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This weekly press briefing highlights some of the latest research reports, discussion papers and other publications from CEPR. It also features some of the latest columns on VoxEU, as well as new blogs/reviews, audio interviews and short films.
Do news outlets push bias attitudes to migration in their coverage, or do they try to maintain a neutral and holistic perspective on the topic? A new CEPR study by Razi Farukh, Matthias Heinz, Anna Kerkhof and Heiner Schumacher examines media slant in the context of migration in three different news markets: Germany, Hungary, and the US.
A CEPR study by Meier, Servaes, Wei, and Xiao found that US firms' revenues are influenced by their environmental and social actions. The research highlights a positive link between local sales and environmental/social ratings, particularly in higher-income, Democratic-leaning counties. Additionally, the study reveals that a firm's sales can be adversely affected by higher ratings of its competitors in the product market.
A central bank that faces inflation above target may fail to bring it down. This CEPR study by Ricardo Reis discusses six ways in which this happens because the central bank is dominated by: misjudgement, expectations, fiscal policy, financial markets, recession fears, or external forces. It applies this approach to the challenge facing the ECB in 2023-24. The hope is that the factors identified can serve as warning signs for what to avoid.
Writing at VoxEU, Dinissa Duvanova and Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy question whether mounting casualties could eventually kindle anti-war sentiment across Russia. Using a dataset of obituaries culled from a popular social network, the authors analyse statistical connections between casualty announcements and various forms of political protest. Though the data support the casualties-protest connection, obituaries of military servicemembers with non-Russian-sounding names are uncorrelated with protests even in their home regions, which may reflect the Putin government’s successful encouragement and exploitation of ethno-nationalist sentiment.
Writing at VoxEU, Simon Johnson, Łukasz Rachel and Catherine Wolfram explain how the price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products, introduced in December 2022 and February 2023, allows Russian oil to remain on the world market while shifting revenues away from Russia towards buyers who can buy crude oil below world prices. The price cap works because Russia’s marginal costs of extracting and transporting oil for export are much lower than the market price, making it possible to set a price ceiling that is above Russia’s cost of extraction but still well below world prices.
Writing at VoxEU, Laurent Millischer, Tatiana Evdokimova and Oscar Fernandez illustrate how emissions data disclosure and carbon pricing could work together to strengthen the incentives the stock market provides for companies to decarbonise. The authors find that the stocks of European firms with higher carbon costs perform worse during the periods of carbon price increases. This evidence provides support for more ambitious carbon pricing policies that would increase the impact of the EU Emissions Trading System.
A study by Jacob Arendt, Christian Dustmann and Hyejin Ku examines the impact of a refugee integration policy in Denmark that links permanent residency to labour force participation and passing a tougher language test. The policy led to a decrease in the labour market engagement of refugee immigrants, driven by individuals least prepared to meet the requirements. In contrast, the authors find evidence of improved language skills for some high ability individuals. The study highlights how policies may backfire if they set the bar too high without ensuring measures to support those who are less able.
A study by Aránzazu de Juan Fernández, Pilar Poncela and Esther Ruiz identifies that the macroeconomic variables most related to the annual growth of per capita emissions in Spain from 1965 to 2020 were private consumption and maritime transport of goods. This contrasts with the US, where industrial production is the leader, suggesting that country-specific measures should be designed to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. For Spain, the authors recommend consumption local goods coming from clean production systems.
A study by Tatyana Avilova and Claudia Goldin examines the impact of the Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge, which began in 2015 for one year as a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the impact of light-touch, low-cost interventions to increase the number of female economics majors. The authors find that the initiative helped increase the fraction of female undergraduates who majored in economics relative to men in liberal arts colleges, but not in larger institutions for several reasons.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has become impossible to get insurance coverage for war-related risks in Ukraine. Yet, a healthy private insurance market is crucial for Ukraine’s sustainable economic recovery. Writing at VoxEU, Maria Repko argues that an international guarantee scheme for war-risks insurance is needed, which should be governed by a special vehicle with robust corporate governance, funded by international donors, and implemented with a consortium of global reinsurance companies to ensure investor confidence.
Education systems need to withstand frequent shocks, including conflict, disease, natural disasters, and climate events, all of which routinely close schools. Writing at VoxEU, Noam Angrist et al. present results from a one-to-one weekly phone tutoring programme during COVID school disruptions in five low-income countries. The findings suggest that such programmes can deliver cost-effective learning gains across contexts and can be deployed to build more resilient education systems.
Investors do more business than we would expect close to home. Can Germany’s car licence plates explain what drives local bias in investment? Thilo Huning and Fabian Wahl take Tim Phillips on an unlikely journey.
