Economic Notes最新文献

The high energy consumption and carbon footprints have raised environmental and sustainable concerns of green investors and policymakers. This study explores comovements between three green and socially responsible financial assets, S&P global clean energy index (GCEI), S&P green bonds index (GB), DJ sustainability world index (DJSWI) and four cryptocurrency uncertainty/attention indices cryptocurrency policy uncertainty index, Central Bank Digital Currencies Uncertainty Index, Central Bank Digital Currencies Attentions Index and Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention using the bivariate wavelet coherence approach. The findings show that GCEI, GB, DJSWI returns have consistent positive comovement with all cryptocurrency uncertainty/attention indices in the medium-term, suggesting their time-varying leading role. Evidence of negative coherences shows that higher cryptocurrency uncertainties/attentions lead to lower green financial asset returns, reflecting the adverse impact of higher uncertainties/attention on the trust of green and sustainable investors. The above empirical findings offer up-to-date insights for guiding policymakers, and regulators, enabling them in environmental policy development. Furthermore, socially responsible investors can make better investment judgments by considering the environmental concerns in the cryptocurrency marketplaces.

Gary White and Matt Damon's recent book, The Worth of Water, details the challenges faced and insights gleaned while building a major microcredit initiative to improve access to safe water and/or sanitation. It was presented during the World Water Forum in Dakar (March 2022). I will describe the birth and evolution of this initiative, contextualizing it in the current concern for access to clean water, and attempting to highlight its main technical details (financing, organization, and reach). I will also try to offer some critical consideration (regarding access to drinking water as a human right) and perspective (on the possible development of the approach promoted by the book).

Using disaggregated data on Indian state-owned banks, we study how political connections influence their lending behaviour. The findings indicate an overall credit expansion of 10% during election years for banks with political connections, driven by increased lending to agriculture and Small and Medium Enterprises. Further disaggregation reveals cycles in such lending driven by electoral considerations, primarily for banks with political connections. In turn, there is a gradual weakening in the asset quality of these banks. The net effect is manifest in lower productivity. The key policy implication is that electoral manipulation exerts significant economic costs.

This paper addresses the question whether income inequality is associated with credit booms, alongside other macroeconomic factors. We distinguish between the different types of credit booms—real estate credit booms, household credit booms, firm credit booms and credit booms that turn into crises. Furthermore, our analysis of a sample of 70 countries between 1990 and 2016 does not provide any evidence of credit booms driving income inequality. We observe that capital inflows increase the likelihood of credit boom occurrence, while countries experiencing high economic growth tend to have more credit booms. Finally, we note that credit booms are more frequent in countries with fixed exchange rate regimes.