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62. How can India Create More Jobs? Unleashing the 1.4 billion: A Blueprint for India s Job Led Resurrection
- Author:
- Ejaz Ghani
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Policy Research, India
- Abstract:
- This paper discusses that while mature firms are becoming “net job destroyers” as they automate, it is the young, agile “Ojazelles” — firms less than five years old — that are currently breathing life into the economy, creating 45% of all new jobs. Yet, these young job creators are being strangled by “Structural Brakes”: a Collateral Trap that prizes ancestral land over fresh ideas, and a Regulatory Tax that punishes firms for growing. The paper proposes a New Social Compact to release these brakes. By leveraging India’s world leading Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), we can bypass the old “Land Finance Nexus” and move to Information Based Lending, where a young person’s talent and data become their new collateral.
- Topic:
- Economy, Tax Systems, Labor Market, Lending, and Jobs
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
63. Macroeconomic and distributional effects of fiscal consolidation measures in EU countries
- Author:
- Philipp Heimberger and Anna Matzner
- Publication Date:
- 02-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
- Abstract:
- We provide new evidence on the effects of fiscal consolidation measures on output, unemployment, income inequality and consumer price inflation. To identify causal impacts, we use a narrative-based instrumental variable strategy drawing on historical records of exogenous fiscal changes motivated by deficit reduction, covering 12 EU countries from 1980 to 2020. Our results for the short to medium run show that fiscal consolidations (a) lower real output; (b) raise the unemployment rate; (c) increase income inequality; and d) reduce consumer price inflation. Contractionary macroeconomic effects are stronger during recessions than during non-recession periods.
- Topic:
- European Union, Income Inequality, Economic Growth, Macroeconomics, Austerity, Unemployment, and Fiscal Consolidation
- Political Geography:
- Europe
64. Pugwash workshop on Nordic Security: Deterrence and Risk Reduction
- Author:
- Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
- Publication Date:
- 02-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
- Abstract:
- With much of the arms control architecture dismantled in recent years, there is an urgent need to assess common interests, redefine security priorities, and identify workable approaches to reduce nuclear dangers between NATO and Russia. In particular, the Arctic and Baltic sub-regions have become unformed strategic spaces, creating novel escalation risks. This project will map the impact of NATO membership on the security policy of Nordic states on issues such as Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), military readiness for article 5 commitments, and examine prospects for nuclear risk reduction and arms control initiatives.
- Topic:
- Deterrence, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Risk, and Arms Control and Proliferation
- Political Geography:
- Nordic Nations, Russia, and Europe
65. Advancing Accountability in Development Finance: The Sandra Smithey Fellowship
- Author:
- Rachel Nadelman and Anushka Bose
- Publication Date:
- 03-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Accountability Research Center (ARC), American University
- Abstract:
- The Sandra N. Smithey Fellowship for Equity and Accountability in International Development was created to honor the career of Sandra Smithey, particularly her legacy in amplifying frontline voices that champion transparent and accountable approaches to development finance. Between 2023 and 2025, the Smithey Fellowship, administered by the Accountability Research Center (ARC) at American University, provided support to eight advocates advancing accountability in development finance. The central premise of the Fellowship is that accountability work is most effective when driven by those directly affected by development decisions and supported by flexible, trust-based funding. ARC worked with each of the fellows to define their own strategic goals and approaches within the time or resources available, seeking to ensure that each could meet the most pressing opportunities or challenges they faced. It provided them with significant flexibility to make mid-course changes to respond to political realities on the ground. The philosophy of “putting the fellows first” resulted in eight bespoke fellowships that reflected the breadth of civil society efforts to promote community- and context-based accountability in international development finance. Across these experiences, several key lessons emerge: Flexibility is a foundation for impact and sustainability. When fellows were given space to adapt to rapidly changing contexts, they achieved outcomes that rigid programs might have constrained. Altering conventional fellowship designs can change the balance in north-south knowledge hierarchies. An adaptable fellowship structure enabled some fellows to pursue their projects whilst embedded in their local communities, accessing support where their work was already taking shape. Translating knowledge can enable power shifts. Fellows who converted technical or bureaucratic language into practical tools enabled communities to engage institutions on their own terms. Collaboration is a vehicle for continuity of both projects and relationships. Collaboration among mentors, allies, and civil society organizations extended the reach of individual projects and embedded learning in broader movements. Longer-term influence depended on intentional efforts to maintain networks, communication, and financial stability after formal support ended. Enabling frontline expertise to shape accountability narratives can effectively support existing movements for rights and remedy. The fellows demonstrated that it is those closest to injustice that have the insight and credibility to define what accountability should mean in their own contexts as a basis for transformative change. This Accountability Note describes the work of these fellows and explores how a targeted package of direct funding, reflecting the fellows’ priorities and accompanied by trusted partners, enabled them to respond effectively to new and changing conditions. Ultimately, the Smithey Fellowship demonstrated that modest, well-structured support, grounded in trust, autonomy, and solidarity, can enable progress towards accountability and enable advocates to define and pursue their own paths in building durable movements for justice.
- Topic:
- Accountability, Sustainability, Fellowships, and Development Finance
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
66. Compounded Vulnerability: Spatial Patterns of Energy Burden, Heat Exposure, and Pollution in New York City
- Author:
- Ximena Aristizabal and Paola Jaimes
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Abstract:
- Energy insecurity and climate risk increasingly intersect in urban areas, yet they are often treated as separate challenges. This paper examines how household energy affordability stress, extreme heat exposure, and ambient air pollution overlap across urban space, using New York City as a case study. We introduce the concept of compounded vulnerability to describe neighborhoods where high energy burden and high heat exposure coincide, potentially intensifying environmental and health risks. Drawing on tract-level energy burden estimates, satellite-derived surface temperature measures, and summer PM2.5 concentrations, we combine a place-based interpretation of urban infrastructure and historical disinvestment with a tract-level empirical analysis of co-located risks. We document spatial co-location of economic and environmental stressors: neighborhoods facing higher energy burden are, on average, hotter, and areas experiencing joint exposure to heat and energy stress are also situated in environments characterized by elevated summer pollution. These patterns point to a plausible urban mechanism through which climatic extremes interact with energy systems and the built environment, shaping unequal exposure during periods of peak stress.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Pollution, Vulnerability, Energy Security, and Heat
- Political Geography:
- New York, North America, and United States of America
67. The Under-theorisation of Dollar Dominance
- Author:
- Photis Lysandrou
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
- Abstract:
- The recent period has seen an upsurge in predictions that the dollar's international dominance will at some point be challenged by a rival currency, notably the euro. This paper counters these predictions. It argues that the overestimation of the euro's ability to challenge dollar dominance is due to the under-theorisation of the foundations of that dominance, the root problem being macroeconomic theories' tradition of taking the household investor to be the representative investor when it should in reality be an institutional asset manager. If financial securities are viewed through the lens of the institutional investor it becomes clear that there can be no exodus from the dollar because it becomes clear that foreign investors remain attracted to the US capital market for reasons as much to do with its mass and consequent gravitational force as to do with a shortage of securities that can be supplied by other capital markets.
- Topic:
- Political Economy, Investment, Macroeconomics, Currency, Dollar, Euro, and Capital Markets
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
68. Contesting and Reassessing the 'Too Much Finance' Hypothesis: A Literature Review
- Author:
- Tania Rojas
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Abstract:
- This paper reviews recent contributions that reassess and contest the “too much finance” hypothesis. It surveys a predominantly empirical body of work that, in contrast to earlier studies focused mainly on advanced economies, increasingly incorporates developing and less-developed regions. The evidence reviewed suggests that an inverted-U-shaped relationship between financial development and economic growth is more consistently identified in studies of advanced economies. In contrast, analyses of samples of less-developed countries more frequently report positive linear or U-shaped relationships, pointing to conditions of “too little finance.” The review also documents methodological shifts in the literature, including a growing adoption of nonlinear modeling strategies, the use of alternative measures of financial development, and a greater focus on mediating factors in the finance-growth nexus. The paper concludes that a clear consensus remains elusive. The literature faces persistent methodological challenges, sensitivity to model specification and sample composition, and a prevailing emphasis on empirical estimation rather than theoretical discussion.
- Topic:
- Finance, Economic Growth, Macroeconomics, Literature Review, and Financial Development
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
69. Using Minerals and Energy to Rebuild the U.S.-South Africa Relationship
- Author:
- Gracelin Baskaran
- Publication Date:
- 03-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
- Abstract:
- The United States is quietly losing access to the minerals that underpin its defense systems, semiconductor manufacturing, and reindustrialization agenda—not through geopolitical confrontation, but through commercial neglect. South Africa is the dominant U.S. supplier of platinum group metals, chromium, manganese, and military-grade vanadium, and no allied nation comes close to matching its combination of mineral wealth, processing capacity, and technical expertise. Yet rising energy costs and crumbling infrastructure are pushing South Africa’s processing sector toward closure, and without intervention, that capacity will continue migrating to China by default. As political tensions between Washington and Pretoria have intensified, it is worth remembering what is actually at stake: a supply relationship built over more than a century that would be extraordinarily costly to lose and nearly impossible to replace.
- Topic:
- Bilateral Relations, Trade, Economic Security, Semiconductors, Energy, and Critical Minerals
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South Africa, North America, and United States of America
70. Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh - democracy restored by revolution
- Author:
- Patryk Kugiel
- Publication Date:
- 02-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM)
- Abstract:
- The first democratic elections held in Bangladesh for 18 years, on 12 February this year, were won by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Tariq Zia Rahman. This marks the end of the transition period following the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024 and the rebirth of democracy. The biggest challenges for the new government will be to strengthen the rule of law, accelerate economic growth and improve relations with India. The EU, which supported the transition process, should become more involved in assisting the democratic government and economic cooperation.
- Topic:
- Elections, European Union, Democracy, Economic Growth, Rule of Law, Political Parties, and Parliament
- Political Geography:
- Bangladesh and South Asia