The Unassuming Economist

From a paper by Nafeesa Yunus:

“This study examines the impact of aggregate oil shocks and disentangled oil shocks on U.S. and seven major securitized real estate markets. Oil is integrated with the markets and leads them over the long-run. The short-run impact of oil shocks on the markets is negative. A disentangled analysis of oil shocks reveals that supply and demand shocks have differential impacts. Over the long-run, supply shocks have little impact, while demand shocks contribute significantly to common trends and lead each market. In the short-run, demand shocks have positive effects on each market, whereas supply shocks have negative but lesser effects.”

From the Global Labor Market Conference:

“The Global Labor Charter outlines a vision to enhance labor market flexibility, tackle youth unemployment, and ensure sustainable, inclusive growth.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The second edition of the Global Labor Market Conference kicked off with the highly anticipated ministerial roundtable, chaired by His Excellency the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, Eng. Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al Rajhi. Bringing together over 40 labor ministers from G20 Countries, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, along with the Director General of the ILO Gilbert Houngbo. the high-level meeting hosted an impactful dialogue on pressing labor market challenges and opportunities.

In his opening speech, the Minister warmly welcomed the international labor ministers to Riyadh, highlighting the Kingdom’s commitment to leading the global dialogue on the future of labor markets through this conference. He emphasized that the event serves as a strategic platform to foster international collaboration and develop innovative solutions to address labor market challenges while ensuring their sustainability amidst rapid technological advancements.

His Excellency concluded by urging Ministers from around the world to leverage the roundtable as a dynamic platform for exchanging insights and experiences, addressing the challenges facing labor markets, and showcasing notable achievements. He stressed that joint action and the exchange of ideas among nations have the potential to drive significant transformation, empowering and supporting young people while building a more inclusive and sustainable future for all.

The meeting fostered an exchange of ideas and experiences, with the ministers reviewing key trends and pressing challenges in the labor market. These discussions laid a solid groundwork for crafting practical strategies to support future transformations and strengthen the sustainability of labor markets.”

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From IISD:

“The recent UN Summit of the Future (SoF) stressed the need to address well-known shortcomings of gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of wealth by developing a framework for measuring sustainable development progress that can complement and go beyond GDP. The need for such measures is widely recognized. The UN Secretary-General has described overreliance on GDP as a “glaring blind spot in how we measure economic prosperity and progress.”  The Pact for the Future – the Summit’s outcome document – specifically identifies the need “to develop recommendations for a limited number of country-owned and universally applicable indicators of sustainable development that complement and go beyond GDP,” taking into account the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In anticipation of growing global efforts to select indicators that move beyond GDP, the SDG Knowledge Hub is providing regular updates on publications on this topic. The authors use databases of agencies and peer-reviewed literature to collect such information.

The first issue of the ‘Beyond GDP’ update series comes in the aftermath of the September 2024 Summit of the Future and covers the period from October through December 2024.

Recommendations for specific indicators and indices to complement GDP performance

The fifth edition of the World Bank’s report on the Changing Wealth of Nations (CWON) themed,  ‘Revisiting the Measurement of Comprehensive Wealth,’ presents a methodology, global CWON estimates, and trends of the assets of the wealth portfolio, including trends on non-renewable natural capital, hydropower, forests and agricultural land, blue natural capital, and human capital. As the report’s authors suggest, the publication is intended for a technical audience, including policy advisors, statisticians, and researchers.”

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From C40 Cities:

“New research from C40 Cities today reveals that making the construction sector more sustainable in cities will generate multiple socio-economic benefits, including the creation of millions of green jobs.

Building greener cities: green job opportunities in clean construction, is the first major piece of work to identify the potential for cities’ workforces of adopting clean construction, presenting a compelling economic case for shifting to clean construction practices. The research, supported by Laudes Foundation and the City of Oslo, and with insights from Building and Woodworkers International, spans seven major cities: Bogotá, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Nairobi, Oslo and Seattle, to give a global perspective on how decarbonising the built environment, responsible currently for close to 40% of global CO2 emissions, can support a stable and healthy workforce and provide opportunities for greater social equity.

Researchers modelled the impact of two scenarios from 2023-2050: first, a city’s continuation of current carbon-intensive construction scenario, and second, a shift towards clean construction (defined as decarbonised, resource-efficient, resilient and socially just built environment and construction systems). The research projects the changes in job numbers and job roles, maps workforce diversity and quality of work, and calculates the investment needed for each.”

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