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Primary Conditions for Institutional Trust in Ukraine during the Conflict
No full textUsing Ukraine as an example, this study explores how performance-based and ideational factors interact in shaping institutional trust under wartime conditions. Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is employed to analyse their joint presence in configurations associated with high and low levels of trust in state institutions. The findings suggest that trust is primarily shaped by performance indicators—economic satisfaction, perceived corruption, and personal safety—while ideational factors such as national identity, war-related ideologies, and democratic values play a secondary role. However, misalignment with dominant ideational narratives tend to exacerbate distrust during conflict, especially when institutional performance is perceived as weak. These results are used to argue that a divergence may appear between regime and institutional legitimacy in conflict-affected regions
Can Green Transition Only Thrive with Price Stability?
No full textWe investigate how the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) re-spond to climate-related shocks, assessing whether the green transition can advance without compromising price stability. Using data from 2000 to 2025 and employing time-varying local projection (TVP-LP) models, we examine the monetary policy reactions to both physical and transition climate risks. Our results show that physical shocks, such as extreme weather events and natural disasters, exert stronger and more inflationary effects on monetary policy than tran-sition shocks related to decarbonization and climate policy. The ECB systematically tightens policy in response to physical shocks, viewing them as supply-side disturbances that threaten price stability, while the Fed’s response is more state-dependent and event-driven, loosening policy during crises like Hurricane Katrina but tightening in the post-COVID inflationary peri-od. For transition risks, both central banks show subdued reactions until 2015, after which the ECB increasingly interprets them as inflationary, whereas the Fed remains more cautious and output oriented. A one standard deviation physical risk shock raises the shadow rate by about 30 bps in the EA and 20 bps in the US after 20 months. These findings reveal that climate shocks have become an integral part of monetary transmission, shaped by mandates and macro-economic context, underscoring the need for price stability to enable the green transition
Municipal bonds as sustainable means of constructing secondary cities in Malawi under the Medium-term Implementation Plan (MIP-1) of the Malawi Vision 206
No full textMalawi urgently needs the eight secondary cities it plans to build by 2030 to improve the social and economic welfare of its citizens. There is however little progress made in that regard in view of the absence of the financing structure. The local councils to host the secondary cities should seriously consider the municipal bonds as a sustainable financing mechanism and encourage their citizens to own the projects. There is a need to align the Local Government Act and the Public Finance Management Act on the municipal bonds. Other pertinent issues must be resolved too. This requires commitment from multistakeholders and is highly achievable
Understanding the Relationship between American Agricultural Labor and Machinery
No full textThis paper examines the substitutability between labor and machinery in U.S. agriculture using a translog cost function and county-level data from the 2002 and 2022 Censuses of Agriculture. We estimate own-price and cross-price elasticities, along with Allen-Uzawa and Morishima elasticities of substitution, to evaluate the evolving relationship between these inputs.
Our results indicate that labor and machinery have been strong substitutes in the past two decades, reflecting the sector’s capacity to mechanize tasks traditionally performed by human labor. However, elasticity estimates reveal a notable decline in
substitutability in the past twenty years, which might be explained by the onset of technological saturation. As basic agricultural tasks become increasingly automated, the remaining labor-intensive activities, such as fruit harvesting and livestock care, pose greater challenges to mechanization.
We also observe a declining own-price elasticity of labor, indicating reduced responsiveness of labor demand to wage changes. A shift toward skilled labor and broader structural changes in the agricultural economy may drive this trend. Regional analysis highlights heterogeneity in substitution patterns, with some areas maintaining strong substitutability while others exhibit mixed or complementary relationships. These results carry important policy implications. High substitutability supports continued investment in mechanization and informs the design of subsidies and R&D
funding. This paper also contributes to a deeper understanding of input dynamics in agricultural production and offers evidence-based guidance for innovation and labor policy in the sector
Public finance for space odyssey - Scope for gender budgeting
No full textAgainst the backdrop of United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs' (UNOOSA’s) 2025 Landmark Study, which documents women's 30 percent global workforce share in public space agencies—declining to 19 percent on boards—this paper applies gender budgeting framework to diagnose fiscal policy imperatives in the Department of Space (DoS), India. Aligning with the foundational principles of the UN Outer Space Treaty (1967), which mandates equitable benefits from space exploration "for all people," and with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 (quality education), 5 (gender equality), 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure), and 17 (partnerships for the goals), this analysis underscores the scope of gender budgeting as a fiscal accountability tool for inclusive growth in emerging space economies. We analysed the Space budgets across 20 space centres in India, and also across 41 sanctioned Space projects to understand the fiscal incidence and marksmanship in space technology (e.g., launch vehicles, propulsion systems) and space applications (e.g., Earth observation, communication satellites). Despite the absence of specifically targeted programmes for women in the space sector within the Ministry of Finance’s Gender Budgeting Statement 2025-26, our ex-post fiscal incidence analysis reveals that ISRO's significant achievements are inherently women-inclusive in their outcomes, despite workforce underrepresentation. Key findings highlight marked variations in the gender disaggregated fiscal incidence, with utilisation rates ranged from a low of 10.9 percent at IN-SPACe to 21 percent at Vikram Sarabai Space Centre (VSSC) and 32 percent at UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC). Fiscal marksmanship analysis reveals the deviations between Budget Estimates and Actuals are relatively insignificant in space sector. Integrating results-linked gender budgeting into space policy is crucial, which emerges as a dual lever for equity—ensuring women's voice in high impact decision-making—and efficiency, by harnessing diverse perspectives to optimise resource allocation and innovation trajectories
Importance of Conscience in Total Factor Productivity: An Economic Model
No full textConscience plays an important role in reciprocal and altruistic behaviors because it restrains people from behaving totally selfishly, but why is conscience necessary? In this paper, I construct a model that describes the relationship between conscience and total factor productivity and show that a higher level of conscience in an economy increases its total factor productivity through an increase in the benefits of a society (or an economy) resulting from a smaller amount of various kinds of selfish behaviors and activities. Therefore, conscience is an important factor to achieve high economic efficiency. On the basis of this model, I discuss why total factor productivity in a country under the rule of a dictatorship could be half of that of a stably democratic country because a dictatorship will often prevail if the level of conscience of people in a society is very low
Assessing the Impact of Firm Attributes on the Adoption of Innovations in Sri Lankan SMEs
No full textThis study highlights several critical insights into the innovation behaviour of Sri Lankan SMEs. The consistent positive impact of bank loan accessibility across all innovation types underscores the essential role of finance in enabling innovations. In Sri Lanka, where many SMEs face collateral-related credit constraints, this finding signals the urgent need to expand accessible and innovation-linked financing mechanisms. Similarly, the positive association of product customisation with innovation suggests that customer-oriented strategies are a practical pathway for SMEs to enhance competitiveness through incremental innovations.
However, increased competition was found to discourage product and process innovations. In the Sri Lankan context, this may reflect market saturation in certain sectors and price-driven competition that leaves little room for innovation investments. It also indicates a need for strategic support to help SMEs move from survival-based competition to value-based competition. The negative relationship between institutional support and innovation may point to the inefficiency or misalignment of government Programmes and public sector initiatives. Many such initiatives in Sri Lanka tend to be bureaucratic and detached from the ground-level challenges of SMEs, resulting in limited uptake or practical impact.
Based on these findings, several policy actions are recommended. First, Sri Lanka should enhance innovation-oriented credit schemes, particularly through institutions like the SME Banks and Regional Development Banks (RDB), targeting process and product innovations with favourable terms. Second, existing institutional support services should be restructured to be more demand-driven, localized, and participatory, including mentoring, innovation vouchers, and technical consultancy services. Third, fostering SME collaboration through industry clusters and value chains can help reduce the adverse effects of intense competition. Finally, innovation Programmes should actively promote customer-centric business models and product tailoring as viable strategies for SME growth in both urban and rural settings
Safe-Haven Currency and Sequence Risk: A State-Dependent Swiss Franc Overlay for Global Portfolios
No full textSequence-of-returns risk (SoRR) matters because the order of returns—rather than only their long-run average—determines whether real, inflation-indexed withdrawal plans survive the early retirement years. For EUR/JPY spenders invested in globally diversified, USD-centric portfolios, SoRR is co-determined by market and FX paths in the spending currency. This paper proposes a state-dependent Swiss-franc (CHF) overlay—implemented via cash/bills or liquid FX instruments—as crisis insurance rather than generic hedging. A transparent stress score triggers and sizes the sleeve; outcomes are evaluated on sequence-sensitive metrics (e.g., CVaR(95), maximum drawdown, time-underwater, and the 5th percentile of sustainable withdrawals). Indexing and FX procedures follow MSCI and WM/Refinitiv methodology; the design is fully auditable and modular for empirical tables/figures
Георги Петров и моделът на пазарното социалистическо стопанство в България
No full textThe article presents the Bulgarian economist Georgi Petrov and his importance for the political economy of socialism. The debates surrounding the economic reform in Bulgaria in the 1960s. A general view of Georgi Petrov's creative project and its logic. The basis of prices – not value and cost price, but production prices (production prices). Theoretical problems of the planned economy and property. Planning, economic levers and economic growth. Summary notes. Bibliography
Dynamic Spatial Treatment Effect Boundaries: A Continuous Functional Framework from Navier-Stokes
No full textI develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for dynamic spatial treatment effect boundaries using continuous functional definitions grounded in Navier-Stokes partial differential equations. Rather than discrete treatment effect estimators, the framework characterizes treatment intensity as a continuous function over space-time, enabling rigorous analysis of propagation dynamics, boundary evolution, and cumulative exposure patterns. Building on exact self-similar solutions expressible through Kummer confluent hypergeometric and modified Bessel functions, I establish that treatment effects follow scaling laws where exponents characterize diffusion mechanisms. The continuous functional approach yields natural definitions of spatial boundaries , boundary velocities , treatment effect gradients , and integrated exposure functionals . Empirical validation using 42 million TROPOMI satellite observations of NO pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants demonstrates strong exponential spatial decay ( per km, ) with detectable boundaries at km from major facilities. Monte Carlo simulations confirm superior performance over discrete parametric methods in boundary detection and false positive avoidance (94\% correct rejection rate versus 27\% for parametric methods). The framework successfully diagnoses regional heterogeneity: positive decay parameters within 100 km of coal plants validate the theory, while negative decay parameters beyond 100 km correctly signal when alternative pollution sources dominate. This sign reversal demonstrates the framework's diagnostic capability---it identifies when underlying physical assumptions hold versus when alternative mechanisms dominate. Applications span environmental economics (pollution dispersion fields), banking (spatial credit access functions), and healthcare (hospital accessibility). The continuous functional perspective unifies spatial econometrics with mathematical physics, connecting to recent advances in spatial correlation robust inference \citet{muller2022spatial} and addressing spurious spatial regression concerns \citet{muller2024spatial}