ABSTRACT This study investigates the claim that capitalism (or neoliberal reforms) is associated with higher rates of femicide, which is often identified as an outcome of the capitalist exploitation of women in parts of the feminist literature. Employing a panel of 163 countries observed between 1990 and 2023, we find no significantly positive relationship between the Economic Freedom of the World index and different measures that approximate the concept of femicide. If anything, we partially find a significantly negative effect, particularly when not conditioning on income, which likely constitutes an important long‐run transmission channel of the impact of pro‐market institutions for reducing deadly violence against women. Even for countries with a large textile exporting sector—an industry that is heavily associated with the economic exploitation of women—more economic freedom is not significantly related to comparatively higher rates of femicide.

ABSTRACT A growing literature in comparative economics uses linguistic structure in empirical work to explain differences in culture and economic behavior, through the theoretical mechanism of linguistic relativity (or the “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis”). This paper explores the usage of one of these variables, pronoun drop, which denotes whether or not a language makes the first‐person subject pronouns optional, and its application as an instrument for culture. It ultimately argues that, even though this application is now common, it clearly violates the independence assumption because culture can affect language just as language can affect culture. It speculates further on the implications for other linguistic variables, both as instruments and when used as explanatory variables.

ABSTRACT In recent decades, there has been a toughening of immigration enforcement in the United States. One of the major initiatives is E‐Verify mandates, which require some or all employers to check the work eligibility of new hires. This study examines the impact of E‐Verify mandates on the voting propensity of naturalized citizens. Using a difference‐in‐differences strategy that exploits the temporal and geographical variation in the implementation of the mandates across US states, the results of the analysis indicate a temporary rise in the likelihood of a naturalized citizen reporting that they voted in the most recent November election. This finding suggests that immigration enforcement policies directed at undocumented migrants may generate political responses from other migrant groups who are not directly targeted by them.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates SMEs' access to credit from the perspective of the biodiversity argument in banking, a conceptual framework that has been largely overlooked in the literature. Using bank‐ and firm‐level data for eight European countries from 2014 to 2022, I empirically assess the role of bank diversity—measured by the Gini‐Simpson index, in analogy with ecological diversity—on the probability of SMEs being credit rationed. My results indicate that institutional heterogeneity within the banking sector mitigates credit constraints faced by SMEs while also increasing firms' propensity to apply for bank loans. These findings align with the core tenet of the biodiversity approach, which posits that a banking landscape marked by a plurality of institutional forms represents a valuable asset for financing the real economy. In light of my evidence, preserving and fostering institutional diversity within the banking sector should be regarded as a policy priority.

ABSTRACT Does studying mainstream microeconomics cause individuals to behave more like the textbook version of homo economicus ? Most studies suggesting a positive answer have used student samples and focused on self‐interested behaviors in collective dilemma situations. In our study, we conducted an online “beauty contest” experiment with a sample of 1019 academic economists in Russia. The Russian case is of particular interest in this context, as the country's economic discipline is markedly divided between those who associate themselves with “Western” science—typically having received standard training in mainstream economics—and those who reject it in favor of a native intellectual tradition. The latter group usually openly denies the universal applicability of theories that describe economic life as an interaction between rational, self‐interested agents. We leverage this division by examining variations in beauty contest game strategies within the group of academic economists rather than across disciplines, thereby reducing unobserved heterogeneity. We analyze whether those who embrace the international economic mainstream make choices closer to equilibrium compared to those who reject it and specifically describe homo economicus as an inadequate model of human behavior. The results show no statistical association: Economists who rely on theories assuming common knowledge of rationality did not expect more rational behavior from their colleagues.

ABSTRACTThis paper draws on the concept of neutral theory from molecular biology to describe how rational choice foundations may be given to cultural practices or social institutions such that the specifics of the practice or institution are inherently arbitrary, that is, stochastic. Neutral theory describes the process by which genes at the molecular level may propagate across a species without conferring any benefit in terms of evolutionary fitness. Likewise, social institutions or cultural practices may propagate across the group without any instrumental use for them. Interpretations of practices and institutions in terms of neutral theory are generally simpler than other economic explanations. On the other hand, definitionally, neutral explanations of cultural practices are less likely because they will not be actively selected for at the group level.

ABSTRACTWhile survival belief is central to major life decisions, its social determinants remain understudied. Social engagement is proven to influence various health outcomes, yet the direction of these relationships stays controversial, with quasi‐experimental designs being laid aside. It is also unexplored what happens once individuals withdraw from established social life. To address these gaps, this paper leverages the potential randomness in the timing of individual (dis)engagement behavior to examine the causal effects of social (dis)engagement on the subjective probability of unsuccessful survival (SPUS) of young‐old Chinese, using a panel of 11,412 respondents from the 2011–2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. A dynamic difference‐in‐differences approach, with various constructs of treatment and control groups, was employed to validate the estimation. Several robustness checks, including factor analysis and propensity score matching, were further conducted. The primary findings are that social engagement reduces older people's SPUS by up to 2.80 percentage points immediately and by 6.67 percentage points one period later. Conversely, social disengagement shows no immediate effects, but its post‐treatment impact can reach up to 14.76 percentage points among subgroups. Interestingly, the engagement effects persist only among non‐switchers, fading once switching begins, and the disengagement effects also emerge only among non‐switchers. In sum, this study provides partial evidence of stronger disengagement effects, though these effects occur neither instantly nor universally.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the dynamics of public debt in a fiscal federation, with a focus on Belgium from 1970 onwards. Lately, the institutions responsible for monitoring Belgium's fiscal situation have been issuing increasingly alarming alerts regarding the sustainability of the current budget deficits. We show that Belgium has experienced a cycle of high public debt and claim that the explanation for this phenomenon lies in the interplay between the different political or geographical entities in the federation. We examine whether the different entities exhibit free‐riding behavior in public debt creation and find significant fiscal imbalances both at the federal level and at the subcentral level. Multiple political and constitutional mechanisms are identified as potential drivers. Furthermore, the paper presents and discusses several policy options for breaking the cycle of high public debt: a new state reform, fiscal rules, a no‐bailout clause, and an insolvency framework.

No abstract is available for this article.

ABSTRACTThis paper provides evidence that government debt is associated with increases in the income share of the top 1% in Italy between 1974 and 2019. The main argument of this study is that public debt ownership is highly concentrated at the top and interest payments on sovereign bonds are received by the wealthy bondholders. As the tax burden of financing interest payments falls on the entire population, public debt often entails a redistribution of income within a country. On top of that, modern bondholders rarely keep government bonds until maturity; rather they regularly trade in secondary markets to receive capital gains. This paper explores both historically and econometrically the two mechanisms and highlights the relevant importance of coupon payments on the Italian sovereign bonds for rising income inequality. Finally, this is the first paper to examine the drivers of the income share of the top 1% in Italy.