How does COVID-19 affect electoral participation? evidence from the French municipal elections

This article investigates the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on electoral participation. We study the French municipal elections that took place at the very beginning of the ongoing pandemic and held in over 9,000 municipalities on March 15, 2020. In addition to the simple note that turnout rates decreased to a historically low level, we establish a robust relationship between the depressed turnout rate and the disease. Using various estimation strategies and employing a large number of potential confounding factors, we find that the participation rate decreases with city proximity to COVID-19 clusters. Furthermore, the proximity has conditioned impacts according to the proportion of elderly –who are the most threatened– within the city. Cities with higher population density, where the risk of infection is higher, and cities where only one list ran at the election, which dramatically reduces competitiveness, experienced differentiated effects of distance.

Does monetary policy in advanced economies have differentiated effects on portfolio flows to emerging economies?

This work analyzes whether the monetary policy in advanced economies (the US, the euro area, and the UK) had differentiated effects on portfolio flows from these countries toward EMEs. The results show the following: First, US monetary policy had a bigger impact on bond and equity investment to EMEs than the euro area or UK monetary policy. Second, investors' response to US monetary policy was mostly homogeneous. Among EMEs regions, foreign portfolio investment to Emerging Europe and Latin America was more volatile that than to Emerging Asia, probably because other factors such as investors' preference (in the case of bond flows) or expectations of firms' profits (in the case of equity flows) could play an important role in investors' decisions. These results could be useful for policymakers from EMEs as a benchmark to anticipate differentiated effects in portfolio flows caused by advanced economies' monetary policy.

Examining sex-differentiated genetic effects across neuropsychiatric and behavioral traits

BackgroundThe origin of sex differences in prevalence and presentation of neuropsychiatric and behavioral traits is largely unknown. Given established genetic contributions and correlations across these traits, we tested for a sex-differentiated genetic architecture within and between traits.MethodsUsing genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for 20 neuropsychiatric and behavioral traits, we tested for differences in SNP-based heritability (h2) and genetic correlation (rg<1) between sexes. For each trait, we computed z-scores from sex-stratified GWAS regression coefficients and identified genes with sex-differentiated effects. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between z-scores for each trait pair, to assess whether specific pairs share variants with sex-differentiated effects. Finally, we tested for sex differences in between-trait genetic correlations.ResultsWith current sample sizes (and power), we found no significant, consistent sex differences in SNP-based h2. Between-sex, within-trait genetic correlations were consistently high, although significantly less than 1 for educational attainment and risk-taking behavior. We identified genome-wide significant genes with sex-differentiated effects for eight traits. Several trait pairs shared sex-differentiated effects. The top 0.1% of genes with sex-differentiated effects across traits overlapped with neuron- and synapse-related gene sets. Most between-trait genetic correlation estimates were similar across sex, with several exceptions (e.g. educational attainment & risk-taking behavior).ConclusionsSex differences in the common autosomal genetic architecture of neuropsychiatric and behavioral phenotypes are small and polygenic, requiring large sample sizes. Genes with sex-differentiated effects are enriched for neuron-related gene sets. This work motivates further investigation of genetic, as well as environmental, influences on sex differences.

Does the Source of Remittance Matter? Differentiated Effects of Earned and Unearned Remittances on Agricultural Productivity

This paper analyzes the effect of earned and unearned remittances on agricultural productivity in Nepal. This approach differs from the existing practice of studying the impact of total remittances on socio-economic outcomes. In particular, we disaggregate total remittances into earned and unearned remittances, and isolate their impacts on productivity—an individual household’s per labor-hour production of all agricultural output at the market value. Methodologically, we follow a three-stage least squares (3-SLS) approach to overcome the potential endogeneity concerns. We provide evidence that unearned remittances are more effective than earned remittances in increasing agricultural productivity. These results can be useful in understanding the migration-remittance-productivity nexus in Nepal as well as other similar socioeconomic societies from South Asia.