The Unassuming Economist

From paper by Eliphas Ndou & Nombulelo Gumata:

“This paper estimates various inflation threshold and structural VAR models to investigate the passthrough of oil prices to consumer price inflation in South Africa when inflation is in the 3–6 percent inflation target band compared to when it is above 6 percent. The paper uses monthly data from 2001M1 to 2022M12. We find that the oil price passthrough to inflation is about three times lower when inflation is within the 3–6 percent target band compared to when it is above the 6 percent. Thus, under the inflation targeting framework, the 3–6 percent inflation target band has induced a structural change in the oil price and inflation relationship in South Africa. In addition, a one percentage point oil price inflation shock raises inflation by 0.11 percentage points when inflation is below 4.5 percent compared to 0.43 percentage points above this threshold. These findings imply that the oil price passthrough coefficient in the Bank forecasting model should be half the size when inflation is within 3-6 percent compared to when inflation isabove 6 percent”

From a paper by Luca Bettarelli, Davide Furceri, Prakash Loungani, Jonathan Ostry and Loredana Pisano:

“In this paper, we first test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, using a large sample of approximately 190 advanced and developing countries, over a period of 34 years (1989-2022). We find that (CO 2 ) emissions respond positively to increasing income per capita, up to a turning point of approximately US$25,000. In a departure from the previous literature, we allow the relationship between economic development and emissions to depend on the stringency of environmental regulation.”

From a paper by Cristian Mogo Castro:

“This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions in Germany during the period 1990-2019, aiming to determine whether there has been absoulute and sufficient decoupling to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. The results suggest that Germany experienced strong decoupling between GDP ans CO₂ emissions, associated with technological transformations, climate policies, and improvements in productive efficiency. However, the observed decoupling rate is insufficient to meet the climate targerts of limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5ºC, 1.7ºC, and 2ºC.”

From Humanity on Trial:

“As discussed on the environmental integration page, cognitive environmental integration has two dimensions: the internal dimension refers to the existence or creation of an overarching cognitive framework that can provide guidance on what environmental processes, limits, principles or imperatives need to be respected to preserve the environmental systems on which life, including human life, depends; the external dimension refers to the integration of those ‘parameters’ as core elements into the cognitive frameworks (ideologies; theories, management frameworks and other) that guide human behaviour, actions and practices in what are usually regarded non-environmental areas, such as economic thinking, ideas, theories or models guiding the development of energy systems, technology, agriculture, transport, the production and consumption of goods and services, the design and construction of buildings and the built-up environment, and any other areas that have (potentially) a significant impact on the environment.

It may surprise those who think that the creation and adoption of such an overarching cognitive environmental framework at the global level is a utopian idea that, in practice, this is an area of environmental integration in which global efforts have been relatively successful. I am referring here, in particular, to the rise of the notion of sustainable development and the extent to which it has been adopted by governments worldwide and international organisations.”

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From a paper by Jassim Aladwani:

“Using standard GARCH-type, Markov Switching GARCH-type, and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models, this study employs quarterly dataset from 1995 to 2023 to investigate the volatility shifts of macroeconomic variables, incorporating crude oil prices in Spain. The empirical results of the study clearly confirm that MSGARCH-type models extend beyond the capabilities of standard GARCH-type models, providing enhanced flexibility in modeling the volatility process. The estimated MSGARCH-type models effectively identify breakpoints in all macroeconomic variables volatilities, specifically during significant events such as the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, the European debt crisis in 2011, and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, Russia-Ukraine War in 2022. In addition, our results indicate that high crude oil price shocks during the global events are important drivers of uncertainty. There is strong evidence that the effects of crude oil price shocks on macroeconomic uncertainty are highly dependent on the prevailing regime. These impacts vary based on investor sentiment and the level of perceived volatility within financial markets. The responses of economic uncertainty to crude oil shocks appear to experience a dramatic change in the major global events, such as the post-global financial crisis (GFC), COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukrainian war.”