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During the 1970s, the media headlined one housing crisis after another. Concern about these alleged crises tended to disappear as more dispassionate and less well-publicized follow-up studies demonstrated that the claims had been exaggerated. Nearly all comprehensive government and academic evaluations of housing problems and policies during the decade reached the same conclusions about the nature of the nation's housing problems and offered identical recommendations about desirable changes in housing policy. All found that housing conditions improved steadily in the postwar period, that the improvement was largely caused by a rapid growth in per capita and household incomes, that government programs made a minor contribution at best, and that existing housing programs and policies were both inequitable and inefficient. As the fraction of households living in substandard housing declined, moreover, the housing problems of poor persons were increasingly recognized as problems of poverty. All evaluations argued in favor of a reduction in housing subsidies for middle-and low-income households, a shift away from production programs, and greater reliance on cash grants that would provide assistance to low-income households in acquiring standard housing. In spite of this near unanimity of findings and policy recommendations, the nation's housing policy has consistently followed a different course.

AbstractRecent events in Ukraine led to a surge in refugee migration originating from within Europe not seen since WWII. Using global data on daily news coverage, this research highlights that during the 8 weeks before the outbreak of open hostilities, there was no change in the relative interaction frequency between societal stakeholders and refugees. This changed dramatically in the 8 weeks thereafter: In neighbouring countries, the share of news reporting interactions with refugees rose from next to nothing to between 5 and 13%. In the rest of Europe, this share increased to 1% or 2%. Beyond governments, an event‐study reveals inter‐governmental organisations, civil societies and businesses as major societal forces driving not just the public discourse but levels of support for refugees. Initially, business actors displayed the strongest responsiveness to individuals in need: They became 25% points more likely to engage in material cooperation with refugees. Gradually fading support from non‐government actors suggests that prolonged humanitarian crises may require a continuous near‐real‐time monitoring system and the coordination of various stakeholders' contributions to ensure an efficient provision of aid.

A worldwide financial crisis of enormous magnitude continues to unfold rapidly. Unlike other crises in recent decades, the current episode is rooted in industrial countries' financial systems and is affecting low-income and middle-income countries (MICs) alike. Defaults on securitized sub-prime mortgages as a real estate market bubble burst led to failures or near-failures of several large financial institutions and a collapse of inter-bank and commercial paper markets. A tightening of credit, combined with declining consumer confidence, has brought on worldwide recession with growing unemployment, and many fear that the downturn will be severe and protracted. At the same time, the rapidly multiplying signs of contraction are prompting strong responses, including fiscal stimulus packages and reductions in benchmark lending rates, on the part of several of the affected developed countries. The Bank Group is well placed to help mitigate the impact of the current crisis with financing and advisory services, and its clients are already requesting increased support. A rapid, high-quality response that combines financial and advisory support can do much to ease the inevitable ramifications of the crisis. Lessons from evaluations of previous Bank Group responses to past crises can help inform the response to the current crisis in order to increase its effectiveness.

This dissertation consists of four contributions that empirically analyze the political and social implications of financial and economic crises. The first two essays seek to broaden our understanding of the political after-effects of systemic banking crises and other macroeconomic downturns. The third essay analyzes the impact of financial crises on the distribution of income. Each of these three essays utilizes long-run cross-country data to study the relationships with historical perspective. The fourth essay takes a micro- level approach and has a special focus on household savings and inequality in the U.S. during the decades preceding the 2007-08 financial meltdown. The first essay provides new evidence that the political aftershocks of financial crises can be severe. The study is based on a new long-run dataset covering the near-universe of financial crises in 20 advanced economies and more than 800 general elections over the past 140 years. The key result is that policy un-certainty rises significantly after financial crises as government majorities shrink and polarization increas-es. Importantly, voters seem to be particularly attracted to the political rhetoric of the extreme right after a financial crisis. Similar political dynamics are not observable in normal recessions or after severe non-financial macroeconomic shocks. Building on the idea to group vote shares along ideological dimensions, the second essay extends the analysis and studies voting behavior in growth and recessionary conditions in more depth. The paper is first to relate historical data on ideology and electoral performance of nearly 650 political parties to the trajectory of real GDP per capita in a panel of 20 developed countries. The empirical exploration shows that right-of-center parties typically capitalize on economic downturns, while GDP growth is beneficial to the political left and far-left. This pattern appears to be remarkably constant across historical periods. Importantly, the results are robust to controlling for the ...

Purpose: This study looked at the influence of working capital management on firm performance using both accounting measure (ROE) and market measure (Tobin's q) of firms listed in Nigeria and Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: The study used ant colony optimization (ACO) and k-nearest neighbours (KNN) in establishing the long-term effect of working capital management on corporate performance. Data were extracted from annual financial reports of non-financial companies listed on the Nigeria and Ghana stock exchanges for the recession period 2012–2016, with a total observation of 510. Findings: ACO was applied to determine the working capital management variables that influence corporate performance, and KNN predicted its longitudinal influence, which, in our view, has not been deeply researched. It was discovered that non-financial firms in the period of economic crises manage the account receivables and payables, as well as cash conversion cycles, maintaining optimum working capital for efficient operational activities. It is therefore assumed that these firms are exposed to external and other sources of finance, which enables them to increase investment in working capital, preventing the risk of low production hindering firms from settling debt, as well as customers, leading to the collapse of many firms in this region and accounting for an increase in the unemployment rate. Research limitations/implications: This study will inform corporate management and policymakers on the effect of economic crises on the performance of firms in the management of working capital to achieve desirable accounting and market performance. The ability of a firm to manage working capital during boom and recession periods enhances maximization of shareholders' wealth. Originality/value: This study will alert policymakers to the urgency in setting up appropriate policies to address pertinent issues regarding longitudinal influence of economic crises on firm continuity and value. JEL Code: M4

Abstract
Over the last five decades, Eritrea has experienced a massive outflow of labor migrants to the Arab Near East. Although this labor migration has grown steadily since the 1950s, there has been a profound change in the magnitude and dynamism of the migration since the early 1970s. The reason is that Eritrea has suffered from severe economic problems resulting from its three-decade-long war of liberation with Ethiopia. By contrast, the Arab Near East, the oil-producing countries in particular, have enjoyed a significant increase in their wealth as a result of a sharp rise in energy prices following the world energy crises in 1973 and 1979. With the accumulation of wealth, these countries engaged in large-scale restructuring and development programs that created chronic labor shortages. This great contrast in the wealth and size of the labor force resulted in a pronounced difference in the rewards for employment between Eritrea and the Arab Near East. This difference has attracted a large number of Eritrean labor migrants to countries like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and the United Arab Emirates. This article examines the labor market patterns and the cultural effects on economic behavior, and investigates to what extent earnings and remittances and therefore the income of women migrants are impacted by cultured variables. It also reveals that women are likely to take up domestic work when they migrate to various destinations in die Arab Near East, that such women were unemployed prior to their migration, and that the earnings of women, are, on average, lower than those of men, but that women send more money back home than do men These higher rates of remittances by women are not simply expressions of income and expenditure but are rather attributable to higher savings abilities embedded in cultural values. In sum, die article looks at the dynamics of household labor in the context of migration; discusses paid household work as a structural continuation of unpaid household work across thepubUc sphere; demonstrates how Eritrean women travel through the household worker/housewife boundary in their home country and become family breadwinners, men's supporters, sources of funding for state projects, and urban property owners by engaging in household work; and underscores women's agency by articulating their paid household work through the negotiation of the monetary and emotional value of their labor in the Arab Near East.

[Introduction]: This paper argues that one of the major reasons for the poor record on development is to do with poor macroeconomic management. The three liquidity crises faced in the 1990s, several near misses, and yet another impending crisis inmid 2002 are evidence of such mismanagement. This paper argues that a strong deficit bias in fiscal policy has seen public debt rise from zero at independence to 45 per cent by 1990 and 66 per cent by 1999—the most recent period for which published data is available. There is little hope of debt levels stabilising while the incentives driving this process remain. The high debt levels and the rising cost of servicing such debt has raised the frequency of fiscal crises, an issue likely to be of increasing concern to policymakers and international financial institutions who carry the bulk of the responsibility for rescuing the situation. Monetary policy, in contrast, has remained conservative and without an inflation bias. This contrast lends support to the view that differing incentives are present in fiscal vis-à-vis monetary policy; central bank independence is a core part of the explanation.

Abstract
At the end of the First World War, a profoundly transformed Middle East faced massive population displacements and health crises, which presented crucial challenges for humanitarian actors. North American philanthropy and charity played a decisive role in this context. Among the organisations involved, the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (cnewa) is not well known. It was established by American Catholics to help Eastern Christians – especially Greek Catholics – and to thwart the influence of Protestantism in the region, mainly by supporting local Churches and missions in their humanitarian and welfare work. cnewa was quickly placed under the supervision of the US episcopate and the Vatican, partly transforming its operations and purposes. Its activity became closely involved with the Eastern policy of the Holy See, which primarily focused on the "return" of Orthodox Christians to the Roman Church. This article, at the crossroads of the history of mission and humanitarian aid, examines the early developments of cnewa and highlights how the Catholic Church dealt with the emergence of modern humanitarian aid in the mid-twentieth century.

The crisis in the global economy continues to affect many men and women living in poverty, but it brings different meaning for both men and women. However, the concept of gender equality gives women and men the same entitlement to all aspects of human development including economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights; the same level of respect, the same opportunities to make choices; and the same level of power to shape the outcome of these choices. But the ground realities are totally different. Pre-existing inequalities, which include under representation of women at all level of property rights, economic decision making, over representation in unorganized sector, traditional occupations due to lack of necessary training and skills play significant role but more gender inequalities arise when economic crisis takes place. It is not only the poor who are not affected but near and working poor are also affected with it.

AbstractPortugal has been confronted with a succession of crises in recent years. This article explores the differences in the way that, in Portugal, the welfare regime tackled the Great Recession context (financial, euro, sovereign debt, structural adjustment crises) and COVID‐19 crisis through very different policy responses. The fact that the governments in office acted differently when faced with realities that were close in time but very distinct, generates a paired comparative scenario, without forgetting the interim period. Supported by a plural methodological approach that gathers information from various sources, the outcomes reveal important aspects about the policy direction of changes and in terms of socio‐economic indicators. First, policy responses have followed three dynamics in tension: Retrenchment, Mitigation, and Expansion. Second, the policies make a difference, producing distinct outcomes in terms of socioeconomic indicators (unemployment, inequality, poverty). Third, the responses to crises induced more "radical" measures (towards Retrenchment or Expansion), which are not consistent with interim situations. Finally, while the austeritarian response was part of the government in office's program, this was not the case during the pandemic, when the response was involuntary and unprogrammed. This means that, in being a provisional and dated response, there is a high risk that in the near future there will be a resumption of Mitigation or even Retrenchment policies.

Second wave of COVID-19 had already swept India after its initial hit of the pandemic and definitely there will be a third wave of corona virus disease (Covid-19) in India once the Omicron variant starts replacing Delta as the dominant strain, according to members of the National Covid-19 Supermodel Committee .Lockdown imposed in country since 2020 with closure of all educational institutions has significantly changed the perspective of education in near future and a paradigm shift has been witnessed in the education sector during lockdown as e-learning came to the forefront, across the world with students and teachers have been forced to adapt to e-learning leaving the traditional classroom teaching, which they were not prepared for. As a result, a total of 320 million learners in India have been affected and moved into the e-learning industry, which includes a network of 1.5 million schools. With huge regional and household disparities in access to the internet and technology, many students and educators are reluctant to this transition. This situation has sparked a debate about whether e-learning is a good alternative to classroom learning. This paper aims to analyse how adversely did COVID-19 pandemic effected the education system of India and identify the arising gaps in transition from traditional to online learning and teaching process with addressing the efforts of Government of India to mobilize and support learning continuity and mitigate the impact of school closures, address learning losses and adapt education systems.

1. Chapter 1: A historian's introduction to paleoclimatology -- Chapter 2: A hard row to hoe. Climate change from the crop perspective -- Chapter 3: Who follows the elephant will have problems. Thought on modelling Roman responses to climate (changes) -- Chapter 4: Famines, demographic crises and climate in Italy, 1650-1913 -- Chapter 5: Collapse and resilience in prehistoric archaeology: Questioning concepts and causalities in models of climate-induced societal transformations -- Chapter 6: Climate, state building and political change in Egypt during the Early Bronze Age: a direct relation? -- Chapter 7: Vulnerability to climate change in Late Bronze Age Peloponnese (Greece) -- Chapter 8: Saving up for a rainy day? Climate events, human-induced processes, and their potential effects on people's coping strategies in the Mycenaean Argive Plain, Greece -- Chapter 9: Peloponnesian land-use dynamics and climate variability in the first millennium BCE -- Chapter 10: Volcanic eruptions, veiled Suns, and Nile failure in Egyptian history: Integrating hydroclimate into understandings of historical change -- Chapter 11: The environmental imperialism of the Roman Empire in northwestern Europe -- Chapter 12: Seasonal drought on Roman rivers: transport vs. irrigation -- Chapter 13: The Antonine crisis: Climate change as a potential trigger for epidemiological and economic turmoil -- Chapter 14: Climate change and the productive landscape in the Mediterranean region in the Roman period -- Chapter 15: Viticulture as a climate proxy for the Roman world? Global warming as a comparative framework for interpreting the ancient source material in Italy and the West (ca. 200 BC–AD 200) -- Chapter 16: Risks for farming families in the Roman World -- Chapter 17: Figures in an imperial landscape. Ecological and societal factors on settlement patterns and agriculture in Roman Italy -- Chapter 18: Hydrological changes in Late Antiquity: spatio-temporal characteristics and socio-economic impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean -- Chapter 19: Resilience and adaptation at the end of Antiquity. An evaluation of the impact of climate change in Late Roman western-central Anatolia -- Chapter 20: The social metabolism of past societies. A new approach to environmental changes and societal responses in the territory of Sagalassos (Turkey).