The Unassuming Economist

From Daily Excelsior:

“Leaders from various Indian-American communities have applauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his commitment to “inclusive growth” in India.

At the half-day Global Equity Alliance Summit, hosted at Washington Adventist University on Friday, the leaders said the minority communities in India has remained safe and secure under Modi’s governance.
The summit, held in association with the Indian Minorities Foundation and Chandigarh University, also saw the launch of the Association of American Indian Minorities. The initiative was launched against the backdrop of a series of attacks on Hindu temples in the US and Canada this year.

In recognition of Modi’s efforts towards inclusive development and minority welfare, the Washington Adventist University and the Association of American Indian Minorities honoured the Prime Minister with the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Global Peace Award for Minority Upliftment.
Chandigarh University Chancellor Satnam Singh Sandhu received the award on Modi’s behalf in his absence.

The association’s goal is to unite minorities in the country and work for the safety and security of Indian American minorities, according to the organisers here.”

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From a paper by Peter Lihn, Jørgensen, and Kevin J. Lansing:

“We show that the fraction of non-reoptimizing firms that index prices to the inflation target, rather than lagged inflation, provides a simple measure of anchoring for short-run expected inflation in a New Keynesian model with full-information rational expectations. Higher values of the anchoring measure imply less sensitivity of rational inflation forecasts to movements in actual inflation. The approximate value of the model’s anchoring measure can be inferred from observable data generated by the model itself, as given by 1 minus the autocorrelation statistic for quarterly inflation. We show that a shift in the collective indexing behavior of firms allows the model to account for numerous features of evolving U.S. inflation behavior since 1960.”

From a paper by Lei Yu, Wenxian Zhou, Yujie Lin, Xinlong Yang and Jue Wang:

“This paper explores the impact of demographic changes on the sustainability of household liabilities, which is crucial for adjusting the effects of demographic shifts and stabilizing household debt levels. Using inter-provincial panel data and econometric models, including fixed effects, systematic GMM, and mediation effect models, the study examines how demographic structure affects household debt sustainability. It finds that the natural population structure has a more significant impact than social or spatial factors. Key results include: (1) higher child and old-age dependency ratios worsen debt sustainability, with regional variations; (2) a favorable gender ratio improves debt sustainability, particularly in the eastern regions; (3) higher income ratios for home-purchase and consumption expenditures, along with GDP growth, benefit debt sustainability, while financial security income has a negative effect; (4) rising house prices mediate the relationship between demographic changes and debt sustainability. The study recommends policy improvements such as incentives for multiple births and enhanced social security.”

From a paper by Amar Rao, Brian Lucey, and Satish Kumar:

“The functioning of energy markets is essential for global stability and is heavily influenced by geopolitical risks. Understanding these risks is critical for policymakers, market analysts, and nations. This study investigates the impact of geopolitical risks and their components on the futures markets of WTI crude oil and natural gas, utilizing time and frequency connectedness analysis along with impulse response function methods. The analysis is based on a dataset comprising daily prices of spot and futures contracts (across various maturities) as well as treasury yields. Our findings reveal that geopolitical risks have a significant, negative impact on the interest-adjusted spread of WTI crude oil. In contrast, the interest-adjusted spread of natural gas futures (NGF) displays a more complex pattern: while short-term maturities show an insignificant response, long-term maturities exhibit a significant reaction. Spillover effects are more pronounced in the short term but tend to weaken over longer horizons. This study underscores the dynamic influence of geopolitical risks on both key energy markets. Its findings offer a practical framework for risk management, equipping market participants and policymakers with valuable insights to better understand and respond to geopolitical risks in the energy sector.”

From a paper by Nauro F. Campos, Vera Z. Eichenauer, Jan-Egbert Sturm:

“The average unemployment rate in Europe has been consistently higher than in the United States since 1980. The main explanation offered by a rather large economics literature focuses on the interaction between institutions and shocks. The contribution of this paper is twofold: to assess whether this prevailing explanation still holds when we take into account recent shocks (globalisation, China, etc.) and time-varying labour market institutions; and to offer a decomposition (using the Shapley-Owen approach) of the relative contributions of shocks, institutions and their interactions. While our results confirm the general validity of the Shocks and Institutions Hypothesis, we argue that it is more complex and nuanced than originally formulated.”