Based on a study of the Swiss mobile payment app Twint and its use as a tool for charitable giving, this article introduces a framework for studying redistributive imaginaries and examines donation ‘marketplaces’ and their implications. Engaging with literatures on socio-technical imaginaries, the platformization of payment, post-humanitarianism, and the digital-solutionist ethic, the article asks what happens when practices of giving are facilitated and enclosed by a tech-ified finance industry. Twint’s catalog-like platform for donating reconfigures digital giving and its relation to redistribution. We argue that donations platforms like Twint’s are introducing a new redistributive imaginary by interpellating users as donors, consumers and citizens who – given behavioral psychology – need guidance to exercise choice and become more ethical selves. On the basis of an interface analysis and interviews, we specify a ‘post-sovereign consumer-citizen redistributive imaginary’, characterized by a market frame and tech-solutionism. This imaginary relies on a bounded-rationality model of the human and promotes a post-political idea of democratic participation. The article notes a slippage between different semantics of ‘good’ and ‘better’ technology, which are relevant for a discursive-ideological analysis of the FinTech sector and its rhetoric more broadly. Analyzing them helps us better understand how platform operators are accruing power culturally, economically, and politically.

We examine how banks reallocate employees following mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and the resulting effects on productivity. Using matched employee–branch data combined with branch-level financial information, we show that M&As expand internal labor markets and trigger substantial worker redeployment. Newly consolidated banks reassign high-ability loan officers to acquirer branches, increasing productivity. Target branches also experience productivity improvements, primarily driven by restructuring and cost reductions. These effects are strongest in municipalities where the combined pre-merger internal labor markets of the target and acquirer were larger, highlighting the central role of internal labor markets in generating efficiency gains from consolidation.

The InsurTech industry has undergone almost a decade of development. Despite its initial success, the industry now faces challenges from global uncertainties and regulatory adjustments, which lead to concerns about sustainable profit growth and the ongoing development of InsurTech. This study provides an overview of the evolution of InsurTech development from both academic and practical perspectives. A bibliometric analysis of more than 20,000 published articles, including both practice articles and academic articles, is put forward. As compared to other review articles in this field, which often focus on either the practice or the scholarly side of development, this article brings together a review of both academic and practice-based articles from fields relevant to InsurTech including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and also powerful computing technology. A keyword extraction framework is developed and applied. Using text analysis, this study reviews the prioritized topics, analyzes the robustness of the development of publication growth, identifies emerging insurance business lines, and also highlights the challenges and gaps in both academic and practice development. This study aims to motivate collaboration between academics and industry to face the challenges posed by the integration of InsurTech into insurance operations.

We evaluate the performance and level of intergenerational cross-subsidy in flat-accrual and dynamic-accrual collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes, which have been designed to be compatible with UK legislation. In the flat-accrual scheme, all members accrue the benefits at the same rate, irrespective of age. This captures the most significant feature of the Royal Mail Collective Pension Plan, which is currently the only UK CDC scheme. The dynamic-accrual schemes seek to reduce intergenerational cross-subsidies by varying the rate of benefit-accrual schemes in accordance with the age of members and the current funding level. We find that these CDC schemes can often be successful in smoothing pension outcomes postretirement while outperforming a defined contribution scheme followed by annuity purchase at the point of retirement. However, this out-performance is not guaranteed in a flat-accrual scheme, and there is little smoothing of projected pension outcomes before retirement. There are significant intergenerational cross-subsidies in the flat-accrual scheme, which qualitatively mirror the cross-subsidies seen in defined benefit schemes, but the magnitude of cross-subsidies is much larger in flat-accrual CDC schemes. The dynamic-accrual scheme design seeks to reduce such cross-subsidies, but we find significant cross-subsidies still arise due to the approximate pricing methodology used to determine the benefits.

We study whether information design influences consumer behavior in a randomized field experiment with users of an online account aggregation app. Participants received a personalized index representing their net worth as a lifetime monthly cash flow. The presentation of this index varied across treatments in its framing and the salience of its display. Consumers exposed to a consumption-oriented frame and a salient comparison of the index with their past spending reduced discretionary spending. These findings show that minor variations in information presentation can significantly affect financial behavior, highlighting the power of design in promoting saving and informing policy and regulation.

We estimate the causal effects of local officials’ growth preferences on air pollution. Leveraging the unprecedented and uneven economic shocks caused by COVID-19, which resulted in substantial changes in gross domestic product growth rankings, we analyse variations in growth preferences. Our findings reveal that a 10-unit change in growth rankings leads to significant increases in Air Quality Index and ambient pollutant concentrations. Key predictors of this increased pollution include factors sensitive to governmental influence, such as fixed investments, industrial activities and registration requirements for polluting companies. Finally, we characterize the cautious behaviours of local officials in balancing economic and environmental objectives within China's context of multiple, yet unequally weighted, tasks. Our study illuminates how growth preferences contribute to environmental consequences and underscores the strategic responses with political motivations to meet dual conflicting targets set by higher authorities.

La historia intelectual de la Renta Básica Universal (RBU) se ha reconstruido desde genealogías europeas y estadounidenses que relegan a América Latina a un papel secundario, asociado casi exclusivamente a las transferencias condicionadas de las décadas de 1990 y 2000. Este artículo recupera un episodio temprano y poco atendido: la propuesta de “repartir en efectivo” formulada por Gabriel Zaid en 1973 en México. Situada en el contexto de las críticas latinoamericanas al desarrollismo y los debates sobre la integración de poblaciones campesinas e indígenas, la intervención de Zaid articula el núcleo conceptual de la RBU dos décadas antes de la incorporación de América Latina al canon internacional. Desde un enfoque semasiológico y una lectura de intenciones skinneriana, el análisis muestra afinidades con discusiones internacionales (preferencia por el efectivo frente a la provisión en especie) y rasgos propios latinoamericanos, en particular la articulación de redistribución monetaria universal con provisión focalizada de medios de producción. Su recuperación invita a ampliar la cartografía de la RBU más allá de los marcos centro-periferia.

This article examines the postwar Franco-Italian struggle over Sudameris (Banque Française et Italienne pour l’Amérique du Sud), a multinational bank operating across South America. After 1945, Paribas sought to transform Sudameris into a French institution, backed by government pressure and asset sequestration. Italy’s Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) resisted, regaining majority control in 1948 through strategic share acquisitions. The ensuing conflict (1948–1955) centered on executive power. Paribas relied on French corporate law to maintain managerial dominance, while the BCI finally succeeded in appointing an Italian managing director in 1955. Under Italian leadership, Sudameris shifted from transactional to relationship banking in South America, reversing stagnation and achieving renewed growth by 1960. Sudameris’s early postwar history reveals how postwar European economic rivalries extended into South America and how multinational banks adapted to nationalist environments amid the contradictory forces of regional integration and global competition.

Using the synthetic difference-in-differences method, this study evaluates the comprehensive effects of the ‘coal-to-gas’ policy in China following its complete implementation in 2017. We propose four channels through which the policy could affect the air quality in untreated cities. The findings reveal a significant decrease in air pollution levels, as measured by PM10, in both the treated and untreated areas. However, the net spillover effect in the treated and untreated areas exhibits heterogeneous spatial distribution patterns due to different mechanisms. These differences could be related to the political economy and natural geography of China.

“El futuro del libro es el álbum, así como la ruina es el futuro del monumento”, propone Barthes en La preparación de la novela (Barthes 2005, 257). Según él, el álbum en tanto forma daría cuenta de un universo sin jerarquías, disperso y fragmentario, “puro tejido de contingencias”. Pero el álbum también tiene una relación, compleja, con la memoria. En parque das ruínas de Marília Garcia y El sistema del tacto de Alejandra Costamagna, el collage de restos diversos y heterogéneos—fotografías, cartas, noticias del periódico— activa una supervivencia a menudo fantasmal y paradójica. En la grieta abierta entre esos restos se cuela una visión del tiempo contemporáneo sombría y atravesada por violencias de diverso origen. Expandiendo la noción trabajada por Roland Barthes de libro álbum quisiera pensar los textos de Garcia y Costamagna, no tanto, o no solo, a partir de la noción de forma-álbum apropiada para secundar el mundo, sino sobre todo como una forma que en sus relieves cársticos deja aparecer la imagen de un tiempo presente dañado, atravesado por la violencia. Se trataría, por lo tanto, de formas contemporáneas construidas con esquirlas más que memorias, apropiadas para la escritura de un tiempo sombrío.