The Unassuming Economist

From a paper by Theo Eicher, Reina Kawai Eskimez, and Monique Newiak:

“Crises often require economic consolidations that may unevenly affect different segments of the population. Some crisis countries enter financial arrangements with the IMF and adopt adjustment programs, and studies have associated program conditionality with negative impacts on gender inequality. Proper evaluations of the impacts of IMF-supported programs on gender inequality require, however, credible control groups that address the counterfactual: do post-crisis gender disparities evolve differently without an IMF-supported program? We examine over 150 IMF-supported programs (1994-2022) using custom-tailored control groups that match each IMF-supported program country’s gender and economic trends and find overwhelming evidence against systematic impacts of IMF-supported programs on gender equality.”

From a paper by Asiye Öznur Ümit and Sinem Eyüboğlu:

“This research examines effects of financial development, economic growth, government
expenditures, urbanization, and trade openness on income inequality in the leading emerging economies
of the G-20 (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Turkiye) for the period from
1989 to 2021. The findings confirm the existence of a cointegration nexus among the variables over the
long-term. According to the common correlated effects mean group estimator, financial development has
negative effects on income inequality in the panel. Factors such as government expenditures and trade
openness demonstrate positive effects on income inequality. In the country-specific effects, we find that
the impact of financial development on income inequality is negative and statistically significant in
Argentina, India, and Russia. The influence of economic growth on income inequality is positive and
significant in Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkiye. Government expenditures on income inequality appear to
be positive in Argentina, Indonesia, and Mexico. Finally, trade openness demonstrates a positive and
significant effect in India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkiye. Among the reasons for the differences in test
results across countries are variations in their political structures, particularly the high inflation and
macroeconomic instability in Turkey, the presence of the informal economy and corruption in Brazil,
Indonesia, Turkey, and China, as well as regional inequalities. In this context, based on the overall panel
test results, it is recommended that policymakers increase financial inclusion, reduce regional disparities,
reduce corruption, increase social assistance, and balanced trade policy to enhance the impact of financial
development on income distribution”

From a paper by Bello Dalhatu:

“In an effort to provide policy recommendations for Nigeria’s transition to full-fledged inflation targeting, this study examines Ghana’s monetary policy frameworks (monetary aggregates targeting and inflation targeting) using ARDL bounds test for cointegration and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) on annual time series data spanning 1965 to 2022 obtained from the Bank of Ghana database and the World Bank database on World Development Indicators. The results demonstrate that monetary aggregates targeting has not been successful in both the short-run and long-run periods in moderating and stabilizing inflation; however, inflation moderated under inflation targeting in both the short run and the long term. This indicates that inflation targeting proves to be a superior monetary policy framework for inflation control.”

From a paper by Ahmet Kara:

“Public debt trajectories are multidimensionally interconnected with the other processes in the
economy, and as such, they had better be analyzed within a system framework that takes into account the
public-debt related interrelations and feedback loops which could involve many macroeconomic as well as microeconomic factors (including the non-economic ones) that could have significant influences on the
trajectories in question. In this paper, we develop a simple system-based framework where we begin to
exemplify the interrelations and causal connections embodied within the system. By explicating such
interrelations, we will account for the underlying interconnectivity that, together with other factors, give rise to the formation of the debt trajectories which could span over a number of years. Once the underlying interconnectivity and the relevant factors are specified, we can construct a system dynamics model so as to simulate the debt trajectories under conditions that are of practical significance to policy makers. Simulating the trajectories, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, opens the doors to the optimal management of debt processes. Correctly predicting the debt figures at different points in time enables the policy makers to design and implement policies so as to influence/control the trajectory to achieve the debt-related objectives. An example of the policy of this kind will be provided in the text.”

From a paper by Ngoc Duc Lang and Duc Hong Vo:

“This paper aims to examine the relationship between geopolitical risk, arms race proxied by military spending, and health expenditure in 43 countries from 1990 to 2021–the period with many significant geopolitical events. This study addresses potential endogeneity issues by using novel causal inference approaches, including the two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM), Lewbel-IV estimation, and Half-Panel Jackknife (HPJ) estimation. We find that geopolitical risk significantly reduces public health expenditure. This finding has largely remained across various settings. Our finding also confirms a heterogeneity in the impacts of geopolitical risk on public health expenditure in countries with different living standards. More specifically, countries with lower living standards suffer more adverse effects of geopolitical risk on public health expenditure. Our results also indicate that military spending serves as the mediating channel through which geopolitical risk reduces public health expenditure.”