational distortion and helps rationalize the common assumption that transfers remain hidden from aftermarkets. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.03146 |
| By: | Federico Boffa (Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy); Chiara Farronato (Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA); Alessandro Fedele (Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy); Eugenio Levi (Link Campus University, Rome, Italy); Andrea Mantovani (TBS Business School, Toulouse, France) |
| Abstract: | Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used by consumers to search for information, compare alternatives, and obtain purchasing advice. As conversational AI systems progressively complement traditional search engines and recommender systems, they may influence consumer choice by determining which products receive visibility and attention. Despite their growing importance, little is known about how LLMs construct product recommendations, whether they concentrate attention on a narrow set of products, or whether vertically integrated providers favor affiliated products and services. This paper conducts an audit study of leading LLMs, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, and Mistral. Using standardized prompts and repeated queries, we collect recommendations across a broad range of products and service categories that differ in market characteristics and the presence of vertically integrated products. We characterize recommendations along several dimensions, including breadth, first-position concentration, prominence, best-overall selections, and personalization. We find substantial heterogeneity across models in the breadth and structure of their recommendations. At the same time, first-position recommendations are highly concentrated in a substantial subset of markets. In 20 of the 100 product and service categories, a single product is listed first in more than three quarters of responses. We also find that some LLMs are likely to recommend products affiliated with their providers. |
| Keywords: | large language models; empirical audit; product recommendations; AI; algorithmic bias |
| JEL: | L15 L41 L86 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:2609 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | This note provides guidance to country teams on the application of Fund policies and procedures related to data provision to the Fund for surveillance purposes. It provides staff with clear procedures and practical tools for the assessment of data adequacy and guidance on the Fund’s collaborative framework to identify and address data shortcomings, hampering surveillance and support members’ data production and provision capacity. The note operationalizes recent Board reviews of the policies on data provision to the Fund and data adequacy that strengthen the Fund’s ability to conduct robust and evenhanded surveillance by ensuring that data provision keeps pace with evolving analytical and policy needs. |
| Keywords: | IMF staff; staff report; data provision; data shortcoming; data adequacy; Data dissemination; Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF); Global |
| Date: | 2026–01–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2026/001 |
| By: | Black, Nicole (Monash University); Ma, Bernice (Monash University); Mai, D Tung (University of Melbourne); Skeels, Christopher (University of Melbourne); Staub, Kevin (University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | We develop a fixed-effects estimation framework for fractional-outcome panel models with a logit conditional mean. Pairwise quasi-differencing eliminates individual effects from the moment conditions, yielding a generalized method of moments estimator that is consistent under the stated moment restrictions even when the number of time period is finite and fixed. The framework allows unrestricted dependence between individual effects and covariates, accommodates endogenous regressors through instrumental variables, and extends to multivariate shares that sum to one. Boundary observations require no adjustment, and average semi-elasticities can be estimated without recovering the individual effects. We apply the framework to Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), using HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) survey data for 2011-2023 and instruments based on the scheme's staggered geographic rollout. We examine how NDIS receipt affects the allocation of time across paid work, housework, disability care, and remaining activities for recipients and other household members. The estimates indicate that recipients reduce work and disability care, while other household members increase disability care. |
| Keywords: | panel data, fixed effects, fractional responses, share data, time use, disability support |
| JEL: | C23 C24 I18 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18969 |
| By: | Cuevas, Pilar (Universidad de Sevilla); Hamermesh, Daniel (University of Texas at Austin); Sevilla, Almudena (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We describe a classroom-tested method for winnowing economic ideas so that research proceeds only on those that are likely to pay off—in publications and scholarly influence. The method distinguishes projects—and the eventual scholarly articles—that are both original and important—the sine qua non to make something worth working on. We discuss how the research should be written up to be intelligible and publishable, stressing the importance of attention-grabbing titles and abstracts. We offer examples of bad and good-writing in the English language—the medium of scholarly exchange in the economics profession—and how students react to them. |
| Keywords: | economics education, teaching economics, graduate education, research training, academic writing, economics pedagogy |
| JEL: | A23 B41 A11 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18948 |
| By: | Michelle W. Bowman |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgsq:103828 |
| By: | Bird, Julia; Venables, Anthony; Dehe, Henry; Rubinyi, Steven Louis; Wibisana, Putu Sanjiwacika; Bui, Quang Anh Phan |
| Abstract: | Thu Duc, a rapidly urbanizing area of Ho Chi Minh City, is well located and heavily invested in policy ambition, yet its output and density remain far below what its position in the metropolitan economy would support. Much of it is also flood exposed. This paper asks how much of that shortfall flood risk explains, and what coordinated investment could recover. A Spatial Computable General Equilibrium model of the Greater Ho Chi Minh City Metropolitan Area, covering 116 cells across Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces, evaluates interventions to 2040. The model endogenizes firm location, household residence and commuting, land use intensity, and agglomeration externalities, recovering cell-level productivity and amenity parameters by structural calibration against observed employment and residential distributions. Its methodological contribution is to integrate spatially explicit flood exposure as a determinant of those fundamentals, so flood risk is evaluated within the same general equilibrium framework as transport and land use, and local gains can be separated into net new metropolitan output and activity reallocated from elsewhere. Thu Duc's calibrated productivity is roughly one-third of the metropolitan average, implying that frontier output is more than five times the business-as-usual level. Flood mitigation raises sectoral total factor productivity by 1 2 to 21 percent and residential amenity by 10 to 13 percent, and it broadens the sectoral employment base more than the other interventions examined. A cumulative package of innovation zones, flood mitigation, and transport reaches about 31 percent of that frontier, raising output roughly two-thirds above business as usual, of which some 56 percent is net new output for the metropolis. |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11444 |
| By: | Benlian, Alexander; Jaki, Paula; Alizadeh, Armin; Özdemir, Furkan |
| Abstract: | AI literacy has become a critical prerequisite for responsible and effective AI use, yet many organizations struggle to scale it beyond isolated training initiatives, pilots, or pockets of excellence. This article introduces a multi-layered framework for scaling AI literacy from local capability to enterprise-wide practice. Extending prior research on assessing and building rolespecific competencies, we show how AI literacy can be diffused, stabilized, and institutionalized within organizations over time. Building on prior work on AI literacy as an organizational capability, we conceptualize scaling as a coordinated process across three interdependent layers: (1) platforms & data, (2) people & practices, and (3) governance & strategy. We further show that these layers must be sequenced and reinforced over time to progress from experimentation to enterprise-wide institutionalization. Drawing on FinBroOrg, a large European financial brokerage group, as an illustrative case for roadmap co-development, we show how organizations can use the framework to plan and prioritize concrete scaling mechanisms—such as AI ambassadors, communities of practice, curated prompt playbooks, and AI centers of excellence—that support the transition from local experimentation toward shared routines and durable, governed use. |
| Date: | 2026–09–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:162288 |
| By: | Florian Bourgey; Jim Gatheral |
| Abstract: | Building on the forest expansion of Al\`os, Gatheral and Radoi\v{c}i\'c and on the explicit Bergomi-Guyon smile expansion derived by Bourgey and Gatheral (2026), we derive fixed-point approximations, in terms of the implied total variance at a small number of magic strikes, for the fair values of power payoff contracts; the variance and gamma contracts arise as the endpoints of this one-parameter family, priced by a single set of formulae. We prove that such approximations exist at every order: at order $n$, $2\lceil n/2\rceil+1$ magic strikes suffice. Numerical tests under the Heston and rough Bergomi models demonstrate good accuracy even for strongly skewed smiles, and the method applies directly to interpolated market smiles without strike inversion. For the volatility contract, we show that the maturity-T smile does not determine the leading correction to the Rolloos-Arslan approximation. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.33913 |
| By: | Sizhong Fang |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a topological construction for studying social aggregation of weak preferences over a finite set of alternatives. We identify weak preferences with the cells of the type $A_{n-1}$ braid arrangement and, equivalently, with the simplices of the corresponding type $A_{n-1}$ Coxeter complex, which we call the preference complex. Then we define face-monotonicity by requiring a social welfare function to be order-preserving when viewed as a map between the preference-profile poset and the preference poset. We prove that if a common preference domain admits a unanimous, anonymous, and face-monotonic social welfare function, then every connected component of the geometric realization of its order complex is contractible. We then apply this construction to two restricted domains. For fixed-extrema domains, we prove that their order-complex realizations are contractible and define a unanimous, anonymous, and face-monotonic social welfare function using the meet operation. For single-peaked domains, we prove that the corresponding subcomplex of the preference complex has a contractible realization and, in the three-alternative case, construct a unanimous, anonymous, and face-monotonic social welfare function. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.35866 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | This paper reports on the Fund’s income position for FY 2026 following the closing of the Fund’s accounts for the financial year and completion of the external audit. Total comprehensive income of the General Department was SDR 4.8 billion (or about US$6.5 billion) comprising General Resources Account (GRA) net income (SDR 1.9 billion), retained investment income (SDR 1 billion) and remeasurement gains reported under IAS 19 (SDR 1.9 billion). GRA net income, after taking into account the placement of SDR 1.38 billion from the General Resources Account (GRA) to the Interim Placement Administered Account (IPAA), increased Fund reserves by about SDR 0.5 billion. Remeasurement gains contributed a further SDR 1.9 billion to reserves. In accordance with decisions taken by the Executive Board in April 2026, the Endowment payout of US$208 million (SDR 151 million) was made to the GRA and a net transfer of currencies equivalent to SDR 0.3 billion will be made from the Fixed-Income Subaccount (FI) of the Investment Account (IA) to the GRA during FY 2027. The Fund’s precautionary balances reached SDR 26.3 billion at the end of FY 2026. |
| Keywords: | Financial statements; Pension; IMF's FY; General Resources Account; GRA Net Income; Residual Income; Income; SDR billion; SDR millions; Payout; Transparency policy; Distribution; Transfer; IPAA; MYDP; Precautionary Balances; IMF staff; IMF policy; IMF Policy; Sovereign debt restructuring; Pensions; Pension spending; Exchange rates; Middle East; Global |
| Date: | 2026–08–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2026/026 |
| By: | Sandro Provenzano |
| Abstract: | North-star metrics such as customer lifetime value are often too slow and noisy to decide a short A/B test. Teams therefore rely on a proxy metric, commonly chosen by how closely its effects tracked the north star's across past experiments. Validating that choice, or any method for making it, is hard: the only benchmark is the noisy north star, and the number of available past experiments is limited. In addition, proxy and north-star effects are estimated on the same customers, so their sampling errors are correlated. Recent work at major experimentation platforms removes this shared error as contamination, improving estimates of the true-effect covariance. Choosing a proxy, however, is a ranking problem, and a better estimate need not give a better ranking. We measure agreement free of shared error by estimating the two effects on disjoint random halves of each experiment's customers. In an archive of 262 experiments and 69 candidate proxies, the shared error ranks the candidates in a similar order to this agreement (Spearman correlation 0.65): it carries information about proxy quality. The more of it a correction removes, the worse the ranking because removal discards part of the signal but leaves the main sources of ranking noise, the noisy north star and the limited number of experiments, untouched. Archive-calibrated simulations, in which the correct ranking is known, confirm this even when every correction receives the true sampling covariance. Held-out real experiments, evaluated on disjoint customer halves so that shared error cannot bias the comparison, closely reproduce the predicted ordering (Spearman correlation 0.93). Correction can still pay off with more experiments, but the number needed rises steeply with the north star's noise. We map this crossover and give platform teams three inexpensive checks for deciding from their own archive whether and how strongly to correct. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.08194 |
| By: | Zhuo Wang |
| Abstract: | Classical growth theory places physical productivity at the center of economic growth. In modern service-based economies, however, growth increasingly means creating higher-valued products rather than increasing output quantities. This paper develops a theory of value growth based on a socially and institutionally sustained value scale. The framework unifies value creation, finance, and distribution and offers an account of major patterns in US economic history. The proposed framework is intended as a new approach to macroeconomic analysis and policy making. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.08302 |
| By: | Xiaoming Cai (Peking University HSBC Business School); Pieter Gautier (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Search frictions normally raise the bar for sorting: both random and directed search require complementarities strictly stronger than the supermodularity that suffices in Becker's (1973) frictionless model. We introduce private information into this setting: firms post wages without observing worker productivity, while better workers have better outside options, creating a market for lemons (Akerlof 1970). We show that this information friction pushes sorting the other way: attracting high-productivity workers without attracting low-productivity ones requires a higher wage paired with a lower job-finding probability, so vacancies fill faster. This strict ranking of vacancy filling rates sorts the market positively whenever output is complementary in worker and firm quality. Becker's condition therefore suffices once more, and private information makes positive sorting easier to sustain than complete information does. |
| Keywords: | Competitive search, adverse selection, screening, sorting, positive assortative matching |
| Date: | 2026–10–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260081 |
| By: | Lucas Herrenbrueck, Xinhao Dong and Zijian Wang (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | The conventional approach to measuring a convenience yield or liquidity premium is to take two assets that differ in convenience or liquidity but are otherwise identical, and to proxy the price of convenience (PoC) with their spread. We show that this approach is insufficient. First, short-term assets are inherently liquid for non-urgent needs, therefore a spread between them reflects urgency of needs rather than liquidity of assets. Second, any spread reflects the underlying assets’ loadings on convenience rather than convenience itself. To solve these problems, we develop a monetary asset pricing model and estimate it with three instruments that differ in maturity and in marketability: Treasury bills, commercial paper, and AAA corporate bonds. At our headline estimate, the PoC averages 5.1% a year and varies between 3.2% and 11.4% – an order of magnitude above conventional measures – and a private claim delivers on average about half the liquidity services of a Treasury bill. On average, only 24% of the PoC is attributable to urgency. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp26-12 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | The global economic and financial environment is characterized by profound transformation and heightened uncertainty, including that stemming from the war in the Middle East. In this context, demand for Fund engagement is expected to remain strong, continuing to require difficult trade-offs within a real flat budget. The FY27-29 budget maintains a longstanding emphasis on discipline, focus, and agility in line with the evolving needs of the membership. Implementation of a Fund-wide streamlining exercise is reinforcing ongoing department-level prioritization to create space for the highest priority needs, relieve staff work pressures, and maintain capacity for unforeseen demands. |
| Keywords: | budget agility; budget discipline; budget envelope; budget framework; budget overview; budget planning; Budget planning and preparation; budget prudence; budget resources; capital budget; Cyber risk; fund staff; Global; medium-term budget; staff work pressure; Imf staff; Budget utilization; Imf executive board; Budget process; Middle East; Central Asia |
| Date: | 2026–05–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2026/015 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | In line with the framework for addressing excessive delays in the completion of Article IV consultations, the following table lists the IMF members for whom the Article IV consultation has been delayed by more than 18 months as of June 30, 2026. |
| Keywords: | Economic classification; Financial sector stability; Financial stability assessment; IMF Policy; IMF staff; staff report; transparency policy;COVID-19 |
| Date: | 2026–08–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2026/024 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | The 70 low-income countries (LICs) in the IMF’s membership experienced steady but modest growth in 2024, with marked divergence across countries. While 11 of the 20 fastest-growing countries in 2024 were LICs, many of the poorer and often also fragile and conflict-affected countries saw virtually no progress in per capita incomes over the past 15 years. Gradual fiscal consolidation proceeded in about half of the LICs, supporting further stabilization of public debt levels, but elevated debt service continues to constrain priority spending in many LICs. Growth is expected to accelerate over the medium term, while recent policy announcements on trade measures and official development aid will add to already elevated uncertainty and downside risks surrounding the outlook. Building resilience and reinvigorating inclusive growth are urgent. This agenda calls for further progress with implementing fiscal adjustments while minimizing the impact on growth, and more focus on measures to increase productivity. Enhancing spending efficiency and mobilizing domestic revenue will be critical, as well as improving economic institutions to support external capital inflows and domestic financial market development. Improvements to governance, education, and health, together with supporting physical capital formation and facilitating broader labor force participation, would help boost all factors of production and especially total factor productivity. On exchange rate regimes, there has been a clear trend among LICs to move away from market-determined exchange rates toward more tightly controlled arrangements, resulting in inconsistencies between de jure and de facto exchange rate arrangements. Overall, LICs progressed with developing FX markets, central banks play a lesser role in allocating foreign exchange, and greater reliance on FX auctions facilitates price discovery. |
| Keywords: | Aggregate demand; Artificial intelligence; Capital flows; Capital controls; Capital formation; Debt service; Debt vulnerability; Domestic financial market; Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM); Exchange rate; Exchange rate restrictions; External capital inflows; External support; Financial support; Financial inflows; Financing needs; Fiscal adjustment; Fiscal consolidation; Fiscal multipliers; Food insecurity; Foreign exchange market operations; Fragile and conflict affected states; Frontier markets; Global Growth; Heterogeneity; Human capital; Inclusive growth; Income gap; Income convergence; Inflation; Labor force participation; Low-Income Countries; Market access; Monetary policy; Multiple currency practices; Poverty rate; Poverty reduction; Productivity; Prospects in low-income countries; Reform scenario; Resilience building; Social spending; Sub-Saharan Africa; Sustainable development goals (SDGs); Total factor productivity (TFP); Transparency policy; Uncertainty; trade policy uncertainty; policy agenda; volatility in financial markets; net impact; Exchange rate arrangements; Currency markets; Exchange restrictions; Global |
| Date: | 2025–04–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2025/008 |
| By: | Wei Ma |
| Abstract: | Experimental evidence reveals that, in aggregating time preferences, a decision maker exhibits mild aversion to inequality across individuals' evaluations of a stream. Neither the utilitarian nor the maxmin aggregation rule can account for this finding. Building on principles concerning the comparability of intergenerational utilities and intergenerational fairness, this paper axiomatizes a family of aggregation rules that allow the decision maker to display varying degrees of inequality aversion. These rules fit well with experimental data. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.36744 |
| By: | Ismail, Nasrul |
| Abstract: | Compliance with judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is conventionally recorded as a terminal status: a case is open or closed, a judgment executed or pending, an obligation met or unmet. These measures enable scholarly comparison, but they cannot show how a state engages with the supervision of a judgment or whether reform of prison conditions endures. As such, this article treats compliance as conduct and asks whether the closure of supervision reflects durable improvement in the conditions a judgment addressed. Drawing on the documentary record of Committee of Ministers supervision in three pilot-judgment jurisdictions (i.e., Italy, Romania, and Hungary), with two contextual comparators (i.e., Spain and England and Wales), it codes state disclosures for opacity and stance and reconstructs responsiveness descriptively from the dated supervisory sequence. Two independent coders reached strong agreement (Krippendorff’s alpha of 0.88 for stance and 0.90 for opacity, on small, well-specified eligible data sets). The cases did not form a single compliance scale but displayed distinct configurations. Specifically, Italy was transparent but shifted in its stated position before closure in 2016; Romania combined continuing engagement with capacity explanations; and Hungary combined formal but insubstantial engagement with selective disclosure. Set against current prison occupancy, the state that had completed supervision was the most overcrowded: Italy recorded 120.7 occupants per 100 places, exceeding Hungary's 114.5 and Romania's 111.2. Because the occupancy snapshot postdated Italy's closure, it could not reveal whether closure caused the later overcrowding, but it did manifest that closure did not secure lasting improvement in reforms. The article frames this durability gap as a problem of means-ends decoupling and offers a reproducible method for distinguishing compliance conduct from the substantive conditions oversight exists to change. |
| Date: | 2026–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:fdbma_v1 |
| By: | Krieger, Bastian (ZEW – Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung; TUM – Technische Universität München); Kroll, Henning (Fraunhofer ISI; Leibniz Universität Hannover); Schubert, Torben (Fraunhofer ISI; CIRCLE, Lund University); Strecke, Linus (ZEW – Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung; TU Berlin); Garcia Chavez, Cecilia (Fraunhofer ISI; CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether the local economic effects of niche university actors depend on regional context. Focusing on private university campuses in Germany, we exploit their staggered foundation between 1990 and 2020 and estimate their effects using a conditional staggered difference-in-differences design at the postal-code level. Campus foundations raise local economic activity, but only gradually, with effects becoming statistically significant after about ten years. The effects are strongest in rural and intermediate regions, while urban regions show no significant effects. This pattern supports our argument that niche universities have greater potential to become significant actors in institutionally thinner rural regions. |
| Keywords: | Regional growth; Private universities; Place-based leadership; Urban-rural |
| JEL: | O12 O18 O38 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–09–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2026_005 |
| By: | Brodeur, Abel; Jakobsson, Niklas; Moore, Kristjan; Barbarioli, Bruno |
| Abstract: | Inspection of the publicly archived replication package for Cheng et al. (2024) reveals several data integrity concerns across three of the four reported studies. In Study 1, 18 survey sessions contain rows sharing identical participant numbers, timestamps, IP addresses, and contact details, indicating repeated submissions by the same respondent or duplicates that were not screened out before analysis. In Study 2, the healthy control group contains 500 observations despite the paper stating 481, and the N = 500 mean matches the reported statistic exactly. The clinical group subscale scores contain 17 values exceeding the scale maximum of 50, and all Study 4 item responses fall in the range 1-11 rather than the stated 0-10, suggesting a possible scale mismatch between groups; if unharmonised, the paper's primary finding - that chronic illness patients show higher Rest desire than controls - disappears entirely. The abstract additionally states the wrong direction for the psychiatric Move comparison. Study 3 data are absent from the repository, and Study 4 statistics cannot be reproduced from the released files. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:324 |
| By: | Gondauri, Davit |
| Abstract: | This paper develops an algorithmic, structural, and certification theory for a fixed-normalization class of symmetric bimatrix games generated by a common kernel. The class arose from a broader investigation of approximation-threshold reductions for bimatrix Nash equilibria, but the principal results are unconditional and form an independent structured-game approximation framework. The central result is a polynomial-time algorithm that computes a rational \(1/5\)-approximate Nash equilibrium for every rational game in the common-kernel class using a single auxiliary zero-sum saddle problem. The saddle value yields two complementary symmetric regret bounds, \(v/3\) and \((1-v)/2\), whose crossing at \(v=3/5\) gives the \(1/5\) guarantee. The constant is proved tight for the stated endpoint-selection policy, but is not claimed to be the optimal approximation constant attainable by all polynomial-time algorithms on the class. The paper further develops an exact polynomial-time post-processing procedure, Segment-Optimize, for any selected optimal saddle pair. It minimizes regret exactly along the segment joining the row-maximin and column-minimizing strategies by exploiting the piecewise-affine best-response envelope and the resulting piecewise-quadratic regret function. This optimization can strictly improve the endpoint solution while preserving the same worst-case \(1/5\) guarantee. The dependence of this post-processing step on the selected saddle pair is made explicit. The common-kernel representation is fully algorithmic. The paper gives an exact recognition procedure, proves uniqueness of kernel recovery, and characterizes the class as an affine image of the kernel cube. A symmetric/antisymmetric decomposition explains the structural origin of the factor-three directional matrix used by the saddle algorithm. The paper also proves that every normalized symmetric bimatrix game has a positive-affine representative in the common-kernel class, while carefully tracking the resulting factor-three rescaling of additive regret. Consequently, the \(1/5\) result is a fixed-normalization theorem and is not a scale-invariant \(1/5\) approximation result for arbitrary symmetric games. Exact symmetric-equilibrium computation nevertheless remains PPAD-hard within the class. For arbitrary square rational games, the theory extends beyond exact membership through a nearest-class projection in the entrywise maximum norm. The projection is formulated as a rational linear program and is accompanied by an explicit dual representation, yielding a directly checkable primal-dual optimality certificate. Combining the nearest common-kernel representative with the saddle algorithm gives a certified \((1/5+2\eta^\*)\)-approximate equilibrium, where \(\eta^\*\) is the exact projection distance. An a posteriori certificate is also provided for arbitrary feasible approximate kernels and exactly evaluated candidate profiles. A separate sharp selector theorem analyzes the declared full-subset selector family. It proves the exact optimal regret-to-uniformity coefficient \(3-1/q\) and provides a matching construction. The result is explicitly limited to the full-subset representation and is not asserted to transfer automatically to compressed or restricted selector families. The reduction-theoretic consequences are deliberately isolated from the unconditional approximation theory. Under an explicit parameter-controlled fine-grained source-hardness premise, the paper derives conditional exclusions for threshold-bridge compilers whose outputs lie in the common-kernel class or in a sufficiently small certified neighborhood of it. Additional structural diagnostics show that diffuse semantic validity need not force a heavy decodable witness and that a semantic high region cannot simultaneously be nonempty, uniformly subexponentially searchable, and guaranteed to decode to a valid source solution. These statements are local design constraints for reduction architectures, not a solution of the general deterministic \(1/3\)-approximation-threshold problem. The paper provides four explicit computational procedures: Recognize-and-Recover, Common-Kernel Saddle Solver, Segment-Optimize, and Project-and-Solve. The reproducibility package separates exact finite-instance verification from floating-point numerical consistency checks. In particular, an exhaustive exact audit covers all \(65{, }536\) binary \(4\times4\) kernels, with zero missing saddle certificates, zero branch-bound failures, and zero selected-\(1/5\)-bound failures. A separate exact-rational Segment-Optimize audit covers all 528 binary kernels in dimensions \(m=2, 3\), verifying breakpoint, active-envelope, stationary-point, interval-membership, endpoint-comparison, and nonnegative-regret conditions. Overall, the paper contributes a unified structured-game framework combining polynomial-time approximation, exact recognition and kernel recovery, affine geometry, exact segment optimization, robust nearest-class projection, primal-dual certification, sharp selector calibration, and carefully delimited conditional implications for Nash-equilibrium reduction design. It does not claim to resolve the global deterministic approximation-threshold problem; rather, it identifies and fully analyzes a tractable and certifiable common-kernel regime. |
| Keywords: | Approximate Nash Equilibrium, Bimatrix Games, Symmetric Games, Common-Kernel Games, Algorithmic Game Theory, Computational Game Theory, Polynomial-Time Algorithms, Zero-Sum Games, Minimax, Linear Programming, Regret, Exact Recognition, Kernel Recovery, Segment Optimization, Robustness Certification, Primal-Dual Certification, Selector Games, PPAD, Computational Complexity, Hardness Reductions |
| JEL: | C72 C61 C63 C70 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:344034 |
| By: | Greyling, Talita; Rossouw, Stephanie |
| Abstract: | Life satisfaction (LS) and the Cantril ladder (CL) are widely used as measures of evaluative well-being. Because the two measures are strongly correlated, they are frequently treated as interchangeable when analysing the determinants of subjective well-being, comparing countries and informing public policy. However, recent evidence suggests that respondents may not interpret these questions similarly across regions. We examine whether LS and the CL measure the same underlying concept using pooled data from the first two waves of the Global Flourishing Study, covering 23 countries (including one territory). We first compare respondents' answers to the two measures across all regions by analysing country averages and individual-level correlations. We then examine the within-person LS-CL difference and estimate separate XGBoost models on pooled observations from Waves 1 and 2, alongside pooled OLS models with country and wave fixed effects, focusing on the two regions that display the largest contrast: Western countries and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Finally, we compare country rankings for all regions across our 23 countries. Our findings show that LS and the CL should not be treated as universally interchangeable measures of evaluative well-being. Correlation analyses between the two measures at the country and individual levels, both within and between regions, vary substantially. Focusing on the Western and SSA regions, respondents differ much more in their evaluations of the two measures in SSA than in the West. The features associated with each measure also differ. In the Western sample, mental health is the most important predictor of both measures, but is substantially more important for LS, while perceived income is relatively more important for the CL. Loneliness is considerably more important for LS in SSA, while country is among the most important features for both SSA outcomes. Perceived income is also important in both regions. Therefore, the distinction between LS and the CL is not simply that different variables matter in each case. Many of the same features are important for both measures, but the relative weight placed on them differs between the two measures and, more substantially, between the two regions. Furthermore, the standard set of variables used to explain LS and the CL accounts for substantially more variation in the West than in SSA, suggesting that important features of evaluative well-being in SSA remain unobserved or suffer from significant measurement error. Therefore, treating the two measures as interchangeable, particularly in country comparisons that extend beyond Western countries, risks drawing conclusions that are not representative of all countries and regions. We conclude that the choice of evaluative well-being measure has substantive consequences for conclusions and ranking of countries and should be guided by the research question and regional context. |
| Keywords: | Life satisfaction, Cantril ladder, XGBoost, SHAP, Global Flourishing Study |
| JEL: | C45 D91 I31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1825 |
| By: | Diego R. Känzig; Maximilian Konradt; Lixing Wang; Donghai Zhang |
| Abstract: | We study how business cycle fluctuations shape the pace and direction of innovation. Non-green innovation is procyclical, while green innovation is countercyclical, both over the cycle and in response to economic shocks. We explain this divergence in a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous green and non-green innovation. Green patents derive more value from distant profits, making green innovation less sensitive to short-run fluctuations. Endogenous innovation costs reinforce this mechanism, making green and non-green innovation effective substitutes. Evidence from market-implied patent valuations and scientist earnings supports the mechanism. The model implies larger and greener effects of innovation subsidies during downturns. |
| JEL: | E32 O31 Q55 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35795 |
| By: | Mantel, Isabella (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg); Riphahn, Regina (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Demographic aging causes substantial worker shortages. So far, policy debates neglect the aspect of age at labor market entry. We study the age at which young individuals first enter the labor market and how it has developed over the last four decades. Based on long-running administrative data, we describe birth cohorts from 1960 through 2000, and separately consider different types of employment entry. We investigate the entry age distribution and heterogeneities across demo-graphic groups. We find that conditional on employment, the median age of first holding a stable full-time employment increased by almost 4 years between the birth cohorts 1960 and 1995. Our decomposition analysis yields that more than one quarter of this increase is explained by higher educational attainment and the rising share of non-German workers, which appear to be the main mechanisms behind the delay in labor market entry. Additionally accounting for changed occupations, industry composition, and relative entry-level earnings explains about 40 percent of the ob-served delay in labor market entry. The role of different mechanisms varies across the types of employment entry. |
| Keywords: | demographic aging, age at labor market entry, administrative data |
| JEL: | J11 J21 I28 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18980 |