We examine the response of the exchange rate to monetary policy shocks using structural vector autoregression (SVAR). The SVAR approach in this study differs from previous studies by incorporating uncertainty measures and employing shock-restricted identification constraints. Using structural shocks that are in accordance with the event and external variable constraints, we demonstrate that the US exchange rate appreciates immediately in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks, with the maximum appreciation occurring within one to two months. Our finding highlights the importance of allowing contemporaneous interaction between interest rate and exchange rate, as facilitated by the shock-restricted SVAR, and accounting for uncertainties to address the puzzle of the exchange rate response.

In the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMed) region, the transition to low-carbon power must be achieved while ensuring security of supply, affordability and development. Using the Just and Sustainable Energy Transition framework and a neo-institutional lens, we analysed 470 study–country–family observations (2000–2025) across 11 jurisdictions and 7 instrument families to create an institutional mechanism map. Three regularities stand out. Systems performance signals dominate in nine countries, primarily through time-differentiated pricing, settlement discipline and codified connection, queuing and curtailment rules. Financing and integration risks are often addressed together where auctions, revenue-support schemes, published access terms and standardised long-term contracts coexist with system rules. Equity-related signals arise where prosumer compensation and reconciliation rules influence participation and cost sharing at the retail margin. These patterns provide an interpretive basis for sequencing constraint-led reforms in SEMed power systems that target binding risks while respecting fiscal and distributional constraints.

This paper presents an illustrated tutorial for conducting an embedded Mixed-Method Social Network Analysis (MMSNA) to examine the dynamic interplay between human agency and social networks. We draw on an empirical study in education that investigated how teachers enact relational agency within their school networks to support the integration of migrant students. We propose a replicable method and stepwise procedure for designing, implementing and evaluating an embedded MMSNA. While the potential of MMSNA has long been recognized across disciplines, its purpose and operationalization are often underexplained. We illustrate how MMSNA can be used to analyze both network structures and the agency of actors embedded within them, in alignment with specific research objectives and theoretical perspectives.

John Rawls proposed a theory of justice for the basic structure of society. Surprisingly, his suggestions for tax institutions were not well articulated. Rawls’s principles of justice do not prescribe a unique set of tax recommendations, but his remarks on tax matters reflect his vision of society as a cooperative venture in which everyone must work. This paper makes two contributions. First, it offers a chronological, systematic, and contextual analysis of what Rawls wrote on taxation. Rawls’s comments on taxation reveal his lifelong concern for preserving market incentives and his rejection of ability-to-pay as a principle of taxation. Second, the paper argues that some of Rawls’s tax proposals belong to nonideal theory because they depend on a conception of individuals in tension with the conception of moral persons developed in his theory.

This article explores possible connections between health crises, economic policy choices, and the rise of populist movements, drawing on evidence from the interwar period. It considers how differing policy responses to the Great Depression may have been associated with contrasting trajectories in both public health and political developments. In Germany, the adoption of austerity measures in the early 1930s appears to have coincided with worsening economic conditions, declining health indicators, and growing electoral support for far-right movements. By contrast, expansionary initiatives introduced under the New Deal in the U.S. were likely accompanied by strengthened social protections, improvements in health outcomes, and what some observers have interpreted as a mitigation of pressures toward political radicalisation. Taken together, these historical experiences offer insights into contemporary developments, where perceived inadequacies in responding to intertwined health and economic crises could potentially contribute to eroding institutional trust and increasing receptiveness to populist narratives.

This paper presents a new series of Mexico’s foreign trade for the period 1821–1870, using foreign sources to reconstruct it, given the scarcity of Mexican-origin data. It then employs the new series with a twofold purpose: to indicate the type of economy and society that they reveal, showing the kind of articles that the country acquired and sent to the exterior, on the one hand, and building some of the measures used in the international literature to assess the performance of the external sector, on the other. In the end, the paper evaluates the functioning of the Mexican economy that those series expose.

Tech innovations have the potential to disrupt traditional banking by unbundling banking, money, and payments; however, their impact on the cross-border payments system (CBPS) – which still relies on correspondent banking (CoBanking) networks – remains uncertain. This uncertainty is compounded by the literature’s tendency to distinguish between cash clearing and credit and to focus on the latter. Challenging this distinction, the article offers a historical perspective on the role of credit in CoBanking and international payments. It reveals the deep-rooted importance of credit in the CBPS and highlights correspondent banks’ role in providing it. But deep-rooted does not mean static. Indeed, changes in bank-intermediated trade finance practices during and after WWI reshaped the London-based CoBanking network. Furthermore, cash clearing and credit operations remained remarkably congruent until at least the 1980s, as reflected in banks’ internal organisation, reporting, and contemporaries’ descriptions of the payment system. The article argues that adopting a definition of payment systems that integrates both cash clearing and credit is essential to understanding the history of CoBanking and how it supports the CBPS. It suggests that relying on tech firms to provide the elastic payments infrastructure the economy requires could equate to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Many mergers and acquisitions (M&As) fail, and an emerging body of literature highlights the role of prejudice in derailing the M&A process. While prejudice is frequently observed in M&As, strategies to mitigate these biases remain underexplored. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study focuses on Chinese acquisitions in the UK and examines how managers from both the acquired and acquiring organizations navigate prejudice through emotional sensemaking. The findings demonstrate that emotional sensemaking plays a critical role in shaping the post-acquisition integration (PAI) process and its outcomes. Specifically, sensemaking supported by emotional intelligence facilitates the accommodation or reduction of prejudice, while emotionally unintelligent sensemaking tends to reinforce it. By focusing on the dynamic, interactive emotional exchanges between managers at the micro level, this study offers a fresh lens on the integration process beyond traditional strategic or structural explanations. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of micro-level emotional sensemaking in the PAI, emphasizing the dynamic, interactive nature of emotional sensemaking between acquirer and acquiree managers, and its impact on the integration process and outcomes.