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Policy Coherence in the Time of Economic Insecurity: Balancing the Sustainable Trade and Development Playbook of the New European Commission
No full textAbstract
The EU's efforts to integrate sustainability into its trade policy have met with mixed reactions, particularly from developing countries. Previously, the EU has sought to promote relevant autonomous measures and the Trade and Sustainable Development chapters in its trade agreements by offering support for implementation and compliance. However, further alignment of trade and development co‐operation, known as external policy coherence, faces growing challenges as the second von der Leyen Commission has made Europe's economic security a top priority. Although this new agenda has yet to translate into tangible (trade) policy actions beyond recently adopted initial measures, the shift in focus is driving increased investment in competitiveness and securing access to critical raw materials – efforts that, at times, appear fragmented rather than co‐ordinated. Whilst the EU acknowledges that partnerships, including those with countries from the Global South, are essential to strengthen its position in the growing geopolitical competition with other major economies, the increasingly complex global and regional context, coupled with shifting internal priorities, challenges the Commission's ability to balance the EU's trade and development ambitions. This commentary explores new directions for a coherent EU trade and development policy in the dynamic geopolitical landscape of 2025 and beyond
How perceptions of bone marrow donation costs affect donation behavior: survey evidence from a large donor registry
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Over the past three decades, advancements in collection methods for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation substantially reduced invasiveness and safety concerns. To what extent, however, registered donors are informed about extraction methods and how their beliefs drive their willingness to follow through with a donation is not well understood. Inaccurate beliefs about extraction methods may cause donors to overestimate their perceived cost, potentially reducing donations. In a survey with about 24,000 potential donors in Germany’s largest stem-cell registry, we investigate how beliefs about extraction methods affect potential donors’ willingness to follow through with a stem cell donation. We find widespread misconceptions about extraction methods, with many donors attributing a significant fraction of stem cell extractions to be coming from never-used methods. Importantly, a lack of knowledge and misconceptions about extraction methods persist among registered donors, often anchored to methods that prevailed at the time of registration. Exploring the link between donors’ beliefs and their (stated) willingness to donate, we find that accurate beliefs about lower extraction costs correlate with a 2.2–2.9 percentage points higher willingness to donate, representing a 40% reduction in donor unavailability. Our results highlight the need for informational campaigns to correct donors’ misconceptions and potentially save more lives among blood cancer patients.I12;I1
How to conduct effective risk culture assessments
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Assessing risk culture remains a major challenge for financial institutions, as existing tools often fail to capture its multidimensional and evolving nature. While prior research has focused on developing measurement instruments, less attention has been paid to the practical and methodological challenges involved in applying such tools effectively. This study provides practitioner-oriented insights into how risk culture assessments can be designed and implemented more effectively. Drawing on non-item-specific feedback from expert interviews conducted in the context of a broader risk culture measurement initiative aligned with the Financial Stability Board (FSB) framework, it identifies key considerations for improving survey-based assessments, focusing on general implementation challenges rather than scale-specific content. Using the Gioia method, 21 qualitative interviews with risk management experts were analyzed. First-order concepts were extracted and aggregated into eight second-order themes, which were synthesized into a practice-oriented framework for reflecting on the design and application of risk culture assessments. The eight resulting themes highlight critical design considerations: Clarity of Terminology, Optimization of Questionnaire Design, Reduction of Redundancies, Adaptation of Item Order, Limitations of Questionnaires, Scale Design, Time-Series Analysis, and Illuminating Risk Culture from Different Perspectives. These findings reflect both methodological insights and implementation challenges drawn from organizational practice. Rather than proposing a new measurement tool, this study offers a grounded framework for improving the application of existing instruments. By bridging regulatory guidance, expert experience, and qualitative theory-building, it supports the development of more context-sensitive and actionable approaches to risk culture assessment.M1
Musik als Brücke – Überlegungen zum inklusiven Potenzial von Online-Chorsingen
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Das Singen im Chor ist eine musikbezogene Aktivität, die typischerweise gemeinsam mit anderen Mitsingenden und in Präsenz durchgeführt wird. Zahlreiche Studien belegen die positiven Auswirkungen von aktivem Musizieren, und insbesondere Chorsingen, auf die physische und psychische Gesundheit. Aufgrund individueller Einschränkungen (z. B. gesundheitlicher Probleme oder beruflicher Verpflichtungen) können viele Personen, die gern im Chor singen würden, jedoch nicht regelmäßig an Chorproben teilnehmen und somit auch nicht von diesen positiven Effekten profitieren. Bereits seit mehr als 15 Jahren existieren technische Lösungen, die das gemeinsame Musizieren und Singen in (nahezu) Echtzeit über das Internet ermöglichen. Online-Chorproben wurden von Chören vielfach während der COVID-19 Pandemie realisiert, als physische Chorproben aufgrund von Kontakt- und Mobilitätseinschränkungen nicht stattfinden konnten. Die Erfahrungen aus der Pandemie zeigen, dass Chorsingen online grundsätzlich funktioniert. Gleichzeitig gibt es noch viele Barrieren, die sowohl während als auch nach der Pandemie verhindern, dass Online-Chorsingen von der breiten Masse angenommen wird. Gerade für Menschen, die nicht (regelmäßig) an physischen Chorproben teilnehmen können, wären Online- oder hybride Angebote jedoch relevant und wertvoll. Auf Basis von Literatur, Umfragedaten, sowie teilnehmender Beobachtung wird in diesem Beitrag eine vergleichende Analyse von Online-Chorsingen mittels herkömmlichen Videokonferenzsystemen und Low-Latency-Software durchgeführt, um das inklusive Potenzial der verschiedenen Ansätze zu bewerten. In der Analyse werden die Dimensionen digitaler Inklusion, persönliche Voraussetzungen der Teilnehmenden, positive und negative Aspekte des Probenerlebnisses sowie generelle Vorteile und Potenziale des Online-Chorsingens betrachtet. Auf Basis der Analyse wird das inklusive Potenzial der verschiedenen Ansätze bewertet und weitere Potenziale des Online-Chorsingens sowie Handlungsempfehlungen abgeleitet
Global Evidence on the Income Elasticity of Willingness to Pay, Relative Price Changes and Public Natural Capital Values
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While the global economy continues to grow, ecosystem services tend to stagnate or decline. Economic theory has shown how such shifts in relative scarcities can be reflected in project appraisal and accounting, but empirical evidence has been sparse to put theory into practice. To estimate relative price changes (RPCs) for ecosystem services to be used for making such adjustments, we perform a global meta-analysis of contingent valuation studies to derive income elasticities of marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem services to proxy the degree of limited substitutability. Based on 735 income-WTP pairs from 396 studies, we find an income elasticity of WTP of around 0.6. Combined with good-specific growth rates, we estimate an RPC of ecosystem services of around 1.7% per year. In an application to natural capital valuation of forest ecosystem services by the World Bank, we show that natural capital should be uplifted by around 40%. Our assessment of aggregate public natural capital yields a larger value adjustment of between 58 and 97%, depending on the discount rate. We discuss implications for policy appraisal and for estimates of natural capital in comprehensive wealth accounts.D61;H43;Q51;Q54;Q5
Complementary funding: how location links crowdfunding and venture capital
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While Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) platforms are a virtual space for raising funds, geography remains relevant. To determine how location matters for entrepreneurs using equity crowdfunding (ECF), we analyze the spatial distribution of successful ECF campaigns and the spatial relationship between ECF campaigns and traditional investors, such as banks and venture capitalists (VCs). Using data from the two leading German platforms – Companisto and Seedmacht – we employ spatial eigenvalue filtering and negative binomial estimations. In addition, we introduce an event study based on the implementation of the Small Investor Protection Act in Germany allowing us to obtain causal evidence. Our combined analysis reveals a significant geographic concentration of successful ECF campaigns in some, but not all, dense areas. ECF campaigns tend to cluster in dense areas with VC activity, while they are less prevalent in dense areas with high banking activity and are rarely found in rural areas. Thus, rather than closing the so-called regional funding gap, our results suggest that, from a spatial perspective, ECF fills the gap when firms in dense areas seek external financing below the minimum equity threshold offered by VCs and when there are few banks offering loans.
Plain English Summary
Equity crowdfunding is not closing the regional funding gap — it thrives where venture capital already flows. We study where successful equity crowdfunding campaigns happen in Germany and how their locations relate to those of traditional investors like banks and venture capitalists. Using data from the country’s two main crowdfunding platforms, we find that geography still matters, although equity is offered through digital marketplaces: crowdfunding campaigns cluster in urban areas with strong venture capital activity but are less common in rural regions or in places with many banks. Our findings imply that equity crowdfunding complements venture capital more than it replaces it — especially in cities — and is unlikely to solve funding challenges in under-served regions. This has important implications for policy, suggesting that additional measures are needed if crowdfunding is to help bridge regional finance gaps for small businesses.G30;L26;M1
Religions and Ideologies as Strategic Assets: A Supply-Demand Model of Belief Systems Across National Rise and Decline
No full textThis paper develops a macro-historical framework for the emergence, institutionalization, proliferation, fragmentation, and decline of religions and secular ideologies. It treats belief systems as equilibrium governance technologies that enable large-scale cooperation, legitimacy formation, and moral constraint when kin-based networks and informal reciprocity become insufficient. The framework models belief formation as a triadic supply-demand equilibrium among (i) the public, which demands justice (especially distributive justice), meaning, security, identity, and explanations of suffering; (ii) ruling authorities, which demand order, hierarchy, legitimacy, and mobilization capacity; and (iii) intellectual elites, which supply doctrines, rituals, interpretive schemas, and institutional designs. The supply-demand model yields testable hypotheses: belief systems tend to arise under crisis and coordination problems; codification and canon formation stabilize authority when actor incentives align; prosperity and intellectual specialization foster pluralization; fragmentation lowers institutional trust and state capacity; and crises of meaning resolve through reform, revival, replacement, or stagnation. The paper evaluates these claims through both supply-demand theoretical framework and comparative qualitative evidence across multiple civilizational trajectories and applies this framework to contemporary geopolitical competition, emphasizing ideological divergence within and between the United States and China. The analysis suggests that ideological capital, representing the level of belief system, is a strategic asset that conditions long-run state capacity, technological trajectories, and economic growth
On solving nonsmooth retail portfolio maximization problems using active signature methods
No full textAbstract
The retail industry is governed by crucial decisions on inventory management, discount offers like promotions and stock clearing as so-called markdowns, presenting two sets of optimization problems. The former is an estimation problem, where the underlying objective is to predict the coefficients of demand (sales) elasticity with respect to product prices. The latter is the dynamic revenue maximization problem, which takes in the coefficients of demand as inputs. While both tasks present nonsmooth optimization problems, the latter is a challenging nonlinear problem in massive dimensions. This is further subject to constraints on inventory, inter-product relationships, and price bounds. Traditional approaches to solve such problems relied on using reformulations and approximations, thereby leading to potentially suboptimal solutions. In this work, we retain the nonsmooth structure generated by the type (or equivalently absolute value type) function and solve the resulting problem in its abs-quadratic form, i.e., in a quadratic matrix-vector-product based representation including linear arguments in the abs-evaluation. Subsequently, we present an adaptation of the Constrained Active Signature Method (CASM) that explicitly exploits this abs-quadratic structure of the problem yielding the Quadratic Constrained Active Signature Method (QCASM). In the process, we also guarantee convexity of the objectives under some mild realistic assumptions on the market demand and structure. Two real world retail examples (UK and US market data from 2017-2019) and one simulated use-case are studied from an empirical standpoint. Numerical results demonstrate good performance of QCASM and further show that such solvers can be used significantly by the retail science community in the future
How severe are European regulatory stress test scenarios? A probabilistic calibration for the euro area
No full textThis paper applies the Growth-at-Risk (GaR) framework to assess downside risks to euro area GDP growth, and it examines its usefulness for stress testing. Supervisory stress-test scenarios are often criticized for being either too mild or implausibly severe, raising questions about calibration. This is consequential for banks' business plans as well as for systemic financial stability. We conduct a pseudo real-time evaluation of European Banking Authority (EBA) adverse scenarios published in the last decade, establishing a probabilistic benchmark against which their scenario severity can be evaluated. We find that, except for the 2021 and 2023 rounds, EBA adverse scenarios consistently lie below the 10th percentile threshold. After the pandemic shock, scenario severity and model-implied risks have moved in opposite directions, with GaR estimates pointing to declining downside risks and EBA scenarios becoming increasingly severe. However, these still fall within the models' probability distributions and therefore represent plausible-if extreme-realizations of downside risk. Supporting exercises attribute downside risks primarily to financial stress in the short-term, while medium-term horizons are shaped by term structure and housing or credit channels more. Taken together, these results suggest that GaR can serve as a transparent, data-driven complement to expert judgment in stress-test scenario design-helping to balance severity with plausibility and enhancing scenarios' credibility for financial stability assessments
Participation in Informal Cooperation in Water Management and Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices: Empirical Evidence From Uzbekistan
No full textABSTRACT
Central Asian agriculture faces significant challenges, including low adoption rates of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs). One contributing factor is the inefficiency of agricultural extension systems, which struggle to meet farmers' informational needs due to outdated content and ineffective communication. In this context, informal cooperation among farmers plays a crucial role in sharing agricultural knowledge. Focussing on Uzbekistan's irrigated areas, our study investigates the impact of farmers' participation in informal water management cooperation on the intensity of SAP adoption. Using pooled two‐year survey data of 858 farmers, we employ the Marginal Treatment Effects model to account for potential selection bias and heterogeneity across farmers. The results indicate that participation in informal cooperation positively influences SAP adoption intensity, particularly among farmers with larger land holdings and better soil quality. Moreover, farmers already inclined to participate in informal cooperation benefit the most in terms of increased intensity of SAP adoption. Our findings suggest that promoting community‐managed irrigation can be an effective strategy to enhance SAP adoption in Uzbekistan. However, the effects of informal cooperation are not uniform across all farmers, necessitating differentiated support mechanisms that address the specific needs, challenges and unobservable characteristics of various farmer groups