This article evaluates the impact of trade liberalisation on the informal economy in the BRICS countries, which have significant unorganised sectors and trade policy changes. The article uses panel data from 1996 to 2015 to measure informality based on the method of Kaufmann and Kaliberda, which estimates the size of the informal sector as the difference between official GDP an...

This paper aims to add to the literature on intellectual property protection by creating an index/database to reflect the strength of copyright and related rights for 109 countries for 2023. The index is primarily based on a range of factors like coverage of the law, membership in copyright conventions and its duration, copyright applications and enforcement mechanisms. The e...

The article criticizes modern money theory (MMT), which is a macroeconomic policy that aims to achieve full employment by using money-financed fiscal deficits, without using any formal modelling. The article claims that MMT policy would not work in an open and internationally highly financially integrated economy, because it would either cause the money stock to grow unsustaina...

The study proposes a new framework to classify stagflation into mild, moderate, or severe episodes based on the magnitude and duration of high inflation and low-output growth. It uses the CPI and PCE deflators as inflation measures, real GDP as output growth measure, and a time-varying benchmark for growth and inflation to account for the changing nature of the US economy. The ...

This article presents research findings that support adding ‘affordable healthy diet’ as an indicator in the ‘Long and healthy life’ dimension of the Human Development Index (HDI). The article also aims to link the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (End Hunger, Achieve Food Security and Improved Nutrition and Promote Sustainable Agriculture) with the HDI, by showing the importance...

The economic slow-down and COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted India’s extreme crisis inequality. India is an unequal country: 84% of household sector income declined in 2021, at the same time that the number of billionaires went up from 102 to 142. According to the World Inequality Report, the income of the top 10% of the population is 20 times that of the bottom 50% and this g...

Governments widely manipulate official economic and social data—but the public tends to disregard this fact. There is extensive empirical evidence that governments extensively manipulate official data. National statistical offices should be independent of their government to fight such manipulation, and alternative data producers should be supported. The public should be aware ...

Primary data reveal two new instances of hyperinflation, both occurring in Suriname in the 1990s. In June 1993 and October 1994, Suriname experienced monthly inflation rates of 208% and 58.6%, respectively. With these additions, the Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table now records 66 hyperinflation episodes. These are the first recorded instances of hyperinflation in Suriname....

This study introduces an innovative policy proposal designed to improve the fiscal stance of most countries towards long-term sustainability. We suggest implementing ‘deficit taxes’ for individuals and (100-fold higher) ‘deficit fines’ for politicians in any year in which a (cyclically adjusted) budget deficit occurs. In line with the theory of ‘rational inattention’, these tax...