Ralph De Haas

New paper alert! 🚨 With Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe, we review what works (and what doesn't) in public policies for private finance across 7 major intervention types.

Published in Annual Review of Financial Economics.

Key findings👇 (1/n)

4. Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.jd...

3. Our cross-sectional data can't pin down causality. But even the most conservative reading is informative: if the correlations are driven entirely by selection, these commitments still credibly signal genuine environmental orientation. Either way, inconsistent with pure greenwashing.

2. Banks signing climate initiatives don't just talk a good game: they employ dedicated environmental managers, maintain climate risk frameworks, and screen loans for environmental impact. Their borrowers are also more likely to make green investments.

1. New paper out in the Journal of Development Economics! With Mariana Bernad and @juanpablorud.bsky.social we ask: do banks' voluntary climate pledges actually mean anything? Using survey data on 337 banks and ~5,000 firms across 33 emerging economies, we find that they do.🧵

This chart shows employment-to-population ratios for the population aged 15+ across three scenarios for 2050 compared with historical levels in 2000 and 2023. The baseline scenario applies current 2023 age-specific employment rates by five-year age group to projected 2050 demographic structures using UN WPP medium variant projections. The “gender gains” scenario builds on the baseline by reducing gender employment gaps within each age group to the lower of the current gap and the 25th percentile of the age-specific cross-country distribution of gender employment gaps in OECD countries for 2023. The “gender and ageing gains” scenario combines the gender gap adjustment with rising employment rates for workers aged 60-64 and 65+, which increase to the higher of current rates and the 75th percentile of the age-specific cross-country distribution of employment rates in OECD countries for 2023. Declining working-age populations are set to weigh on growth across economies where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests and beyond, with demographic projections suggesting substantial declines in employment-to-population ratios. This column describes how closing gender employment gaps and raising elderly labour market participation could substantially mitigate these projected declines in many ageing societies, but the scope for such gains varies across countries. Realising these gains would require coordinated policy interventions across childcare provision, pension reform, workplace flexibility, and re-skilling programmes.

Closing gender employment gaps and raising elderly labour market participation could substantially mitigate projected employment-to-population ratio declines in many ageing societies.
P García Guzmán & F Coelli @ebrd.bsky.social, E Nilsson @warwickecon.bsky.social
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This chart shows the annualised net migration rates required to maintain constant ratios of working-age population (aged 15-64) to total population at 2023 levels, expressed as a percentage of mid-year 2023 population. Historical flows represent the average annual net migration flow between 2011 and 2019 as a percentage of mid-year 2010 population. Declining fertility and population ageing are set to weigh on growth by shrinking the share of working-age adults across the globe. This column quantifies the immigration flows required to prevent working-age population ratios from declining and examines constraints on migration's capacity to fully offset the negative effects of demographic change on economic growth in the economies where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests and beyond.

While migration can partly offset population ageing, the scale required to fully offset the expected demographic drags substantially exceeds historical experience. Pablo García Guzmán, Federica Coelli, and Emily Nilsson examine the constraints.
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Notes: Lines represent population-weighted averages. “Advanced economies” are those classified as high income by the World Bank’s income classification in 1990 with data available for 1870-2023. The “EBRD post-communist” grouping comprises 26 post-communist economies in the EBRD regions. SEMED comprises Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. SSA comprises Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. Source: Gapminder, World Bank WDIs, and authors’ calculations. With fertility rates falling and populations ageing worldwide, the impact of demographic change on economic prosperity has become a central policy concern. This column uses a neoclassical growth model to quantify the economic cost of ageing in the economies where the EBRD invests and beyond. It contrasts the headwinds facing emerging Europe with the potential demographic dividend in Central Asia and Africa, highlighting that rapid fertility declines are quickly narrowing this window of opportunity.

F Coelli, P García Guzmán, & E Nilsson discuss the macroeconomic impacts of ageing & how many regions are getting older before getting richer. Policy solutions include labour force participation by women & older adults, tech for productivity, & increased migration.
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Priority gaps: Public lending through private banks as well as subsidized credit remain understudied. And we still don't know enough about how different policies interact with each other. Full paper:

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... (9/9)

🔬 Bottom line: We need more rigorous evaluation (especially RCTs and quasi-experimental designs), better measurement of spillovers and long-term effects, and greater use of structural models for counterfactual analysis (8/n)

Publicly backed VC & tax incentives: Most controversial. Government-sponsored GPs often underperform private ones, though recent China evidence suggests they may foster innovation despite lower financial returns (7/n)

🏦 State banks: Can support growth & employment, especially during crises. But highly susceptible to political interference.

🌍 Export credit agencies: Limited but promising evidence. EXIM Bank shutdown in US showed these can matter for exports, especially for financially constrained firms (6/n)

Strongest evidence: Credit guarantee schemes have been extensively studied with quasi-experimental methods. Generally positive effects on SME credit access, though impact on defaults varies.

Microcredit: lots of RCTs, showing limited impact on profits/income (5/n)

Beware the downsides. Fiscal costs, distorted incentives, and crowding out private finance are real risks. E.g., credit guarantees during COVID-19 showed both benefits *and* substitution effects(4/n)

Well-designed policies *can* alleviate financial constraints and promote firm growth, especially for SMEs. But effectiveness is highly context-dependent. One-size-fits-all approaches don't work (3/n)

We assess state banks, development banks, public lending through private banks, subsidized credit, credit guarantees, export credit agencies, publicly backed VC, and tax incentives for equity investors.

The evidence? Mixed but increasingly rigorous (2/n)

New paper alert! 🚨 With Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe, we review what works (and what doesn't) in public policies for private finance across 7 major intervention types.

Published in Annual Review of Financial Economics.

Key findings👇 (1/n)

📢New working paper: "Masculinity Norms and Their Economic Consequences" w/ @paulinegrosjean.bsky.social Ieda Matavelli+@vicbar.bsky.social.

We review the literature on how masculinity norms - the informal rules guiding men's behavior - shape economic outcomes in health, labor markets & politics. 🧵

🚨 We are hiring! ‼️‼️

tenured track assistant or associate prof in economics at university of Melbourne @unimelb.bsky.social

welcome applications from all fields (but especially from econometrics)

econjobmarket.org/positions?sh...

🆕VoxEU column: "Masculinity norms and their economic consequences"

\w @paulinegrosjean.bsky.social @vicbar.bsky.social and Ieda Matavelli @ebrd.bsky.social #econsky

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Violent Conflict & Cross-Border Lending: This study finds that during violent conflicts, foreign #banks reduce overall lending to affected countries but increase #loans to military & dual-use sectors.

Read: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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The low-carbon transition requires substantial financial mobilisation, yet it is unclear whether banks' public climate commitments represent real change or simply greenwashing. This column uses unique survey data from 335 banks across 33 emerging markets to examine their internal green practices and lending approaches. The authors find that climate-committed banks score substantially higher on green management and lending practices, their borrowers are more likely to make green investments, and environmentally oriented firms preferentially match with green banks locally. These patterns suggest voluntary climate initiatives in emerging markets can represent meaningful organisational differences and not just cheap talk, though uneven adoption also reveals the limits of voluntary approaches.

Do banks' climate commitments represent real change or simply greenwashing? M Bernad, @ralphdehaas.bsky.social, & J Pablo Rud find patterns that suggest voluntary climate initiatives can represent meaningful organisational differences and not just cheap talk.
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Graph showing a strong negative correlation between GDP per capita and unequal gender role norms. While economists have extensively studied gender norms affecting women, masculinity norms – the informal rules that guide and constrain the behaviours of boys and men – remain underexplored. This column reviews how such norms can shape economic outcomes in labour markets, health, education, households, and politics. Drawing on new survey data from 87,000 individuals across 70 countries, the authors show that adherence to masculinity norms strongly predicts men's labour supply, risk-taking, health behaviours, and support for authoritarian leadership.

@vicbar.bsky.social @ralphdehaas.bsky.social @paulinegrosjean.bsky.social & I Matavelli show that adherence to masculinity norms strongly predicts men's labour supply, risk-taking, health behaviours, and support for authoritarian leadership.
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🆕VoxEU column: "Masculinity norms and their economic consequences"

\w @paulinegrosjean.bsky.social @vicbar.bsky.social and Ieda Matavelli @ebrd.bsky.social #econsky

cepr.org/voxeu/column...

The economics profession has extensively studied norms affecting women but largely overlooked those guiding and sometimes constraining men. Time to change that! Read the paper:

tinyurl.com/bdz7wzu

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Moreover, using new data from 70,000+ respondents across 70 countries, we show that masculinity norms powerfully predict: 📊 increased willingness to work more hours 📊 Greater risk-taking & poorer mental health 📊 Support for strongman leadership.

Why do men avoid service sector jobs even when unemployed? Why do workplace cultures resist family-friendly policies? Why are men 3x more likely to die from "deaths of despair"? We discuss how understanding masculinity norms can help explain these puzzles.

We first review how other disciplines have studied masculinity, providing economists with conceptual foundations for understanding masculinity norms.

📢New working paper: "Masculinity Norms and Their Economic Consequences" w/ @paulinegrosjean.bsky.social Ieda Matavelli+@vicbar.bsky.social.

We review the literature on how masculinity norms - the informal rules guiding men's behavior - shape economic outcomes in health, labor markets & politics. 🧵

Graph of the effect of geopolitical distance on FDI. As geopolitical uncertainty rises – due to events ranging from Brexit and the increasing rivalry between major economies to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – firms are increasingly factoring political alignment into their investment decisions. This column uses detailed global data on greenfield projects, mergers and acquisitions, and affiliate stocks, and four measures of political alignment, to explore how foreign direct investment has become more sensitive to geopolitical distance. It reveals how friendshoring trends have accelerated since 2011, and how today’s investment flows reflect deepening geoeconomic fragmentation.

Arti Grover & Pierre-Louis Vezina find an increasing role for political alignment or differences in shaping companies' location decisions. Geopolitical differences have a larger negative impact on #FDI today than they did 10 years ago.
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