Economies

This study examines the determinants of gold returns over the period 2000–2025, a period marked by recurrent financial crises, geopolitical tensions, and major shifts in global monetary conditions. As gold represents both a strategic commodity and a key reserve asset, understanding the channels driving its price dynamics is central to debates in commodity finance and macro-finance. Using Lasso variable selection combined with post-Lasso estimation, block bootstrap inference, and rolling and subsample analyses, the paper investigates the role of major macro-financial factors in shaping gold returns. The results indicate that U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) movements have strong incremental explanatory power for gold returns, consistent with a reduced-form dollar-channel interpretation. At the same time, the marginal contribution of inflation, volatility, and the tariff episode becomes limited once the DXY is included. Overall, the findings contribute to the commodity-finance literature by offering a parsimonious reduced-form interpretation of gold return dynamics and by highlighting implications for commodity price risk, hedging strategies, portfolio allocation, and reserve management in an increasingly interconnected global economy.

Central banks across the world have remained in a state of emergency ever since the global financial crisis [...]

Background: This study revisits whether oil revenue windfalls translate into higher socio-economic welfare in oil-exporting economies and explains why oil price booms often fail to generate sustained gains in real GDP per capita. Methods: Using annual data for ten oil-exporting countries over 1990–2024, we estimate country-specific ARDL/ECM models under a unified specification. The dependent variable is log real GDP per capita, explained by log real oil prices, the log share of government expenditure in GDP, population growth, and world GDP growth, with political and devaluation dummies where relevant. Results: Cointegration and significant error correction terms hold for most exporters, but adjustment speeds differ sharply. Long-run oil price elasticities are heterogeneous: strongly positive in Qatar, weak or insignificant in several cases (including Azerbaijan), and negative in a post-rentier pattern (UAE/Oman). Fiscal and demographic channels emerge as systematic constraints: government expenditure shares are often negatively associated with long-run welfare, and population growth typically reduces GDP per capita. World GDP growth is generally positive but uneven in significance. Conclusions: Resource use is conditional: welfare outcomes depend on fiscal regimes, demographic pressures, and structural transformation rather than windfall size alone.