EconPol Forum

Innovations form the backbone of sustained economic growth and, as such, they play a key role in safeguarding prosperity. Governments, aware of this, invest heavily in public research at universities and research institutes, and strive to create ideal conditions for private sector research and development (R&D), usually through specific R&D tax credit schemes or direct funding.

Narratives about immigrants matter for both natives and immigrants because narratives shape attitudes, political outcomes, and perceptions of discrimination. A recent and growing literature has shown that media narratives influence how people think and act as well as that specific framing of immigration matters for how migrants are perceived. However, no study has examined narratives about immigrants in a systematic way.

In the light of geopolitical conflicts and instability, sanctions play an important role in the international economic policy debate - especially against countries such as Russia, Iran and China. Economic sanctions are often intended to achieve foreign and security policy goals: fighting terrorism, protecting democracy and human rights, or resolving conflicts. In this issue of EconPol Forum, our authors examine, using the evidence-based studies, the extent to which various sanctions have achieved their goals. How do they affect economic growth, trade, and prosperity? In addition, we want to understand their impact on sectoral development of agriculture, energy and mining, as well as on human rights, military spending or life expectancy. In this context, international trade, financial transactions, technology transfer and other economic activities, among others, are systematically studied. And researchers look at different types of sanctions, such as unilateral, multilateral, and extraterritorial.

Recent advances in rights for lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals (LGB) have varied substantially across the world. This article provides new evidence on the determinants of support for sexual minorities in Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine – three emerging markets with some of the lowest rates of social acceptance of sexual minorities in Europe.

The Covid-19 pandemic propelled an enormous uptake in hybrid and fully remote work. Over time, it has become clear that this shift will endure long after the initial forcing event. There are few modern precedents for such an abrupt, large-scale shift in working arrangements. This article analyzes the full text of hundreds of millions of job postings in five English-speaking countries. In doing so, it applies a state-of-the-art Large Language Model (LLM) to analyze the text and determine whether the job allows remote/hybrid work.