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Global Business and Finance Magazine > Blog
Banking Business Featured World

Seeing and hearing is believing: The role of audiovisual communication in shaping inflation expectations

Central banks’ communication strategies are critical in shaping public inflation expectations, especially as inflation remains a pressing global concern. This column provides evidence from a survey experiment exploring how different communication mediums – text, photo, audio, and video – impact households’ inflation expectations. The findings suggest that dynamic audiovisual methods, like audio and video, are […]

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Business Featured News World

Non-compete agreements, tacit knowledge, and market imperfections

Removing regulatory barriers to worker mobility such as non-compete agreements can influence worker-level outcomes. This column exploits the changes in the enforceability of non-competes to explore their interaction with investment in intangible assets and market imperfections. Banning these agreements disproportionately benefits workers employed in intangible-intensive firms. When firms develop intangible assets that give them a […]

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Economy Featured News World

Politicians on corporate boards and the cost of public procurement

No country is safe from the risks posed by connections between politicians and private companies; scandals involving conflicts of interest plague governments around the world. Using a detailed dataset from the Czech Republic, this column demonstrates that ties between political parties and boards of government contractors lead to overpriced contracts without any corresponding gains in […]

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World Featured News trade

Cross-border shopping: Evidence and welfare implications for Switzerland

Most research examining how the benefits from trade vary across domestic consumers focuses on imports. This column analyses the welfare implications of consumers in Switzerland purchasing foreign goods by physically crossing into neighbouring countries. The authors find that cross-border shopping substantially lowers the cost of living for Swiss households, particularly for those living near the […]

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Economy Featured News World

Wind of change: Cultural determinants of maternal labour supply

Despite progress in gender equality, significant labour market disparities persist, particularly impacting mothers after childbirth. This column investigates how cultural norms influence women’s labour supply decisions in reunified Germany. The authors find that East German women maintain higher employment rates post-birth, even after migrating to the West, reflecting the resilience of egalitarian norms. Conversely, West […]

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Finance Banking Featured World

Balancing act: Credit growth and risks from the ECB’s dividend ban

In March 2020, the ECB recommended that euro area banks temporarily halt dividend distributions to shareholders and suspend share buybacks. As a result, dividends and the dividend payout ratio were near zero in 2020. This column shows that the dividend ban led to an increase in credit supply in the syndicated loans market. However, the […]

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World Climate Featured trade

Rewiring supply chains through uncoordinated climate policy

Heterogeneity across different jurisdictions in climate policies to regulate firms’ emissions can lead to economic activity shifting away from countries with the most stringent environmental laws. This column uses the case of the US, where California’s cap-and-trade programme is the only policy regulating emissions by industrial firms, to show that carbon leakage can occur through […]

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News Business Featured World

Understanding lifetime earnings inequality through hours worked

Lifetime earnings in the US are highly unequal. This column examines a frequently overlooked factor to explain the persistence of lifetime earnings inequality: long-term differences in hours worked. Even among men who are very attached to the US labour market, lifetime differences in hours worked are substantial and correlate strongly with both lifetime earnings and […]

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Technology Featured News World

Traditional capital incentives slow the diffusion of next-generation technologies

Capital incentive policies are traditionally geared towards boosting tangible investments. However, with the rise of cloud computing, firms can now also access IT as a digital service. This column examines how a UK capital incentive successfully increased tangible IT investment by firms but slowed cloud service adoption. The policy also slowed the diffusion of advanced […]

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Economy Featured News World

US electoral impact of remote work and inter-state migration

Remote work and geographic mobility have surged in the US since 2020. This column examines trends for both and discusses the potential electoral implications. The authors find that remote work opportunities are disproportionately located in left-leaning areas, state-movers are 45% more likely to work remotely, and that since 2020, cross-state movers have primarily relocated from […]

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