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Global Business and Finance Magazine > Blog
Economy Business Featured

How machine learning is aiding the fight against mafia infiltration in Italy

In Italy, criminal organisations infiltrate municipal bodies to control public resources and manipulate elections. Detecting this infiltration, however, is difficult. This column proposes a machine-learning model that can predict mafia infiltration before it becomes evident and flag ‘high-risk’ municipalities. Policymakers could then monitor high-risk municipalities more closely and implement stronger safeguards to prevent the misuse […]

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Education Economy Featured

Addressing the lingering effects of colonial influence on educational institutions

Education is recognised as a crucial factor in breaking the cycle of poverty. This column examines how historical exposure to colonial public primary schools in Tunisia influences medium- and long-run literacy rates. It finds that increased enrolment of Tunisian students during the colonial period significantly boosted literacy decades later, while the enrolment of European pupils […]

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Economy Environment Featured

The politicisation of social responsibility

There is a growing friction between state governments and large asset managers over environmental, social, and governance practices. This column investigates whether institutional investors’ voting patterns on socially responsible investing vary according to the political party in control of the state government where a firm is headquartered. It finds that institutional investors are less likely […]

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Economy Featured Finance

Mind the gap: Gauging fiscal-monetary tensions through fiscal r-star

Tensions between fiscal and monetary policies have recently become the focus of macroeconomic policy debates. But by how much have they risen? By introducing a new r-star concept for fiscal policy that can be compared to monetary r-star, this column presents a new framework for measuring fiscal-monetary tensions. Based on 140 years of data for […]

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Finance Banking Featured

Banks should lock in profits as buffers for rainy days

Policy initiatives in several European countries have targeted bank profits to secure public funds. These measures include introducing windfall taxes on excess profits and, in some instances, encouraging higher, taxable dividend pay outs. At face value, the case for taxing banks appears intuitive: people are facing hardship and banks are making record profits. This column […]

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Economy Featured media News

Organised crime, violence, and support for the state

The threat that organised crime poses to state authorities is particularly conspicuous in Italy, where the Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, and Camorra have long held sway over local economies and governance. This column explores how exposure to organised criminal violence – as opposed to general criminal violence – affects faith in political institutions and overall social trust […]

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Economy Development Featured

The end of development economics

Some decades ago, development economists saw their approach as being distinctive compared to mainstream economics in general and better grounded in the reality of actual economies. This column argues that two trends over the last decades – the significant improvement in the average income of what were called developing countries and the homogenisation of economics […]

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Featured Business World

Female-owned employment agencies expand opportunities for women

In the decades immediately after World War II, many private employment agencies in the US were owned by women. This column investigates whether these women-owned agencies helped female jobseekers obtain better jobs. The authors find that women-owned agencies provided more opportunities to women by expanding the agency services available to them, including help finding male-dominated […]

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Finance Business Featured

Monetary policy transmission to households: The importance of consumers’ attention to interest rates and financial literacy

Differences in the attention that households pay to economic news may offer important insights for the business cycle and the propagation of economic shocks. This column uses responses from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey to show that in a high-inflation, high-interest-rate environment, consumers pay much more attention to price developments than to interest rates. The […]

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