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This paper examines the scalability of the results from the Tennessee Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project, a prominent educational experiment. We explore how the misalignment between the experimental design and the econometric model affects researchers' ability to learn about the intervention's scalability. We document heterogeneity in compliance with class-size reduction that is more extensive than previously acknowledged and discuss its consequences for the evaluation of the experiment. Guided by this finding, we implement a new econometric framework incorporating heterogeneous treatment effects and endogenous class size determination. We find that the effect of class size on test scores differs considerably across schools, with only a small fraction of schools having significant benefits from reduced class sizes. We discuss the challenges this poses for the intervention's scalability and conclude by analyzing targeted class-size interventions.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit many countries at a time when their education systems were facing multiple challenges. Economic, public-health and social impacts from the pandemic have exacerbated many of these challenges. The aim of this paper is to explore the way in which the behavioural sciences can help support the policy response to the COVID-induced education crisis, and to serve as a learning experience for other future crises. The paper involves an empirical exploration of the factors associated with a range of outcomes using large nationally representative datasets, and interpreting these relationships in the context of a detailed literature review. By using data that it is generally representative of the populations of interest, and is available for many dozens of countries with different histories, languages, cultures, and socioeconomic outcomes, this paper highlights how identifying behavioural biases can direct education systems towards more effective targeted policy interventions.

Many observers argue that diversity in Economics and STEM fields is critical, not simply because of egalitarian goals, but because who is in a field may shape what is studied by it. If increasing the rate of majoring in mathematically-intensive fields among women is a worthy goal, then understanding whether women's colleges causally affect that choice is important. Among all admitted applicants to Wellesley College, enrollees are 7.2 percentage points (94%) more likely to receive an Economics degree than non-enrollees (a plausible lower bound given negative selection into enrollment on math skills and major preferences). Overall, 3.2 percentage points--or 44% of the difference between enrollees and non-enrollees--is explained by college exposure to female instructors and students, consistent with a wider role for women's colleges in increasing female participation in Economics.

This chapter reviews the extensive literature to date on CCTs for education. Section 2 provides background on the origins and expansion of CCTs globally, and describes basic design features and variation in characteristics across programs. Section 3 presents a theory of change and an economic household decision-making model highlighting key comparative statics and empirical predictions for the introduction of an education CCT program. Section 4 discusses key methodological challenges in evaluating the impacts of education CCTs. Section 5 integrates and updates the extensive evidence to date on the impacts of education CCTs on various outcome domains over the life cycle, and provides the most comprehensive view to date on learning impacts by meta-analyzing new evidence from more than 30 studies--substantially more than prior reviews of the literature. Section 6 reviews the evidence on indirect and general equilibrium effects. Section 7 presents a simple model of costs commonly used in the literature, which we extend to analyze cost-effectiveness for a subset of programs. Section 8 concludes and highlights open questions for future research.

The view that empirical strategies in economics should be transparent and credible now goes almost without saying. The local average treatment effects (LATE) framework for causal inference helped make this so. The LATE theorem tells us for whom particular instrumental variables (IV) and regression discontinuity estimates are valid. This lecture uses several empirical examples, mostly involving charter and exam schools, to highlight the value of LATE. A surprising exclusion restriction, an assumption central to the LATE interpretation of IV estimates, is shown to explain why enrollment at Chicago exam schools reduces student achievement. I also make two broader points: IV exclusion restrictions formalize commitment to clear and consistent explanations of reduced-form causal effects; compelling applications demonstrate the power of simple empirical strategies to generate new causal knowledge.

Children's experiences during early childhood are critical for their cognitive and socio-emotional development, two key dimensions of human capital. However, children from low income backgrounds often grow up lacking stimulation and basic investments, leading to developmental deficits that are difficult, if not impossible, to reverse later in life without intervention. The existence of these deficits are a key driver of inequality and contribute to the intergenerational transmission of poverty. In this paper, we discuss the framework used in economics to model parental investments and early childhood development and use it as an organizing tool to review some of the empirical evidence on early childhood research. We then present results from various important early childhoods interventions with emphasis on developing countries. Bringing these elements together we draw conclusions on what we have learned and provide some directions for future research. [Additional funding for this report was provided by the ESRC-funded Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy, the Cowles Foundation, and the ISPS at Yale.]

Linear panel models featuring unit and time fixed effects appear in many areas of empirical economics. An active literature studies the interpretation of the ordinary least squares estimator of the model, commonly called the two-way fixed effects (TWFE) estimator, in the presence of unmodeled coefficient heterogeneity. We illustrate some implications for the case where the research design takes advantage of variation across units (say, US states) in exposure to some treatment (say, a policy change). In this case, the TWFE can fail to estimate the average (or even a weighted average) of the units' coefficients. Under some conditions, there exists "no" estimator that is guaranteed to estimate even a weighted average. Building on the literature, we note that when there is a unit totally unaffected by treatment, it is possible to estimate an average effect by replacing the TWFE with an average of difference-in-differences estimators. [This paper was published in "Journal of Economic Perspectives" v36 n4 Fall 2022.]

Background: The salience of economic evaluation in education -- cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and benefit-cost analysis -- has been on the rise in recent years. In contexts when resources are especially scarce, research to support decision-making to maximize benefits to students is especially valuable. Economic evaluation can help to provide evidence on the strategic and effective ways to address both new and persistent challenges, such as those presented by COVID-19. Nonetheless, researchers have bemoaned the relative paucity of research on the costs of educational interventions since the method was formalized (Levin, 1975). In fact, as of 2002, the vast majority of studies purporting to analyze costs or cost-effectiveness in education were primarily rhetorical in nature (Clune, 2002). Levin (2001) attributed this to a lack of demand for rigorous cost studies among decision-makers and a lack of training. Purpose: Cost studies have garnered new attention in recent years with their adoption by institutions such as JPAL (Dhaliwal, Duflo, Glennerster & Tulloch, 2013) and as a required component for evaluations funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Given this new attention, an update on the prevalence and quality of cost studies in education is in order. We seek to address the following research questions on the state of the literature on economic evaluation in education: Has the prevalence of economic evaluation increased in education research in light of its increased salience? Has the quality and rigor of economic evaluation increased in recent years? Does the prevalence and quality of studies vary by type of analysis and area of specialization? Do rigorous, high-quality studies share common features that are relevant for future researchers and for decision-makers? Do economic evaluations impact education policy in a documentable way? Setting & Subjects: We include in our analysis any education paper that appeared in our search (described below) since 2007 that includes a cost component, even if the cost component was secondary to the main analysis. We include all levels of education and all articles published after 2007 to pick up where the most recent comprehensive review of the literature left off (Ross, Barkoui & Scott, 2007). We include papers regardless of country of origin as long as the paper was available in English. Research design, data collection, & analysis: Our initial list of articles was drawn from a search on the terms "cost," "cost-effectiveness," "cost-benefit," and "economic evaluation" were searched alongside "education" using Web of Science, Google Scholar, EconLit, and ERIC. We found nearly 4,000 citations, the vast majority only tangentially related to education and thus ineligible for analysis. We supplemented this list with additional articles that cited the second and third editions of the Economic Evaluation in Education textbook (Levin & McEwan, 2001 & Levin, McEwan, Bel eld, Bowden & Shand, 2018). The textbook citations list was subjected to the same inclusion criteria as the web search. This work builds on prior comprehensive reviews of the state of economic evaluation of education by adding a novel look at policy reach and influence. We record a list of policy documents that cite each paper, a count of citations, and an Almetric figure. We used the Dimensions and Google Scholar search engines to record each article's citation count and used Dimensions to record the article's presence in policy documents along with its Almetric score. We coded original empirical cost data or specific recommendations for cost analysis on a numeric rubric for quality and rigor, based on the economic evaluation checklist presented in Levin et al. 2018. Papers received a rigor score based on their adherence to the rubric, with papers that met none of these criteria coded 0. Finally, we conducted descriptive analyses on the prevalence and quality of cost studies in education: the number of studies by year, type, area, and quality, and tests to determine if there are statistically significant differences in quality by type and topic of analysis. Findings: Fifty-one percent of the 104 papers analyzed to date were "real" in the sense that they had original cost data or specific recommendations on cost analysis, and 23% of the papers were both authentic cost analyses and rated as high-quality on our rubric. This represents significant progress from the Clune (2002) study, when only 5% of papers met these criteria, although significant work remains to reach even a majority of high-quality cost-studies. Cost-effectiveness analysis is by far the most common type of analysis and the preponderance of papers have been published in higher education, social and emotional learning, general K-12 reforms, and teachers. Quality seems dispersed across topic areas, with most papers coded as partly meeting rigor criteria and no statistically significant differences from the expected distribution based on chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests. Our analysis of policy reach showed a range of influence. Several of the papers included in our analysis had outsized influence but the bulk of papers had modest influence. Conclusions: This review of the economic evaluation literature shows some significant progress since previous reviews. There does indeed seem to be an uptick in both number and quality of studies, notably among cost-effectiveness analyses and in the areas of higher education and social and emotional learning. Nonetheless, there is still much work to be done, as original empirical cost analyses remain relatively rare. Even among this sample, half of the papers had little or no original empirical analysis, suggesting that gathering cost data and performing rigorous analysis remain obstacles. While the increase in frequency and quality is encouraging, further uptake of high-quality cost evaluations would help to fill an essential need in education. In considering the classic tradeoff in economics between efficiency and equity, Rice (2004) argued that applications of economic evaluation to education research can help resolve the dichotomy and simultaneously address both goals in a number of ways. A focus on how resources contribute to outcomes can help provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between inputs, processes, and outcomes, moving beyond debates on whether money matters to focus on how to use resources to maximize the public good.

Copyright of OECD Environment Working Papers is the property of Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of OECD Environment Working Papers is the property of Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper takes stock of the literature on behaviourally informed interventions to facilitate the transition to a circular economy, and discusses measures that could be pilot tested in Italy. The paper provides an overview of the key concepts of behavioural economics and describes the main "biases" that could influence the adoption of behaviours aligned with the transition to a circular economy by consumers. It goes on to review the empirical evidence on the motivations that may affect the adoption of such behaviours, as well as taking stock of empirical insights into the effectiveness of implemented behavioural interventions relevant to the circular economy transition. Finally, the paper introduces three proposals for experimental pilots in Italy. This working paper was developed in the context of project 21IT01 "Advanced policy instruments to accelerate the circular economy", funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxfam America and Prosperity Now have embarked on a comprehensive joint research project to explore the dynamics of women’s paid and unpaid labor in the US, particularly for women of color, who are disproportionately affected by the dual impact of paid work and unpaid care responsibilities. This report adopts an intersectional lens to delve into the disparities in unpaid care and the inequities in the paid labor force. The relationship between paid and unpaid labor reveals significant challenges, with many facing systemic barriers in accessing essential support such as workplace flexibility, equitable pay, and affordable care services. Particularly, the interplay of gender and race/ethnicity in this context spotlights the unique and disproportionate challenges women of color encounter in both paid and unpaid labor., The research focuses on both paid and unpaid labor, shedding light on the often invisible or underappreciated roles women play in the economy. Paid labor is commonly understood and recognized, but unpaid labor, including care work for children and adults, remains largely unseen and unvalued, despite its critical role in the economic and social fabric of our society. This study is rooted in the principles of intersectional feminism and labor economics, recognizing that gender, race, ethnicity, and class are not isolated factors but intersect and interact, influencing the experiences of women in the US labor market., The study seeks to bring visibility to this work and underscore its significance in economic policy. The urgency of the project is highlighted by the recent social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly affected unpaid care work, altering its distribution among men and women as well as across racial and ethnic groups. The paper also brings in the voices of the people who are holding crucial caregiving roles in their communities so readers can hear from individuals directly. The research team collected testimonials from nurse practitioners, nonprofit workers, public school workers, and psychologists, some of whom have had to leave their jobs to keep up with care responsibilities to highlight the lived experience that exists within the data.

Many factors influence students' experiences in upper secondary education and beyond, including upper secondary curricula, programme design and support for students. But a good transition from earlier levels of education is the first, essential step in a successful journey through upper secondary education and into further education and/or employment. The design of transition systems can mitigate existing inequities in education, but it can also accentuate them. Transitions can also influence student well-being. They can have either a negative impact, for example through highly competitive systems that can be stressful for students and narrow their development, or a positive impact, for example by helping to construct young people's sense of agency and ability to make informed decisions about their future. This paper looks at how countries manage students' transition into upper secondary education and the main policy implications of each transition point and how they can influence student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing consensus among policymakers, institutions and movements that GDP is not fit for purpose as the pre-eminent economic metric. Alternatives are urgently needed to facilitate the transition to a new economic model that supports a radically more equal, kinder, greener and feminist world in the present, while offering redress for historical damage and inequalities., However, despite growing experimentation, most efforts are insufficiently bold and remain mostly on paper, with only a few notable but relatively small-scale and still-developing exceptions., To dismantle GDP, different social movements will need to coalesce around key metrics that prioritise far greater equality, and align with feminist and decolonial values while challenging the systems of power and narratives that are holding GDP in its dominant place. Only in this way are alternatives likely to deliver the economic transformation needed to put people and planet first., Les responsables politiques, les institutions et divers mouvements s’accordent de plus à plus à dire que le produit intérieur brut (PIB), en tant que principal indicateur de la santé économique, n’est pas un outil satisfaisant. Il est urgent de trouver des alternatives pour la transition vers un nouveau modèle économique favorisant un monde radicalement plus égalitaire, bienveillant, vert et féministe et proposant des mesures de réparation des dommages causés par le passé et des inégalités qui en découlent. Toutefois, malgré de nombreuses expériences, la plupart de celles-ci manquent d’ambition et ne sont pas appliquées, à l’exception de rares propositions en cours de développement, notables mais d’envergure relativement restreinte. Pour détrôner le PIB, divers mouvements sociaux devront travailler à la création d’indicateurs clés qui privilégieront l’égalité, intégreront les valeurs féministes et décoloniales et remettront en question les systèmes de pouvoir et les discours qui perpétuent l’utilisation du PIB. C’est la seule manière pour ces alternatives d’entraîner la transformation économique indispensable pour protéger la planète et les êtres humains avant tout.

This paper estimates a time-varying reaction function of the median participant of the Federal Open Market Committee, using a Taylor rule with time-varying coefficients estimated on one-to three-year ahead median forecasts of the federal funds rate, ination, and the unemployment rate from the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP). We estimate the model with Bayesian methods, incorporating the effective lower bound on the median federal funds rate projections. The results indicate that the monetary policy rule has become significantly more persistent after the pandemic than in the years prior, and it currently reacts strongly to ination, at more than twice the responsiveness estimated prior to 2020. Our proposed policy rule produces accurate predictions of the median federal funds rate projections in real time for given SEP forecasts of ination and the unemployment rate, suggesting that the median participant's reaction function is well-represented by our assumed Taylor rule with time-varying coe fficients. Our results show that the median participant's reaction function becomes less persistent and less responsive to ination yet more responsive to the output gap in anticipation of tighter monetary policy conditions, measured by a steeper yield curve. We also find that labor market activity, ination, and macroeconomic uncertainty correlate significantly with the evolution of the time-varying coefficients of the rule. Finally, we show that in times of a less persistent policy rule or more responsiveness to ination, markets perceive nominal bonds as better macroeconomic hedges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of OECD Environment Working Papers is the property of Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Carbon pricing is not a new phenomenon. Backed by widespread consensus in the economic literature that it is the single most effective policy for addressing climate change, it has been the staple policy priority of many environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Yet carbon pricing has seen limited uptake. Efforts to price carbon have failed in a multitude of contexts. Where they have passed, in most cases, prices have been set too low or covered too little of the economy to effectively address the challenge posed by climate change. As a result, climate advocates have come to question carbon pricing as a primary policy approach. In this context, this paper is not intended to provide novel insights into carbon pricing, nor is it intended to motivate for or against an immediate campaign priority at Oxfam. Rather, this review of carbon pricing is intended to provide a technical background on the topic, considering the concerns that are of greatest salience to Oxfam. The specific aims of the paper are to support Oxfam staff in their deliberation on whether, when, and how to engage on carbon pricing initiatives, as questions around this policy approach shift over the next 20 years. It is anticipated that such reflection would also be useful to a number of organizations whose concerns are similar to Oxfam’s.

This paper aims to evaluate the possibilities of augmenting the credit-to-GDP gap series with out-of-sample forecasts to obtain a more stable indicator of excessive credit growth. The credit-to-GDP gap is a standardized and harmonized indicator of the Basel III regulatory framework used to calibrate the Countercyclical Capital Buffer (CCyB). Thus, a good indicator should be valid, stable, and represent future financial cycle movements. This research focuses on reducing the end-point bias problem of the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter approach to estimating this indicator. This is appropriate for those authorities whose analysis shows that the HP approach best predicts the financial crisis. Several popular models of out-of-sample forecasting are tested on Croatian data to extend the filtered original series, and the results are compared based on multiple criteria. These include the stability of the indicator, not just the usual model forecasting capabilities. The autoregressive approach, alongside the random walk model, was the best-performing one. The results of this study can be used in real-time decision-making, as they are relatively simple to estimate and communicate. Such augmented gaps reduce the bias in the series after the financial cycle turns. Moreover, the paper suggests possible corrections to the credit-to-GDP gap so that the resulting indicators are less volatile over time with stable signals for the policy decision-maker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore some benefits of using the finite-state Markov chain approximation (MCA) method of Kushner and Dupuis (2001) to solve continuous-time optimal control problems in economics. We first show that the implicit finite-difference scheme of Achdou et al. (2022) amounts to a limiting form of the MCA method for a certain choice of approximating chains and policy function iteration for the resulting system of equations. We then illustrate that relative to the implicit finite-difference approach, using variations of modified policy function iteration to solve income fluctuation problems both with and without discrete choices can lead to an increase in the speed of convergence of more than an order of magnitude. Finally, we provide several consistent chain constructions for stationary portfolio problems with correlated state variables, and illustrate the flexibility of the MCA approach by using it to construct and compare two simple solution methods for a general equilibrium model with financial frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW) and Paid Domestic Work (PDW) are essential to societal wellbeing. However, these activities often carry negative perceptions, attitudes and beliefs when performed by men and boys. As a result, women and girls typically shoulder the primary responsibility for performing UCDW. Similarly, society often undervalues PDW by perceiving it as low-skilled work, as demonstrated through low remuneration and unfair employment practices. The narratives many cultures embrace concerning UCDW and PDW partly explain why these essential activities frequently fall on women and girls, and why society often undervalues PDW. This report documents a collaborative research project between Busara Center for Behavioral Economics and Oxfam to investigate existing narratives on UCDW and PDW in Kenya, and test potentially transformative narratives that could shift societal attitudes.

This research study across three countries – Kenya, UK, and Zimbabwe – was carried out to identify the dominant narratives that influence public perceptions of care and informal work. It enabled the researchers to develop and test new narratives that could be used to improve public attitudes towards care and informal work. Creating new stories about care and informal work is vital to securing adequate investment and support from communities, traditional leaders and governments.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and worsened the depth of inequality in West Africa. It has pushed millions into poverty. There is no end in sight due to the obscene global vaccine inequality, which means that less than 4% of West Africans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as at September 2021, compared with 52% in the United States and 57% in the European Union. In 2021, when COVID-19 infections are rising in West Africa, the critical support health and socioeconomic programmes put in place by most governments in 2020 are being rolled back and replaced with austerity. Many governments are following advice from the IMF and World Bank, reminiscent of the severe cuts in spending imposed under the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and 1990s. However, as this paper argues, the pandemic offers West African governments a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest heavily in inequality-busting policies by boosting public spending (especially on healthcare, education and social protection), making tax systems more progressive, and tackling joblessness and precarious work., This report uses the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRII) framework devised by Oxfam and Development Finance International to assess the policies of West African governments. Visit the CRI Index website to learn more: www.inequalityindex.org., La pandémie de COVID-19 a mis au jour et aggravé l’ampleur des inégalités en Afrique de l’Ouest. Elle a précipité des millions de personnes dans la pauvreté. Cette situation risque de ne pas trouver de résolution, en raison des inégalités choquantes d’accès aux vaccins, ce qui signifie que moins de 4 % des Ouest-africain·es ont été complètement vacciné·es contre la COVID-19 en septembre 2021, contre 52 % de la population des États-Unis et 57 % des personnes dans l’Union européenne., En 2021, alors que les cas de COVID-19 augmentent en Afrique de l’Ouest, les programmes de soutien sanitaire et socio-économique essentiels mis en place par la plupart des gouvernements en 2020 sont interrompus et remplacés par des mesures d’austérité. De nombreux gouvernements suivent les conseils du FMI et de la Banque mondiale, faisant ainsi écho aux fortes coupes budgétaires imposées dans le cadre des politiques d’ajustement structurel des années 1980 et 1990. Cette pandémie, cependant, offre aux gouvernements ouest-africains une opportunité unique d’investir massivement dans des politiques de lutte contre les inégalités en augmentant les dépenses publiques (en particulier dans les domaines de la santé, de l’éducation et de la protection sociale), en rendant les systèmes fiscaux plus progressifs et en luttant contre le chômage et le travail précaire.

Operational risk is a substantial source of risk for US banks. Improving the performance of operational risk models allows banks' management to make more informed risk decisions by better matching economic capital and risk appetite, and allows regulators to enhance their understanding of banks' operational risk. We show that past operational losses are informative of future losses, even after controlling for a wide range of financial characteristics. We propose that the information provided by past losses results from them capturing hard to quantify factors such as the quality of operational risk controls, the risk culture, and the risk appetite of the bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2017 and 2022, Oxfam examined aid to DRM from multiple donors provided to multiple low- and middle-income countries. This synthesis report seeks to draw lessons across these studies. The key issues examined include tradeoffs between efficiency and effectiveness in generating revenues on the one hand, and equity on the other; whether donors support direct or indirect taxation; the progressivity of instruments supported; whether aid to DRM explicitly links revenues to poverty reduction (health, education, social protection); whether aid supports country ownership; and whether aid explicitly seeks to advance gender equality.

In 2021, the IMF issued and distributed $650bn worth of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explores the unique characteristics of SDRs and provides an overview of the role of SDRs in the MENA region., Using four countries as case studies (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia), it analyses how SDRs can be transferred from central banks to governments for fiscal use; outlines how the 2021 SDR allocations have been used; and explores priority avenues for fiscal spending aiming at sustainable and inclusive economic recovery that contributes to reducing inequality and avoiding further austerity in the MENA region.

The 2022 Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index is the first detailed analysis published looking at governments’ policies and actions to fight inequality during the first two years of the pandemic. This fourth edition of the CRI Index reviews the spending, tax and labour policies and actions of 161 governments during 2020–2022., COVID-19 has increased inequality worldwide, as the poorest people were hit hardest by both the disease and its profound economic impacts. Yet the CRI 2022 Index shows clearly that most of the world’s governments failed to mitigate this dangerous rise in inequality. Despite the biggest global health emergency in a century, half of low-and lower-middle-income countries saw the share of health spending fall during the pandemic, half of the countries tracked by the CRI Index cut the share of social protection spending, 70% cut the share of education spending, while two-thirds of countries failed to increase their minimum wage in line with gross domestic product (GDP). Ninety-five percent of countries failed to increase taxation of the richest people and corporations. At the same time, a small group of governments from across the world bucked this trend, taking clear actions to combat inequality, putting the rest of the world to shame., See also the CRI Index website: www.inequalityindex.orgThe Index has been audited by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Read more here., L’indice de l’engagement à la réduction des inégalités (ERI) 2022 est la première analyse détaillée publiée portant sur les politiques et les actions des gouvernements pour lutter contre les inégalités au cours des deux premières années de la pandémie. Cette analyse passe en revue les politiques et actions de 161 gouvernements en matière de dépenses, de fiscalité et de travail sur la période 2020-2022., La COVID-19 a creusé les inégalités dans le monde entier, les plus pauvres étant les plus durement touché·es par la maladie et ses profondes répercussions économiques. Pourtant, l’indice ERI 2022 montre clairement que la plupart des gouvernements du monde n’ont pas réussi à atténuer cette dangereuse augmentation des inégalités. Alors qu’il s’agit de la pire urgence sanitaire que le monde ait connue depuis un siècle, la moitié des pays à revenu faible et intermédiaire de la tranche inférieure ont vu la part des dépenses de santé diminuer pendant la pandémie. La moitié des pays suivis par l’indice ERI ont réduit la part des dépenses de protection sociale, 70 % ont revu à la baisse la part des dépenses d’éducation, tandis que deux tiers des pays n’ont pas augmenté leur salaire minimum en fonction du produit intérieur brut (PIB). 95 % des pays n’ont pas augmenté l’imposition des personnes et des sociétés les plus riches. Dans le même temps, quelques gouvernements dans différentes parties du monde se sont démarqués de cette tendance en prenant des mesures claires pour lutter contre les inégalités, couvrant de honte le reste du monde.

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the extreme inequality in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, and pushed millions into poverty. The economic crisis continues due to the obscene global vaccine inequality. As of end March 2022, a dismal 14% of SADC citizens had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, compared with 65.5% in the United States and 73% in the European Union., In 2021, with infections rising in SADC, the critical health, social protection and economic programmes put in place by most governments in 2020 were rolled back and replaced with austerity, in the context of growing debt burdens and lack of external support for country budgets. Such austerity has been built into IMF programmes in the region., Recovering from the pandemic, however, offers SADC governments a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do what their citizens want: increase taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, boost public spending (especially on healthcare, education and social protection), and increase workers’ rights as well as tackling joblessness and precarious work. With external support, including through debt relief and aid, they could reduce inequality drastically and eliminate extreme poverty by 2030., Crise des inégalités extrêmes dans la SADC Combattre l’austérité et la pandémie de COVID-19 La pandémie de COVID-19 a aggravé les inégalités extrêmes dans les pays de la Communauté de développement d’Afrique australe (SADC) et a précipité des millions de personnes dans la pauvreté. La crise économique se poursuit en raison de l’inégalité vaccinale obscène dans le monde. Fin mars 2022, 14 % seulement des citoyen·nes de la SADC avaient un schéma vaccinal complet contre la COVID-19, contre 65,5 % aux États-Unis et 73 % dans l’Union européenne5., En 2021, en pleine flambée des infections dans la SADC, les programmes critiques en matière de santé, de protection sociale et d’économie mis en place par la plupart des gouvernements en 2020 ont été réduits et remplacés par l’austérité, dans un contexte d’augmentation du fardeau de la dette et de manque de soutien extérieur aux budgets nationaux. Les programmes du FMI dans la région ont intégré cette austérité., La sortie de la pandémie offre toutefois aux gouvernements de la SADC une occasion qui ne se présente qu’une fois par génération de faire ce que veulent leurs citoyen·nes : augmenter les impôts sur les grandes fortunes et les grandes entreprises, accroître les dépenses publiques (notamment en matière de soins de santé, d’éducation et de protection sociale), renforcer les droits des travailleurs et des travailleuses et lutter contre le chômage et le travail précaire. Avec un soutien extérieur, notamment par le biais d’une aide et d’un allègement de la dette, ils pourraient réduire radicalement les inégalités et éliminer l’extrême pauvreté d’ici 2030.

In May 2022, Lebanon is hosting its first parliamentary elections since the popular uprising of October 2019, when massive protests took place to denounce the current ruling elites. This research looks at voter turnout and behavior on the eve of the elections and examines the will for political change. It argues that in the current Lebanese context, there needs to be further political awareness-raising, and campaigns should be more inclusive of women and the queer community. Independent campaigns should focus on developing strong governing capacities that voters can trust, and create further space for civic and political engagement on the local and national levels.

Dominant narratives promoting economic growth at the expense of state institutions and basic social services have long underpinned a neoliberal model of spiralling debt and austerity in the MENA region. This exacerbates political capture and inequality and takes shape in an environment of media concentration and shrinking civic space. It is important for change movements to understand dominant narratives in order to challenge and shift them. With the right tools, civil society organizations, activists, influencers and alternative media can start changing the myths and beliefs which frame the socio-economic debate and predetermine which policy options are accepted as possible and legitimate, and which are not.

As the Philippines approaches upper-middle-income status, it continues to face the challenge of fighting poverty and economic and gender inequalities, while also confronting COVID-19. Public debt is set to dramatically increase, and donors are likely to ramp up funding to help foster recovery from the pandemic. Transparency and accountability are essential to guarantee efficient and judicious use of funds. The Philippines might have to consider a “debt brake” if government borrowing exceeds manageable levels, and donors should emphasize grants over loans. Aid should focus on building self-reliance based on localization, untying assistance and support for progressive revenue-raising.

We study the implications of mixing economics and personal finance standards in a high school course. Using administrative, survey, and testing data on college students, we find evidence that personal finance instruction crowds out economics instruction. We find that students who received more instruction in economics score almost 5% higher on an economics test. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of being assigned a certification test in personal finance as a part of this course. The effect of the certification test is not uniform across students. The test reduces the economics scores of students with an SAT score one standard deviation above the mean by 5 percentage points, but increases the scores of students with SAT scores one standard deviation below the mean by 10 percentage points. Our results emphasize the potentially idiosyncratic effects of mixing economics with personal finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists and economic policymakers believe that households' and firms' expectations of future inflation are a key determinant of actual inflation. A review of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature suggests that this belief rests on extremely shaky foundations, and a case is made that adhering to it uncritically could easily lead to serious policy errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the South China Sea (SCS) has emerged as an arena of U.S.-China strategic competition. China's actions in the SCS-including extensive island-building and baseconstruction activities at sites that it occupies in the Spratly Islands, as well as actions by its maritime forces to assert China's claims against competing claims by regional neighbors such as the Philippines and Vietnam-have heightened concerns among U.S. observers that China is gaining effective control of the SCS, an area of strategic, political, and economic importance to the United States and its allies and partners. Actions by China's maritime forces at the Japanadministered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea (ECS) are another concern for U.S. observers. Chinese domination of China's near-seas region-meaning the SCS and ECS, along with the Yellow Sea-could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. Potential broader U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: fulfilling U.S. security commitments in the Western Pacific, including treaty commitments to Japan and the Philippines; maintaining and enhancing the U.S.-led security architecture in the Western Pacific, including U.S. security relationships with treaty allies and partner states; maintaining a regional balance of power favorable to the United States and its allies and partners; defending the principle of peaceful resolution of disputes and resisting the emergence of an alternative "might-makes-right" approach to international affairs; defending the principle of freedom of the seas, also sometimes called freedom of navigation; preventing China from becoming a regional hegemon in East Asia; and pursing these goals as part of a larger U.S. strategy for competing strategically and managing relations with China. Potential specific U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: dissuading China from carrying out additional baseconstruction activities in the SCS, moving additional military personnel, equipment, and supplies to bases at sites that it occupies in the SCS, initiating island-building or base-construction activities at Scarborough Shoal in the SCS, declaring straight baselines around land features it claims in the SCS, or declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the SCS; and encouraging China to reduce or end operations by its maritime forces at the Senkaku Islands in the ECS, halt actions intended to put pressure against Philippine-occupied sites in the Spratly Islands, provide greater access by Philippine fisherman to waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal or in the Spratly Islands, adopt the U.S./Western definition regarding freedom of the seas, and accept and abide by the July 2016 tribunal award in the SCS arbitration case involving the Philippines and China. The issue for Congress is whether the Administration's strategy for competing strategically with China in the SCS and ECS is appropriate and correctly resourced, and whether Congress should approve, reject, or modify the strategy, the level of resources for implementing it, or both. Decisions that Congress makes on these issues could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note addresses the role of the Taylor principle to solve the indeterminacy of equilibria in economies in which the monetary authority follows an interest rate rule. We first study the role of imposing two additional ad-hoc restrictions on the definition of equilibrium. Imposing the equilibrium to be locally unique never delivers a unique outcome. Imposing the equilibrium to be bounded, renders the outcome unique only if the ination target is the Friedman rule. Second, we show that the Taylor principle is strongly time inconsistent - in a sense we make very precise - and that policies that implement the Friedman rule are the only sustainable policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]