This study analyzes speculative stock market bubbles in 17 emerging market indices (2005-2025) using the GSADF test for detection and Random Forest/logistic regression for driver identification. Bubble episodes are found in 7 indices, mainly from 2020 to 2025, reflecting market volatility in Turkey, India, China, Argentina, Taiwan, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Random Forest models identify global equity trends (MSCIWorld) and risk aversion (GoldPrice, VIX) as key drivers, with commodity prices (BrentOil) playing a dominant role in Argentina. Logistic regression confirms these findings, highlighting MSCIWorld, GoldPrice, and VIX as significant factors in bubble-prone markets. A heatmap underscores the heterogeneity of bubble drivers, offering insights into emerging market dynamics. The study contributes to behavioral finance by examining global and local influences on bubbles and provides implications for policymakers and investors.
This paper analyses the impact of the number of unpaid care hours (NUCH) on job satisfaction in European (19) countries through the European Working Conditions Survey and verifies if there exists a differential pattern depending on gender-based disparities in the country. The descriptive results reveal substantial cross-country variation in NUCH, with women consistently reporting higher levels of unpaid care work in every national context examined. Heckman two-step estimates show that NUCH has a negative and significant influence on job satisfaction and that this effect is stronger for women than for men. The impact of NUCH is negative across the different groups of countries considered, but statistically significant only in those with greater gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Index. The importance of work-life conciliation also appears to be greater for women in this group. The estimates were obtained using Heckman's two-step model to address the possible presence of sample-selection bias. Our results evidence the need to consider the individual's environment (in our case, the degree of gender inequality) to observe the distribution of care work by gender and its impact on job satisfaction, and not just the individual factors. Investing in the health and social sectors could not only reduce NUCH for women but also affect women's job satisfaction. In the short term, improvement of women's conditions could feasibly increase their awareness of the problem, producing a negative impact, but the reduction of NUCH and fairer distribution should increase job satisfaction in the long term.
Income taxation is theoretically considered one of the most effective and widely used tools of public finance for correcting income inequality. However, its actual redistributive capacity varies significantly across countries and depends on the design of tax instruments. This study isolates the effects of taxation from transfers to examine whether justice-based tax instruments-such as progressive tax rates, minimum living allowance (MLA), and tax credits-enhance redistribution. To empirically assess these relationships, a dynamic panel dataset covering 38 countries (37 OECD members and Bulgaria) between 2005 and 2020 is constructed. The System GMM method is applied to estimate the model. On average, taxation accounts for 26% of total redistribution, and its effect is significantly enhanced by equity-oriented tax policies. A one-point increase in tax progressivity leads to a 0.731-point rise in redistribution (P < 0.01), and tax credits have a similarly significant positive effect (+0.266). In contrast, personal allowances and zero-rate brackets show no statistically meaningful impact. A 10-point increase in the MLA index leads to a 0.4-point reduction in redistribution, suggesting that applying horizontal equity (equal treatment across household types) may undermine efforts to improve vertical equity (reducing income inequality). These findings highlight the importance of designing targeted and fairness-driven tax instruments to strengthen the redistributive role of taxation, beyond dependence on transfer mechanisms.
This qualitative study examines the determinants of occupational segregation in the Serbian labor market, with a particular emphasis on gender identity. Using Labour Force Survey data, we calculate commonly used indices of labour-market segregation and identify occupations with significant gender imbalances. We complement this quantitative analysis with individual interviews from highly segregated occupations and focus group discussions on occupational choice factors. The triangulation of these findings reveals the persistence of conservative values in Serbian society, which helps explain the rising level of gender segregation among major occupational groups over the past two decades. Respondents describe how segregation has been shaped by economic transformations during the transition period, including the expansion of the private sector, the entry of multinational companies, and the expansion of career opportunities. We observe near-universal support for traditional gender identities: women are primarily regarded as caregivers - emotional and best suited to people-oriented jobs, while men are perceived as bold, task-focused, and more appropriate for physically demanding or technical work, reinforcing their status as leading family providers.
As global power structures shift and energy security becomes increasingly politicized, tracing the cross-border transmission of uncertainty between economically and strategically linked nations has become crucial. This study investigates the dynamic interdependence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and energy-related uncertainty (EUI) between Germany and Russia over 2001-2023. We first examine bilateral linkages between the EPU and EUI indices using static and dynamic correlation measures. Standard and time-varying Granger causality tests reveal a persistent unidirectional influence from German to Russian EPU, while reverse causality remains weak. In the EUI domain, the causal structure is more volatile and bidirectional, with Russia influencing Germany before the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War, but Germany becoming the dominant driver afterward. To isolate the role of energy in the transmission of policy uncertainty, we orthogonalize each country's EPU with respect to its own EUI. The results show that much of the bilateral EPU correlation is energy-driven; however, Germany's EPU component, unrelated to energy, still significantly affects Russian EPU in the post-war period. These findings highlight the strategic importance of energy policy in shaping macroeconomic uncertainty and highlight the need for its explicit integration into international economic policymaking.
This study investigates the non-linear impact of digitalization on income inequality within developing economies. Utilising a balanced panel dataset of 45 countries from 2000 to 2023, we employ a dynamic panel threshold model to empirically identify structural breakpoints in this relationship. The findings reveal an inverted U-shaped pattern: at low-to-moderate levels of digitalization (index <= 0.48), technological advancement exacerbates income disparity, consistent with the 'digital divide' hypothesis. Conversely, beyond this critical threshold, further digitalization significantly mitigates inequality, aligning with the 'digital inclusion' perspective. These results suggest that the beneficial 'digital dividend' is contingent upon achieving a requisite level of digital maturity. Consequently, policy interventions in developing nations must prioritise the expansion of digital infrastructure to surpass this development threshold, thereby leveraging digitalization as a mechanism for equitable distribution.
Aid and subsidies can support development by addressing resource gaps, improving infrastructure, and strengthening institutional capacity. However, both theoretical and empirical research also highlights the potential adverse effects of aid-particularly in weak institutional environments-where it can undermine accountability, facilitate rent-seeking and corruption, and entrench corrupt elites. A key question, therefore, is how EU subsidies correlate with levels of corruption. This paper investigates this question using public procurement contract data from EU Member States between 2007 and 2023.The analysis draws on contract-level data from the EU's Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) database, which contains over 8.2 million contracts from the 2007-2023 period. The findings reveal that, after controlling for various characteristics of public procurement contracts, EU-funded contracts are associated with higher levels of corruption risk. This result holds across both traditional corruption risk indicators, such as the proportion of non-competitive contract awards, and alternative indicators better suited to capturing the institutional context of corruption. We observe a strong positive correlation between EU subsidies and corruption risk in Western European countries as well. These findings carry important policy implications: the European Commission should enhance its monitoring of EU-funded public procurement in all Member States, including those in Western Europe.
This study aims to investigate whether tourist arrivals in T & uuml;rkiye, one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, are influenced by geopolitical risks. Thus, the study offers implications for the basic hypothesis that geopolitical risks do not influence the travel decisions of tourists visiting popular tourist destinations. The study analyzes the relationship between T & uuml;rkiye's geopolitical risk index and the number of tourist arrivals to T & uuml;rkiye for the period 1990M01-2024M05 using the time-varying causality testing procedure proposed by Shi et al. (2018, 2020). Thus, the study findings are sensitive to the possibility that the relationship between variables may change over time. The findings confirm a causal relationship between geopolitical risks and tourist arrivals in specific periods. The results indicate that geopolitical risks were a determinant of tourist arrivals in T & uuml;rkiye from the second half of 2007 to the second half of 2016. These findings, obtained from the time-varying causality test, differ from the traditional Toda-Yamamoto causality test, which reveals that there is no Granger causality between the variables during the considered period. The study findings highlight the need for policy calibration within the countries' geopolitical risk dynamics. The results explicitly obtained for T & uuml;rkiye can be generalized to countries with similar risk and tourism dynamics. Governments and destination managers are advised to implement crisis pricing, visa flexibility, strategic communication to manage destination image, and coordination between the tourism and defense/security ministries during high-risk periods.
The present study aims to develop an integrated approach to assessing and managing investment risks faced by Chinese enterprises, taking into account the influence of productivity levels and the development of project linkages on decision-making in the context of international investments. The research methodology employs discrete analysis based on complementary log-log regression, enabling the consideration of both the temporal dynamics of investment decision-making and the influence of host-country characteristics. The analysis draws on data from 200 Chinese companies engaged in project linkages across 15 Belt and Road Initiative countries between 2017 and 2024. The findings indicate that the reduction of investment risks in the process of international expansion is generally achieved through high enterprise productivity and the selection of host countries with more stable institutional and economic environments. The study reveals that project linkages function as a form of institutional support, reducing entry barriers and facilitating investment flows into resource-rich countries with a well-developed labour base. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of methodological tools for diagnosing and managing investment risks, which can be applied both by governmental bodies in shaping foreign economic policy and by corporate entities in designing entry strategies for foreign markets.
Algorithmic credit systems used by fintech platforms are increasingly transforming access to financial services across the United States. While machine learning-driven models improve credit availability, they also raise concerns about fairness, transparency, and structural bias. This study presents a hybrid empirical framework-combining causal inference techniques with explainable AI audits-to evaluate the distributional impacts of fintech lending from 2010 to 2023 at the ZIP-code level. Using difference-in-differences estimations and Causal Forest models, we find that fintech entry increases approval rates by 6-9 percentage points, particularly in low-income and majority-minority areas. However, these gains are accompanied by higher interest rates and spatially embedded proxy biases, especially in ZIP code-linked features. SHAP-based interpretability and fairness diagnostics reveal significant disparities and fairness decay under demographic drift. To address these challenges, we propose a novel Algorithmic Accountability Index (AAI) that quantifies disparities in transparency, proxy risk, and model equity. These findings provide policy-relevant insights for digital financial governance, algorithmic audit standards, and the equitable design of AI-based credit infrastructures.
This study analyses and compares the environmental implications of structural change in a deindustrialized (the United States) and a late industrialized (China) nation. We contribute to the literature by performing a quantile-on-quantile analysis from 1965 to 2019. We examine the heterogeneous effect on the environment in the United States and China. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine and compare the effect of structural change on environmental quality in the United States and China. Our findings show that the factors determining environmental quality in China exhibit a more fluctuating pattern with varying responses across different quantiles, indicating a higher level of heterogeneity. Conversely, in the United States, environmental quality factors tend to display more stable responses across quantiles. Our results suggest some policy implications that the United States and China have important responsibilities to improve environmental quality all over the earth.
This study focuses on the problem of stock management, a part of the circular economy, considering reuse. The basis of our presented model is the well-known Leontief model, where we investigate the possibility and impact of collection and reuse processes. It also follows that the concept of a circular economy can be approached as a problem or task in several ways. Using the Leontief model's concept, we examine the dynamic case. The new result of this study is that we can show the effect of distinguishing between newly produced and reused goods on final consumption in the reuse process. We show that stock dependence is relevant to closing the circular economy model. The analysis of the discrete dynamical system shows the growth potential of reuse in the production process. In the model, the dynamization solves the waste management problem: the collected but unused goods appear as stock in the next production period. The originality stems from the dynamic, stock-based, and dual-sub-economy extension of the Leontief model, specifically tailored to address reuse, stock management, and waste minimization in the circular economy, filling a recognized gap in the existing literature. We illustrate the results with numerical examples.
This study empirically examines the argument that the borrowing of laws and legal institutions from other countries affects the effectiveness of the legal system and, in turn, interpersonal trust. We utilise instruments on legal transplantation to understand the effectiveness of the legal system. Our instrumental variables estimations suggest that successful legal transplantation fosters trust by improving the effectiveness of the legal system. If a recipient country is familiar or culturally close to the transplanted law, or adaptation of the transplanted law has been achieved, a better legal system through mitigating the transplant effect promotes trust. Moreover, diverse and weak estimates for legal families suggest that they do not consistently affect the effectiveness of a legal system. Moreover, even after the addition of legal families into the instrument list, the transplant type variable still has a robust and consistent effect on the effectiveness of a legal system and, in turn, on trust. Regardless of the legal family of the transplanted law, if a transplant country shares cultural similarities with the country of origin, it tends to have higher interpersonal trust due to its better legal system. Therefore, lawmakers should carefully consider the importance of the nexus between legal transplantation, the legal system, and trust in addressing the economic and social challenges faced by countries.
This study's primary goal is to investigate how climate change affects T & uuml;rkiye's overall and regional income distribution. The study used the average temperature and precipitation levels as independent factors and the P80/P20 criterion for the 2014-2022 period as the dependent variable. To estimate models examining the relationships between variables within sub-sample groups, the system generally employs the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The findings of the analysis show that i) An increase in the average precipitation level has a linear impact on income inequality in the models that include all 26 regions. Nevertheless, this effect is not very strong. ii) An increase in average temperature affects income inequality nonlinearly. The non-linear relationship was found to be in the shape of an inverted U. iii) The findings for all 26 regions were similar in the areas with higher average temperatures. iv) The impact of average temperature increases on income inequality is linear in low-income and agriculturally dominated regions. The income inequality rises by roughly 0.2470-0.2706 units in these locations for every 1 degrees C increase in the average temperature. v) Although higher average precipitation levels have a linear impact on income inequality in low-income and agriculturally dominated regions, this effect is minimal.
This study analyses the fiscal and monetary determinants of inflation in 27 European Union (EU) member states between 2010 and 2023, with a comparative focus on "old" (primarily Western European) and "post-socialist" (mostly Eastern European) members. A dynamic panel estimation based on the System Generalised Method of Moments (System GMM) is employed to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Key macroeconomic variables considered include wages, unemployment, interest rates, exchange rates, government spending, tax revenues, trade openness, and government debt growth.The findings show stronger inflation persistence in post-socialist members, while wages exert greater upward pressure on prices in older members. Unemployment displays a weaker inverse link with inflation in older EU countries, whereas government spending exhibits a negative association with inflation, suggesting that fiscal tightening is not uniformly disinflationary. Tax revenues, meanwhile, have a positive but insignificant effect. The results also indicate that exchange rate depreciation drives higher inflation in post-socialist members, while higher interest rates reduce inflation across both groups.The contribution of this paper lies in its comparative analysis of old and post-socialist EU members, its incorporation of inflation persistence, and the application of a robust dynamic specification. The evidence suggests that tailored rather than uniform policy measures are required to safeguard price stability and support sustainable growth across the EU.
This paper explores the changing landscape of external finance in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) following the global financial crisis of 2008. Through comparative statistical analysis, it traces shifts in the primary sources of external finance, including foreign direct investment (FDI), EU subsidies, remittances, and external debt. The findings reveal a significant decline in the importance of FDI and external debt, offset by an increasing dependence on EU subsidies and remittances. The paper categorises countries into three groups according to their dominant source of external finance, with only one cluster remaining primarily FDI-led. By unpacking these varied forms of financial dependence, the paper provides a more nuanced understanding of post-crisis growth models in the CEE region. It concludes that, while the composition of external finance has shifted, overall dependency has persisted.
This study delves into the intricate relationships between economic complexity, financial development, and income inequality in 32 Asian countries during 1995-2022, employing both ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and quantile regression methods. Our analysis reveals that the impact of economic complexity and financial development on income inequality is more nuanced than previously thought, varying significantly across different quantiles of the income distribution. The findings suggest that economic complexity has a heterogeneous effect on income inequality, reducing it at lower quantiles but exacerbating it at higher quantiles. This implies that economic complexity may benefit the poor and middle class but worsen income disparities among the wealthy. In contrast, financial development exhibits a more consistent negative relationship with income inequality across quantiles, indicating that it can be an effective tool for reducing income disparities. The study's results have significant policy implications, highlighting the need for tailored strategies that account for the complex interplay between economic complexity, financial development, and income inequality. By understanding these relationships, policymakers can design more effective interventions to address income inequality and promote inclusive economic growth in Asia.
Controversies surrounding CO2 emissions in the Balkans revolve around the region's reliance on coal, slow adoption of RES, struggles to meet EU environmental standards, the health impacts of pollution, foreign investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, the environmental consequences of hydropower, and corruption in the energy sector. These issues are deeply intertwined with the region's economic challenges and its efforts to balance immediate needs with long-term environmental sustainability. The analysis covers the 25th, 50th (median), and 75th quantiles to capture the varying impacts across different levels of the dependent variable. The results show that GDP positively affects CO2 emissions across all quantiles, with the coefficient decreasing from 0.59 at the 25th quantile to 0.35 at the 75th quantile. Renewable energy consumption (RENC) negatively influences CO2 emissions across all quantiles, with a coefficient of -0.60 at the 25th quantile and -0.58 at the 75th quantile, highlighting the potential of RES in reducing emissions. Foreign direct investment (FDI) positively impacts emissions, but is significant only at the 50th and 75th quantiles. Fossil fuel consumption (FF) is a significant driver of CO2 emissions across all quantiles, with the highest coefficient of 0.68 at the 75th quantile. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test reveals bidirectional causality between GDP and CO2 emissions, supporting the feedback hypothesis. There is also a significant bidirectional relationship between urbanization (URB) and CO2 emissions, as well as between CO(2 )and FDI. RENC is found to cause GDP, while FF causes GDP and CO2 emissions.
This study investigates the dynamic impacts of public and private borrowing on inflation in T & uuml;rkiye within the post-Keynesian framework of endogenous money supply. Employing a time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model, the study examines the evolving relationships between government bonds, private sector loans, money supply, and inflation from January 1986 to February 2024. The findings reveal significant time-varying effects, with public borrowing, mainly through the indirect monetization of government bonds, and private borrowing via credit expansion emerging as key drivers of inflation. The relative impacts of these factors evolve across different periods, shaped by T & uuml;rkiye's economic transitions and policy changes. During the 1990s, high domestic borrowing to finance fiscal deficits contributed to inflationary pressure through indirect debt monetization. In the 2000s, capital inflows fueled by the global liquidity glut accelerated private credit growth, amplifying demand-pull inflation. After 2020, unconventional monetary policies and fiscal interventions resurged the inflationary impact of government bonds. The time-varying forecast error variance decompositions further highlight the shifting contributions of bonds and loans to inflation variability over time. These findings underscore the necessity of regulating both public and private borrowing and adopting dynamic, coordinated, and adaptive policy frameworks to effectively manage inflation in T & uuml;rkiye. This study bridges the gap between global and local literature, providing valuable insights for policymakers seeking to achieve sustainable price stability and promote long-term economic resilience.
This paper aims to interpret labour market developments across the euro area in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, notably the simultaneous presence of signs of labour market slack and labour market tightness in 2021. Indicators of labour market slack and mismatch are reviewed and discussed. The Beveridge curve relationship is estimated econometrically across euro area countries to assess if upward shifts took place after the COVID-19 outbreak, since such upward shifts could indicate a possible reduction in the efficiency of matching between jobs and job seekers. As compared with previous analogous analyses (e.g., B & ouml;rsch-Supan 1991; Wall - Zoega 2002; Valletta 2005; Consolo - Dias 2019) the present analysis addresses the issue of residual autocorrelation present in standard Beveridge specifications and includes skill and sectoral mismatch indicators as additional controls. The results indicate a modest and temporary upward shift in the Beveridge curves of the euro area in 2020, reversed in 2021. Even though skill mismatch temporarily increased somewhat in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this appears to have had a very minor impact on the efficiency of labour market matching. Overall, the available evidence suggests that the simultaneous presence of labour market slack and tightness was a temporary phenomenon. The sharp increase in labour shortages was driven mainly by a sudden labour market recovery in a context of reduced labour supply elasticity rather than by a structural reduction in matching efficiency and major labour market reallocation needs.
