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While it is well-established that exogenous shocks can trigger policy changes, political elites have often been depicted as the initiators of this process. This paper adopts an elite sociology perspective, extending beyond the exclusive focus on political elites, to uncover the pathway through which critical junctures foster policy changes. It employs a case study of the economic crises in Turkey spanning from 1999 to 2001 as an illustrative example. During this period, a significant shift occurred, moving from traditional statist economic policies to widespread neoliberal reforms. Our analysis reveals that this policy shift was not solely influenced by external factors, but facilitated by an intricate process of elite circulation within the economic bureaucracy. This process, which began in the 1980s and gained momentum in the 2000s, coincided with an influx of bureaucratic elites aligned with neoliberal principles and played a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of policy changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a shock to the EU gas market, as Russian gas supply dwindled and prices spiked. Previous exogenous shocks to the gas market resulted in policy reforms aimed at diversification and reducing dependency on Russian gas. However, their effectiveness was reduced. This study seeks to examine the policy changes under REPowerEU in light of gas security post-invasion. To examine this, three indicators – import dependency, diversification, and gas intensity – are used and examined the REPowerEU policy elements – reduced Russian gas, increased renewables and energy efficiency targets, gas storage requirements, demand reduction and a joint purchasing mechanism. This preliminary analysis highlights similarities in approaches, but also find that the severity of the crisis contributed to more support. The early effectiveness of the policy reforms is questioned, as change appear driven by other factors, such as decisions made by Russia and high gas prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the impact of exogenous shocks on nonprofit operations by assessing the effect of 9/11 on donations to Muslim American nonprofits. The first narrative promoted by civil rights groups and some Islamic charities argues that donations to Islamic charities have declined. Individuals are afraid of getting indicted by law enforcement agencies for advertently or inadvertently funding an organization that supports terrorism. The second narrative is that donations to Islamic charities have increased post-9/11 as donors push back against Islamophobia by supporting Muslim nonprofits. I systematically assess these narratives using difference-in-difference (DiD) methodology and find that 9/11 had no significant impact on overall contributions to Islamic charities. Although donations to internationally focused Islamic charities declined in the year following 9/11, when compared with domestic-focused Islamic charities, they also recovered shortly after that. Moreover, they did not reduce significantly when compared with non-Islamic internationally focused organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate how the industrial sector in Ceara responds to shocks that occur in important macroeconomic variables and to examine a possible long-term equilibrium relationship between the variables and industrial output. For this, a set of monthly data was used, between January 2002 and December 2019, of the variables Oil Prices, Exchange Rate, Interest Rate and Industrial Production. The methodological strategy focused on the analysis of the long-term equilibrium relationship between the variables and on the estimation of an impulse response function and variance decomposition, through a modeling with vectors autoregressive VAR/VEC. As a result, it was possible to identify the existence of a long-term relationship between the industrial product and the system variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can be uniquely vulnerable to exogenous shocks and urban violence. • Survey evidence from Honduras, El Salvador and Venezuela reveals that smaller and informal businesses suffered most during COVID-19 and that increased violence and extortion was detrimental. • Receiving government support and engaging more with both the State and criminal groups was associated with better business outcomes for SMEs, as was engaging in charity and philanthropy in communities of operation. • While SMEs can be vulnerable to shocks and crises in complex institutional settings, they can also instrumentalize relationships, particularly with communities, in ways that may support resilience. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can be uniquely vulnerable to exogenous shocks and crises. In many Latin American cities, SMEs also face endemic challenges related to urban violence that can inhibit their operations and survival. Drawing on theory related to how small business vulnerability and resilience is shaped by firm capacity, dynamics of violence and businesses' networks and relationships, this article examines SMEs self-reported business outcomes in fragile urban contexts. We do so by utilising a novel primary survey of urban SME owners in Venezuela, El Salvador and Honduras conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results highlight how firms that were smaller, informal and faced increasing violence and extortion tended to suffer; while those that increased engagement with both the State and non-state criminal actors and those who supported their communities tended to fare better. While SMEs may face distinct liabilities in complex institutional settings, our findings suggest they can also exercise some agency in navigating urban violence and exogenous shocks by utilising both formal and informal support networks and fostering community linkages as resilience strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a comparative historical perspective to the post-2016 diasporization of the Gülen Movement (GM) and discusses how the GM responded differently to sudden exogenous shocks in 1997, 2007, and 2016. In both historical institutionalism and rational choice theories, the sudden exogenous shocks do the heavy lifting to explain change; however, it is rather the endogenous parameters that account for the variation in the GM's responses to those shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 and day labourers in the South African economy: The impact on lives and livelihoods The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is currently reverberating throughout the South African economy -- including the informal economy and those on the brink of the formal economy, such as day labourers. Even before the start of the pandemic, the South African economy was already in an extremely vulnerable position due to a number of multidimensional factors, for example the global financial crisis of 2008 as well as a decade of corruption and looting of state resources. Day labourers are particularly vulnerable to exogenous shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this background, the aim of the overview study was to place the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the living conditions of informal workers such as day labourers on the research agenda. The methodology was twofold. Firstly, the only available nationally representative database from a study by Blaauw (2010) on activities of day labourers in South Africa was used as a summary starting point with regard to the socio-economic position of day labourers. Secondly, in the second part of the analysis we used the latest available research information on changes in the day labour market to identify the factors that have changed the socio-economic conditions of day labourers in South Africa in the last decade. The possible short-, medium- and long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was discussed against this background. The results of the starting point analysis among day labourers in South Africa confirm that in 2008 the day labourers in the Western Cape and Gauteng were comparatively better off than the day labourers in some of South Africa's less prosperous provinces. Their wages were higher in all the income variables that were part of the study. Despite this relatively better situation, even day labourers in the strongest possible position were still vulnerable with low and uncertain income levels, the risk of not always being able to provide for them and their dependants' needs, and an inability to plan ahead as a precaution against future exogenous economic shocks. These shocks did indeed come. Since 2008, macroeconomic shocks such as the global financial crisis and a declining mining and construction industry have put the day labour market under further pressure. A decade of looting and mismanagement of the South African economy as well as a third wave of cross-border migration led to a further deterioration of the day labour market's ability to meet the material needs of tens of thousands of day labourers in South Africa. Increased unemployment as well as declining real and reservation wages among day labourers occurred across all provinces in South Africa, and studies in East London, Tshwane, Emalahleni, Mbombela, Cape Town and Paarl clearly show the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions of day labourers in the last decade (Theodore, Pretorius, Blaauw & Schenck, 2018; Mapendere, 2019; Xweso, 2019; Schenck, Blaauw & Matthee, 2020; Smith, 2020). Day labourers' vulnerability has therefore deteriorated dramatically since 2008 and the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has created the perfect storm in the day labour market. The COVID-19 pandemic has left tens of thousands of day labourers facing the real prospect of economic hardship and starvation and a desperate need for help. Day labourers are in fact worse off than the informal self-employed, such as informal reclaimers, who have at least a voice through industry organisations such as Plastics SA, the South African Waste Pickers Association or the African Reclaimers Organisation. The South African Government has announced measures to mitigate the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. Theoretically, many of the day labourers could have benefited from the COVID-19 Social Emergency Relief Grant of R350 per month that has been paid to the unemployed since President Ramaphosa's announcement on 21 April 2020. However, this payment came to an end in April 2021. The short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal workers and day labourers was therefore nothing short of catastrophic. In the medium term, further pressure is likely to be put on the day labour market due to the many people who have lost or are about to lose their formal jobs because of the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. A resultant oversupply of day labourers will have a further devastating effect on day labourers' lives and livelihoods -- even after the pandemic has been brought under control. Day labourers' reservation wages will be pushed even lower due to day labourers' desperation to be able to work at all. This negative impact could be further exacerbated in the long run as thousands of pupils, who are currently dropping out of school in the midst of the pandemic, will have no choice (other than crime) but to turn to the informal day job market. The situation in the day labour market is therefore already critical and can only have further devastating consequences for the social order and social cohesion in South Africa. South African society urgently needs to reflect on these issues. The riots and looting in July 2021 are prima facie proof that the social order is already under tremendous pressure. Academics also have a role to play in the process of reflection and reconsideration. There is an urgent need for nationwide research on the day labour market and other forms of informal employment and self-employment. New nationwide data (using a similar methodology), as well as other forms of participatory research, are needed to gain an understanding of the impact of the events of the past ten years on the lives and livelihoods of informal wage earners. A crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic has once again highlighted the plight of the marginalised and vulnerable in South Africa's unequal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, the annual numbers of exits of members from the Catholic Church and Protestant Church have been increasing. Closer inspection of diocese‐level data shows that the time‐series pattern of exits is nonlinear with a series of intermediate peaks. This paper uses an event study approach to model the impacts of various scandals on church exit rates. We find that sexual abuse and financial scandals located in the Catholic Church contribute to increased exit rates not just in that Church but also, by way of spillover effects, to higher exit rates of Protestant Church members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effects of exogenous shocks on long-term growth. Additionally, it analyzes episodes of growth acceleration and reversal in 33 sub-Saharan Africa countries over the period 1980–2016. Fixed effects and the generalized method of moments are used to assess the effects of exogenous shocks on long-term growth. The results show that the terms of trade, remittances, and world demand improve long-term growth, while aid reduces it. Growth acceleration and reversal episodes are identified using an improved variant of the filter developed by Hausmann et al. (2005. "Growth Accelerations." Journal of Economic Growth 10: 303–329). We further used a probit model to evaluate how exogenous shocks affect both growth episodes. Our results show that a favorable shock on the terms of trade, foreign aid and world demand increases the probability of acceleration, while an unfavorable shock on the terms of trade, remittances and world demand increases the probability of a growth reversal. Moreover, we find that economic and political reforms precede growth accelerations. Finally, the results show that growth reversals are associated with higher inflation, lower domestic credit, and civil wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The endogenous adaptation of economic agents, that may adjust their trade network in response to infection rates, can have the perverse effect of increasing the overall systemic infectiveness of a disease. We study a dynamical model over two geographically distinct but interacting markets, to better understand theoretically the mechanism at play. We also discuss analogies with the 2018 African Swine Fever, and provide empirical motivation from the Italian National Bovine Database, for the period 2006–2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the economic vulnerability, in general, and of the households of population in Romania; in particular, from the point of view of the main theoretical approaches and the connections with other economic concepts relevant for the assessment and characterization of standard of living, namely those regarding poverty, well-being, resilience. The analytical approach is based on a relatively expanded system of indicators gathered within a methodology taken from the international literature, adapted by the authors to the limitations posed by the availability of relevant statistical information and data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main problem of innovative projects in Russian Federation is the need to assess the impact of exogenous shocks on their financing and development. The impact of this type of shock in the period of globalization is sharply increasing. In order to assess the impact of exogenous shocks on innovative projects we create a model with two stages using the innovate project of production of water purification plants. The first stage of it is the construction of a simple model of financial risk, stipulating the conditions when investors will invest in this firm in the absence of negative shocks, their expectations will depend on their own confidence in continuing investment at the next stages. This model shows a positive result. At the second stage we take into account the impact of the negative exogenous shocks on the project, and try to trace a reaction of companies involved in financing innovative projects. The results of the project were negative. The investor in this case as a rule can stop financing and has the risk of losses. In order to prevent this situation we propose to use a real option for a possible refusal to implement an innovative project in the event that the net present value after one year of financing will be negative or very small. To our opinion it is one of the best ways to reduce financial risks during the implementation of innovative projects for investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study of crime trends has proceeded along two paths: 1) normal science investigations of slow‐moving and tractable changes in crime rates and explanatory conditions and 2) research encounters with unexpected and abrupt changes in crime rates resulting from exogenous shocks. I draw from my research on the relationship between crime rates and changing macroeconomic conditions to illustrate the pains and pleasures of studying crime trends with the tools of normal science. I describe my exploratory investigations of the recent homicide rise in the United States to underscore the theoretical importance and methodological challenges of research on exogenous shocks to crime rates. Finally, I hope to convey to the next generation of criminologists the intellectual excitement that comes from the study of crime trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Developing country performance with respect to economic policies and institutional behavior is a common criterion for the allocation of aid among recipient countries. This paper examines how performance is used, arguing that performance is too narrowly defined. A more appropriate definition is one that controls for the economic vulnerability and human capital of developing countries. Econometric analysis of cross-section and panel data is presented that supports this contention. The paper also contends that performance and exogenous economic shocks are likely to be pro-cyclical. This implies a double punishment when aid is allocated according to performance. Evidence of such punishment is also provided. The paper concludes by arguing that economic vulnerability and human capital variables should augment performance measures in aid allocation decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a tribute to the massive contribution of our friend and colleague Graeme Hugo to the population and settlement geography of Australian rural areas, this paper presents a longitudinal study from his home State. It forms part of a wider study of the long-term demographic relationships between Australia’s rapidly growing regional cities and their surrounding functional regions. Of particular interest is the question of what effect the accelerating concentration of population and economic activity into a given regional city will have for the longer term demographic sustainability of its functional region as a whole. Taking the case of Port Lincoln, regional capital of most of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, it examines the nature of change in the functional region over the period 1947–2011, and investigates the forces feeding, and partly counteracting, the population concentration process, informed by concepts of evolutionary economic geography. In particular it traces the demographic impact (particularly differential migration and ageing trends) of exogenous shocks to the region’s essentially primary productive economic base during the period of major change from 1981 to 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary This study estimates the economic impact of IMF-supported programs addressing policy and exogenous shocks in low-income countries (LICs) using the propensity score matching approach. Focusing on a more homogenous group of financing events greatly improves the specification and predictive power of the selection model as compared to earlier studies, which is the key requirement to control for selection bias. This paper looks into a wide range of potential economic and political determinants of participation. Lower reserve coverage, deterioration in the current account balance, a weaker real GDP growth, increased macroeconomic instability (evident in higher fiscal deficits, inflation and exchange market pressures), and lagged elections would increase the probability of participation, i.e., propensity scores. Moreover, global conditions, including changes in real oil and non-oil commodity prices and world trade, are also significant; therefore, adverse global shocks could create cycles in demand for IMF financing. The short-term IMF engagement is positively associated with a wide range of macroeconomic outcomes. Notably, the impact on the short-term growth is the greatest and becomes significant only for LICs facing substantial macroeconomic imbalances or large exogenous shocks. When matching accounts for propensity scores and institutional quality, program countries in this group have changes in growth 1½–3½ percentage points higher than the control group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the generation of chaos in economic models through exogenous shocks. The perturbation is formulated as a pulse function where either values or instants of discontinuity are chaotically behaved. We provide a rigorous proof of the existence of chaos in the perturbed model. The analytical results are applied to Kaldor–Kalecki-type models of the aggregate economy subject to export and rainfall shocks, respectively. Simulations are used to demonstrate the emergence and the control of chaos. Our results shed light on a novel source of chaos in economic models and have important implications for policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model is used to evaluate the effect of supply (productivity) and demand (foreign trade) shocks on the economy. In addition, the policy impact of public spending under a given economic environment is analyzed. Our results show that, for an open economy (as Colombia), an expansionary policy of public spending increases employment and production in the short run, but carries an future cost, which appears to be greater than the short term benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As tourism forecasts are obtained based on past observations, an historical analysis of Japan`s postwar economic success, social factors, and the national government's institutional policies and reforms can help to provide a better understanding of the growth in Japanese outbound travel and the trending patterns in Japanese tourist arrivals to Australia. To achieve these aims, a statistical analysis of the time series behavior of tourism demand, specifically quarterly tourist arrivals from Japan to Australia from 1976 to 2000, are examined. In addition to analyzing the full sample, the authors also consider three subsamples, namely quarter 1 of 1976 to quarter 2 of 1987, quarter 3 of 1987 to quarter 2 of 1997, and quarter 3 of 1997 to quarter 2 of 2000, to evaluate the sensitivity of the estimates to changes in trends arising from the 1987 stock market crash and the Asian economic and financial crises in 1997. Autoregressive moving average time series models are estimated to analyze alternative patterns of trending behavior within this class of models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate change increases the frequency of natural disasters, understanding how such disasters affect voting behavior has become crucial. While the literature has demonstrated that voters punish the party of the incumbent when they experience severe destruction, it remains unclear how other political parties are affected. In particular, we argue that voters shift their support to Green parties following natural disasters, given that these parties have ownership of environmental issues. We further argue that disasters decrease mainstream leftist parties' vote share because liberal-minded voters are more likely to be the ones switching to Green parties. Empirical tests on bushfires and voting in Australia provide some support for our predictions, as all the expected effects of fires on voting manifest in state-level tests but not constituency-level tests. This suggests that our theory may operate only at certain levels of governance, paving the way for future research into why this might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]