This article proposes a framework for evaluating whether a pricing mechanism that lowers marginal prices as consumption increases can outperform traditional pricing schemes-such as per item fees, subscriptions, or combinations of both-for firms offering zero marginal cost goods that cannot be easily resold (e.g., films). The problem is addressed through a computational agent-based model. Substantial improvements in revenue and consumer surplus are observed between the optimal price-by-quantity curves and the conventional alternatives (transaction fees, subscription and a combination of both) for the constructed populations of consumers. Further research avenues are suggested.
This article examines how social capital shapes entrepreneurial activity by analyzing the strength and diversity of social ties across U.S. counties. Drawing on Granovetter’s theory of weak ties, we assess how economic connectedness and social cohesiveness influence entrepreneurship. Using Non-farm Proprietorships from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis as a proxy for entrepreneurship, along with socioeconomic data and Facebook’s Social Capital Atlas, we apply spatial econometrics to reveal patterns of spatial dependence. Results show that economic connectedness—ties across socioeconomic divides—is positively associated with entrepreneurship, while social cohesiveness—dense in-group ties—is negatively related. Our findings support Granovetter’s hypothesis, demonstrating that diverse networks facilitate access to resources and information vital for entrepreneurial activity.
This study examines the relationship between national wealth, immigration inflows, and human trafficking across European countries from 2012 to 2022. Higher GDP per capita significantly attracts immigration, which is positively associated with trafficking victimization. Correlation analysis shows strong links between trafficking victims and both immigration (r = +37.4%, p = 0.05) and GDP per capita (r ≈ +42%, p = 0.03). Using two-stage least squares regression, we find that a 1% increase in immigration—instrumented by GDP per capita—raises trafficking victims by 0.87%. Additionally, a 1% rise in criminal convictions reduces victimization by 0.402%. These findings highlight key economic and demographic drivers of trafficking and offer policy-relevant insights for designing effective interventions.
This paper examines how geopolitical risk and wartime economic policy uncertainty affect carbon intensity in the United States. The dataset includes monthly carbon intensity (CI), geopolitical risk index (GPR), wartime-adjusted economic policy uncertainty index (WEPU), industrial production (IP), and West Texas Intermediate oil prices (WTI) from 2000 to 2024. Using the quantile vector error correction model (QVEC), this study shows pronounced asymmetries across carbon intensity distributions. Error correction speeds exhibit a U-shaped pattern, with the strongest adjustments at extreme quantiles (24.5% at the 95th percentile) and the weakest around the median. Geopolitical risk increases carbon intensity during high-emission periods while policy uncertainty reduces it at both extremes. These findings highlight the need for distribution-sensitive climate policies during geopolitical crises.
This article assesses the effectiveness of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in advanced economies. This is due to evidence of declining fiscal multipliers and reduced monetary traction since the global financial crisis and the pandemic. Utilising a comprehensive body of research, this study posits that diminishing marginal returns emerge in circumstances where public sectors expand significantly, monetary policy maintains a persistently accommodative stance, and institutional constraints limit productivity gains. A review of the extant literature on fiscal multipliers, with particular reference to cross-country and US evidence, is presented. The reasons for the variation in estimates across studies are explained, and the long-run implications of unconventional monetary policies are discussed. The findings of this study indicate that, while expansionary policies continue to be advantageous for short-term stabilisation, particularly during periods of significant economic decline, their structural efficacy has diminished. This necessitates enhancements in the efficiency of public expenditure, enhanced fiscal-monetary coordination across temporal horizons, and policy designs that promote innovation and private-sector-led growth.
This paper examines how environmental innovation influences startup creation in energy and non-energy sectors. Using a panel of 35 developed and developing countries from 1998 to 2019 and a two-way fixed effects model, I find that environmental knowledge significantly increases the creation of startups in energy sectors, while no effect is found for non-energy sectors. Further analysis reveals that environmental knowledge promotes startup creation across non-green, digital, and non-digital energy sectors, suggesting broad spillover effects. I also find that in less developed entrepreneurial ecosystems, environmental knowledge is critical for supporting the formation of startups in the clean energy sector. These results support policies aimed at fostering environmental innovation to stimulate entrepreneurship.
This article examines how social capital influences entrepreneurial activity by analyzing the structure of social ties across U.S. counties. Building on Granovetter's weak ties theory, we assess the role of economic connectedness (cross-class friendships) and social cohesiveness (dense local networks). Using data on Non-Farm Proprietorships from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and social capital indicators from Facebook's Social Capital Atlas, we estimate a Spatial Durbin Error Model to account for spatial dependence. Results show that economic connectedness is positively associated with local entrepreneurship, but this correlation weakens once neighboring conditions are considered. In contrast, social cohesiveness exhibits a uniformly negative but generally statistically inconclusive relationship. Findings suggest that diverse, outward-facing networks better support entrepreneurship than tightly clustered local ties.
This study examined the impact of various organisational factors-board diversity, digitalisation, gender diversity, company size, and stakeholder engagement-on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pursuit, as well as the subsequent relationship between ESG pursuit and investment decisions. Employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling, the study analysed these associations utilising a dataset comprising 133 listed Vietnamese firms across various industries. The results revealed that all the aforementioned factors exert a significantly positive influence on ESG initiatives, with company size and stakeholder engagement demonstrating the strongest effects. However, no significant relationship was identified between ESG pursuit and investment decisions, indicating that robust ESG practices do not necessarily attract greater investment. Discriminant validity assessed using the Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio, confirmed the distinctiveness of each construct within the model. These findings suggest that organisations should prioritise diversity, digitalisation, and stakeholder engagement to improve ESG outcomes. Policy recommendations include promoting board diversity, incentivising digital transformation, supporting gender balance, and encouraging investment in firms exhibiting exceptional ESG performance, ultimately fostering a more sustainable and responsible corporate environment.
We investigate the impact of corporate culture on firm productivity using textual analysis of earnings calls. Employing the Ackerberg-Caves-Frazer (2015) control-function approach and a shift-share instrument exploiting regional social capital, we find a robust positive causal effect. However, this effect is not uniform: productivity gains are driven specifically by innovation and quality. Validation against Glassdoor reviews confirms that innovation measures reflect "lived" culture, while teamwork may represent strategic signalling. The findings suggest that specific cultural attributes, rather than generalized culture, are key drivers of productivity.
The study provides unique insights into the role of prevailing personality traits in shaping regional innovation activity. It covers the period of 2017-2022 and includes fourteen Czech NUTS III regions. The multivariate regression analysis tests the relationship between selected population traits obtained from the 16Personalities survey, specifically Extraverted over Introverted (Extraversion), and Feeling over Thinking (Agreeableness), and regional innovation activity measured through patent applications and granted patents. The results, also controlled for other previously identified determinants of innovation, show that in the regions with more Introverted and Thinking individuals, the innovation activity, measured by both indicators, is higher. This finding extends the observations from the individual-level studies, showing that these traits are more likely associated with innovation behaviour. The study expands the existing research on the role of innovation culture by using 16Personalities survey data at the regional level and arguing their statistical significance in shaping innovation activity.
This letter revisits the relationship between national responses to climate change and genetic distance, which serves as a proxy for biological dissimilarities between countries, as well as the role of trade at both the global level and within a group of countries. Using cross-sectional data from 103 countries worldwide, including up to 23 Commonwealth nations, this study finds that improvements in climate policy are primarily driven by trade integration as an economic intervention tool within this group, rather than by genetic differences. These effects can be explained by the importation of environmental goods and services from the UK.
Academic freedom allows the development of new and revolutionary ideas, which are expected to lead to innovation and the creation of diverse, unique and complex products. This study explores that relationship empirically and finds that academic freedom boosts not only economic complexity but also technological and research complexity. Hence, academic freedom is fundamental to enhance the development of a country’s productive capacity.
A laboratory experiment is used to test whether algorithm aversion occurs particularly in decision-making situations where serious consequences are at stake. It is shown that the willingness to use an algorithm that is recognizably more powerful than a human expert decreases when the decision is particularly important.
This study examines the impacts of internationalization and geopolitical risk on the profitability and stability of Vietnamese commercial banks using 549 bank-year observations from 2008 to 2023 and a two-step system GMM framework along with robustness checks. Results show that internationalization improves bank stability but reduces profitability, highlighting a trade-off between diversification benefits and return generation. In contrast, geopolitical risk positively affects both profitability and stability, suggesting that bank adopts adaptive responses under uncertainty. Overall, the findings emphasize the complex interplay between international expansion and external risk in emerging economies and provide policy implications for strengthening financial resilience, with relevance to SDG 8 and SDG 9.
This paper examines the impact of energy efficiency on firm-level productivity in Vietnam's processing and manufacturing sector over the period 2011-2022. Energy efficiency is proxied by energy intensity, while total factor productivity (TFP) is estimated using the Levinsohn-Petrin approach to address input simultaneity. A dynamic panel model is then estimated using two-step GMM to correct for endogeneity and productivity persistence. The results show a robust negative relationship between energy intensity and TFP, indicating that more energy-efficient firms are more productive. Capital deepening and firm age positively affect productivity, whereas inflation has a negative impact. Substantial heterogeneity across regions and industries reflects differences in technology, energy use, and industrial organization. The findings highlight the role of energy efficiency and macroeconomic stability in enhancing productivity in emerging economies.
How geopolitical risk affects stock markets in low and lower-middle-income countries remains an area often overlooked. This study analyzes daily data from 2014 to 2025 for 16 stock markets and two geopolitical risk subindices, acts and threats. The transfer entropy is applied in a dynamic framework to measure asymmetric and time-varying information flows. The findings reveal a heterogeneous influence of acts and threats, varying by country-income level, geographic region, and over time, and suggest an increased sensitivity of financial markets after 2020, particularly in response to acts rather than threats. This highlights distinct geopolitical risk transmission, requiring tailored investment strategies and policy responses
We conduct mean comparison tests and regression analyses on a sample of 65 countries to explore the structural and cultural determinants of national R&D investment. We find a legal effect whereby structural drivers are effective only under a strong rule of law. Cultural openness and long-term orientation also show positive associations with R&D investment. While innovation efficiency attracts foreign R&D, innovation efficacy deters it, as profitable opportunities are usually exploited by domestic investors. Moreover, we identify a substitution effect in which governments offset insufficient domestic and foreign investment. Our findings have policy relevance, as we highlight underexplored enhancers of R&D beyond the usual financial or cost-related factors, providing new insights for designing more effective innovation and research strategies.
This research investigates the market response of green and environmentally focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to announcements by the World Health Organisation (WHO) regarding COVID-19 variants. The results show that the direction of investor responses to COVID-19 variants changed significantly over the course of the pandemic. Initial WHO announcements triggered sharp negative market responses, reflecting heightened uncertainty and investor risk aversion. However, market resilience improved as subsequent variant announcements elicited short-term positive reactions, suggesting improved investor confidence in green and environmentally focused investment assets, driven by government support and policies designed to underpin long-term sustainability. Results further illustrate ETFs' ability to mitigate systemic risks and provide portfolio diversification.
This paper investigates sectoral labour market matching in Austria using monthly administrative data from 2008 to 2024. We estimate sector-specific Beveridge curves and mismatch unemployment to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. While mismatch unemployment returned to pre-pandemic levels in most sectors, it remained elevated in hospitality and the public sector, particularly in healthcare. These results underscore the importance of working conditions for labour shortages, and the need for targeted policy interventions to address sector-specific frictions and enhance the efficiency of labour reallocation.
This study examines the relevance of economic knowledge among lawyers, based on a survey of Greek law professionals. The econometric results unveil a gap between the perceived usefulness and adequacy of economics literacy by lawyers. We argue that graduate studies in economics increase perceived competence, while self-employed practice is less beneficial. The findings survive robustness checks when we account for demographic characteristics. Lastly, the empirical analysis underscores the value of continued education and the impact of professional business experience in deepening lawyers' understanding of economics.
