Although financial performance at the firm level is understudied in Latin American educational sector, the theory predicts firm size as one of its main correlates. Using near-census level panel data (12,031 firm-year observations, 2968 firms, 2015–2025) from Superintendencia de Compañías, Valores y Seguros, Ecuador, the study employs descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, log-log regression, and k-means clustering. The regression with year and city fixed effects and clustered standard errors reveals that assets and employment are positively and significantly associated with revenue (elasticities are 0.815 and 0.353; R2 = 0.619). A model with firm and year fixed effects reveals a comparable within-firm elasticity of assets (0.797) and much smaller employment elasticity (0.163). K-means clustering of the 2025 cross-section identifies a few large firms (0.44%), many medium-size firms (12.16%) and a vast majority of small firms (87.40%). Internal validity criteria show no consensus on the optimal k; the three-cluster solution is chosen as parsimonious, substantively sensible, and relatively stable, with k = 2, 4 and 5 reported for transparency. This study provides an empirical benchmark for firms in Ecuador’s education sector, where the literature has concentrated almost exclusively on educational outcomes so far.
Digital identity systems reduce verification costs, but their contribution to credit allocation remains uncertain. This study distinguishes lending changes around Ghana’s July 2022 Ghana Card mandate from differences associated with banks’ integration timing. It combines 184 bank-year observations for 23 universal banks with verification-service agreement dates spanning April 2019 to December 2023. Fixed-effects models, event-study diagnostics, fractional-response models and cohort comparisons examine processing time, approval, repayment and non-performing loans. Year fixed effects absorb the mandate and common annual shocks, so the estimates concern agreement timing rather than the mandate’s overall effect. Across the mandate period, approval rates rose from 58.04 to 67.99 per cent and processing time fell by 39.5 per cent. However, no exposure coefficient is statistically significant, with wild-cluster bootstrap p-values of 0.64–0.90. Later-integrating banks improved alongside integrated banks. A 5.84-percentage-point repayment differential is suggestive but rests on two comparison banks and does not survive adjustment for multiple outcomes. Precision is limited because twenty banks executed agreements in 2022, and execution dates may differ from operational use. The findings caution against attributing sector-wide improvements to banks’ integration without establishing that operational verification had no effect. Policy should connect identity verification with credit histories, income information and risk assessment. Borrower-level and verification-use data are needed to assess effects on credit allocation, repayment monitoring and inclusion.
This study provides an analysis of the role of non-pension social transfers in the evolution of income distribution across European Union (EU) Member States over the period 2014–2025. Whereas the standard approach relies primarily on comparison of the Gini coefficient before and after transfers, the present research also examines the distribution of the redistributive effect across income groups by analysing changes in income shares across deciles. The methodological framework, developed on the basis of a parametric transformation of the Lorenz curve, permits the assessment of both the overall change in income inequality resulting from social transfers and the model-calculated changes in the relative income shares of individual income groups. The findings suggest that the modelled effect of cash non-pension social benefits is associated with a reduction in income inequality across all analysed countries, albeit with varying intensity. The most significant redistributive effect is observed primarily in countries with more advanced social protection systems, whereas this effect remains relatively limited in some Central and Eastern European countries. The analysis of changes by decile shows that the model estimates suggest an increase in the relative income shares in the lower part of the distribution and a decrease in the shares in the upper end. At the same time, the relative ratio of these changes varies significantly across countries and over time.
To explore the mechanism underlying income convergence in East Asia, this study applies spatial econometrics to investigate growth spillovers that spread from a regional or near economic center to neighboring countries. Estimation results show that East Asian growth benefited from a near economic center through spatial externality that caused income convergence in the region. However, spatial externality became weaker, and convergence slowed in the total Asian sample. The study suggests that spatial externality is a key feature of East Asian growth, in which many countries developed their own economies by interacting with leading economies in the region.
Macroeconomic stabilization depends on the strategic interplay between the fiscal and monetary authorities operating under distinct mandates. This study evaluates these interactions across the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia) over 2010–2024. Each authority seeks to minimize an explicit quadratic loss function. A transmission block constrains this optimization, meaning policy affects output and inflation with a one-year lag. The resulting first-order conditions act as the reaction functions. Their intersection creates a state-contingent Nash equilibrium. We estimate the transmission block on the pooled panel. The reaction functions are estimated using two-stage least squares. Next, a wild cluster bootstrap incorporates parameter uncertainty into the equilibrium strategies. Slovakia requires an asymmetric model, using a counterfactual national rate derived from the pooled rule of its neighbors. Debt feedback provides stabilization in Hungary, Czechia, and Poland (long-run responses 0.46–1.22), but it is absent in Slovakia. Point estimates for long-run responses to expected inflation exceed one (1.50–1.79). However, a unit response cannot be rejected. Significant deviations from equilibrium clustered in 2020 and 2022. In 2020, all three central banks eased policy beyond the equilibrium level. In 2022, Hungary and Poland tightened policy past it. From 2020–2024, the monetary deviation significantly outweighed the fiscal deviation only in Hungary. By contrast, fiscal policy absorbed the larger adjustment in Slovakia.
