{"title":"A Revival of Conservative Ideology and the Projected Religious Landscape in Russia","authors":"Alexander Skorobogatov","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This paper analyzes the dynamics of the public attitude towards religion using longitudinal data from Russian respondents. Applying Markov chains and regression analysis, we determine the relative success of religious groups in retaining and attracting members. Based on this information, we estimate and explain the projected religious composition of Russia. According to our results, the largest religion has already stabilised at its maximum level, the remaining religions should still grow, while the share of Non-believers should fall. The projected religious composition comes close to the composition under imperial rule. Coupled with the similarity of the current and imperial conservative ideologies and the regression results for measures of religious membership, this implies that the ongoing religious renaissance results from the state's religious policies which are motivated by a conservative ideology. Regression results suggest that these dynamics are driven by the support of the president in power and an exposure to official TV channels. A rational motivation including an opportunity to improve social status and overcome additions also contributes to religious membership statistics. This implication is in line with the data on the self-reported importance of religion in various groups. Larger religious groups tend to get more promotion from the state but less serious attitudes from their members, which suggests that entering these groups involves conformist motives.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"387-409"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147562138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chokri Zehri, Latifa Saleh ben Ammar, Wissem Ajili Ben Youssef
{"title":"Geopolitical Risk, Financial Fragmentation and Banking Vulnerabilities: A Global Autoregressive Distributed Lag Analysis","authors":"Chokri Zehri, Latifa Saleh ben Ammar, Wissem Ajili Ben Youssef","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Escalating geopolitical conflicts have heightened disruptions to global financial integration and intensified market fragmentation. This research investigates how geopolitical risks drive global financial fragmentation, undermining banking stability and diminishing cross-border risk diversification. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag framework, we analyse fixed effects panel data spanning 47 advanced and emerging economies between 1990 and 2024. Results reveal that growing geopolitical strife amplifies financial fragmentation and elevates short-term banking sector vulnerabilities. However, institutions with robust capital buffers and stringent non-performing loan provisions demonstrate enhanced resilience. Long-term analysis shows geopolitical uncertainties and financial disintegration substantially erode international risk-sharing capacities, disproportionately affecting emerging markets compared to advanced economies. Policy recommendations highlight critical measures to strengthen financial safeguards, upgrade risk mitigation frameworks and maintain stable foreign direct investment channels.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"243-260"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147565770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chokri Zehri, Latifa Saleh ben Ammar, Wissem Ajili Ben Youssef
{"title":"Geopolitical Risk, Financial Fragmentation and Banking Vulnerabilities: A Global Autoregressive Distributed Lag Analysis","authors":"Chokri Zehri, Latifa Saleh ben Ammar, Wissem Ajili Ben Youssef","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Escalating geopolitical conflicts have heightened disruptions to global financial integration and intensified market fragmentation. This research investigates how geopolitical risks drive global financial fragmentation, undermining banking stability and diminishing cross-border risk diversification. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag framework, we analyse fixed effects panel data spanning 47 advanced and emerging economies between 1990 and 2024. Results reveal that growing geopolitical strife amplifies financial fragmentation and elevates short-term banking sector vulnerabilities. However, institutions with robust capital buffers and stringent non-performing loan provisions demonstrate enhanced resilience. Long-term analysis shows geopolitical uncertainties and financial disintegration substantially erode international risk-sharing capacities, disproportionately affecting emerging markets compared to advanced economies. Policy recommendations highlight critical measures to strengthen financial safeguards, upgrade risk mitigation frameworks and maintain stable foreign direct investment channels.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"243-260"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147565771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Heterogeneous Impact of Children on Maternal Employment: Evidence From East and West Germany","authors":"Johannes Köckeis, Sven Stöwhase","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70014","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study investigates the causal effect of fertility on female labour market outcomes in East and West Germany. We use twin births as an exogenous variation for family size. Our results suggest a negative relationship between the number of children and maternal labour market outcomes. However, this connection is significantly stronger in West Germany than in East Germany for the second and third child. By the fourth child, the effects in the two parts of the country become more similar. Further subgroup analyses suggest that these differences can be explained by regional institutional conditions, such as the availability of public childcare facilities, and to a lesser extent by attitudes towards working mothers.</p>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"339-358"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ecot.70014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147566879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Institutionalisation and Institutional Evolution: A Model of Selecting Government Officials in Ancient China","authors":"Haiwen Zhou","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The evolution of institutions in selecting government officials in ancient China reflected efficiency considerations and increased power concentration in the hands of the ruler. Selecting government officials in ancient China became more rule-based over time, and standardisation and centralisation were some key features of this process. In this dynamic model, a higher volume of transactions, shown as the number of candidates needed to be evaluated, leads to institutionalisation, which has a higher fixed cost but a lower marginal cost in processing each transaction. In the steady state, a ruler with a more encompassing interest chooses a higher level of institutionalisation. The impact of a change in the level of elite power on the level of institutionalisation is sensitive to the relative power of the state versus society.</p>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"359-367"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ecot.70017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147568988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pro-Market Economic Reforms and Resource Curse: Do Initial Conditions Matter?","authors":"Isaac Amedanou, Kwamivi Mawuli Gomado","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The quality of economic institutions plays a crucial role in enhancing a country's economic performance, leading international organisations to recommend pro-market institutional reforms as a strategy to support economic development. This paper investigates how the natural resource curse affects pro-market reforms, analysing a sample of 90 developed and developing economies from 1973 to 2014. Using the local projection method, we analyse the dynamics effects of pro-market policies following increases in natural resource rents. Our findings reveal that increasing in resource rents significantly hinder the implementation of pro-market reforms, with this negative effect becoming apparent in the first year and persisting into the short and medium terms. We further explore the nuances of these dynamics across various types of resources, identifying oil rents as particularly obstructive to reform efforts, whereas forest rents exhibit a transient positive effect in the initial years. Our analysis is bolstered by robustness checks and alternative specifications, reinforcing the conclusion that dependence on natural resource rents presents substantial challenges to the adoption of pro-market reforms, particularly in developing countries characterised by weaker institutions and economic vulnerabilities.</p>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"219-242"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ecot.70008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147565769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Common Is the Prosperity? The Trends and Nature of China's Income Inequality, 1988–2018","authors":"Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Yunbin Zhang","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We use nationally representative survey data to study income inequality in China from 1988 to 2018. Our findings show that the rising income inequality during this period has been driven by the considerable income growth experienced by the highest earners, rather than stagnation or decline in the incomes of those at the bottom. Even individuals at the very bottom of the income distribution have experienced remarkable <i>absolute</i> real income growth. We further show that the increase in top incomes was largely due to labour income, and government redistribution had only a minor effect in mitigating the worsening of income inequality.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"369-385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147570116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Common Is the Prosperity? The Trends and Nature of China's Income Inequality, 1988–2018","authors":"Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Yunbin Zhang","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We use nationally representative survey data to study income inequality in China from 1988 to 2018. Our findings show that the rising income inequality during this period has been driven by the considerable income growth experienced by the highest earners, rather than stagnation or decline in the incomes of those at the bottom. Even individuals at the very bottom of the income distribution have experienced remarkable <i>absolute</i> real income growth. We further show that the increase in top incomes was largely due to labour income, and government redistribution had only a minor effect in mitigating the worsening of income inequality.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"369-385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147570117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trade Liberalisation and the Gender Wage Gap: Evidence From Pilot Free Trade Zones Policy Reform in China","authors":"Xinxin Ma","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Using national longitudinal survey data from the China Family Panel Studies spanning 2010 to 2018, this study conducts a quasi-natural experiment based on the pilot free trade zones (PFTZ) policy reform in China. The study examines the causal relationship between trade liberalisation and the gender wage gap (GWG) using a staggered difference-in-differences approach. Four conclusions emerge. First, the PFTZ policy increases wages for both men and women. However, the effect is larger for men than for women, suggesting that PFTZ policy expand the GWG. Second, the PFTZ policy's effect on wages is larger for the medium- than low- or high-wage groups. Third, the gender difference in the FTZ wage premium expands the overall GWG, whereas the gender disparity in the labour force allocation between FTZs and non-FTZs reduces the GWG. Finally, the gender difference in the FTZ wage premium expands the GWG in the low-, middle- and high-wage groups, and this effect is much more pronounced in the high-wage group. The gender disparity in the labour force allocation reduces the GWG in the medium-wage group, whereas it widens the GWG in the low- and high-wage groups.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 2","pages":"321-338"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147566259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Political Economy of Conflicts in the Middle East and Africa","authors":"Olivier Parent, Abdallah Zouache","doi":"10.1111/ecot.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In this research, we aim to identify the main factors that explain the occurrence and intensity of armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. We extend the conventional linear Bayesian Model Averaging procedure by incorporating conflict intensity, which is measured across a spectrum of violence levels, departing from the typical binary classification of war or peace. We provide strong evidence that not only demographical, institutional, and socio-economic but also environmental factors must be considered when analysing conflict onset and intensity. Notably, institutional variables become more significant when accounting for neighbouring effects. Furthermore, institutional, economic, and historical factors are essential for understanding the role of environmental factors in shaping conflict dynamics. Finally, we show that model averaging predictions for ordered categorical outcomes improve upon the existing out-of-sample conflict prediction techniques.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":40265,"journal":{"name":"Economics of Transition and Institutional Change","volume":"34 1","pages":"199-215"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145779551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}