Determinants of the Physical Demand for Gold: Evidence from Panel Data

Although the role of gold in the world economy has declined since the gold standard was abandoned, it remains important as a central bank reserve, a hedge against risks, a barometer of geopolitical uncertainty, and an input for jewellery. While portfolio demand for gold has been well studied, determinants of physical demand are less understood. Certain emerging‐market countries such as China and India import substantial amounts of gold, with several factors that may contribute: low financial development, need for precautionary savings and/or strong cultural valuation of gold itself. This article uses panel data on gold imports of 21 countries to examine determinants of physical demand. We find that determinants of physical demand differ from those of portfolio demand, and that they differ between the developed and developing worlds.     

Friends or Foes? Mobile money interaction with formal and informal finance

Access to formal financial services is a key determinant of financial inclusion and yet, informal mechanisms still dominate the financial system in developing countries. In this context, the purpose of our article is to investigate how the growing effort to harness mobile money designed for unbanked individuals may help to overcome barriers to access formal financial services. Using a unique dataset obtained from an individual-level survey conducted in Burkina Faso, we explore the interplay between mobile money innovation and pre-existing formal and informal financial instruments. Our main findings show that, overall there are no differences in the inclination of mobile money users and non-users to make deposits in formal or informal deposit instruments. However, a closer investigation reveals suggestive evidence that it may increase the probability of participants in informal mechanisms to make deposits in formal financial instruments, especially using a bank account. Moreover, considering disadvantaged groups, we find for women, irregular income and less educated individuals that mobile money may increase their probability to make deposits in a bank and/or credit union accounts. Our results are robust to using instrumental variables and propensity score matching techniques that mitigate the endogeneity problem. They also pass a number of robustness checks as well as considering an alternative dataset. Given the low access to formal financial services in developing countries, our findings taken together indicate how the increasing adoption of mobile money may act as a stepping-stone towards financial inclusion. (JEL Classification C83, D14, G21)     

The Struggle to Sustain Agriculture in EU Southern Neighbourhood Partners: Improving Data and Policies

The agricultural sector in the EU Southern Neighbourhood Partners (SNP) is struggling to respond to sustainability challenges. It needs stronger policies to deliver balanced sustainability outcomes in economic, social and environmental terms. Based on recent information and a structured assessment of the impacts of prevailing public policies on the sustainability of agriculture in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey, carried out within the Sustainmed project ( https://sustainmed.iamm.fr ), we conclude that several factors contribute to the struggles in strengthening sustainability functions of agriculture in these countries. In the main, there is a lack of policy coherence toward sustainability uncovered by the dual, unbalanced consideration given to different sustainability factors in the study countries: pure economic factors largely prevail over factors related to resource conservation and social and cultural values, these latter factors being a precondition for long-term economic growth. Consequently, there is a genuine need for a more consistent vision of sustainability issues in future policy agendas, including better data systems and specific policies to incentivise sustainable agriculture in the SNP; as the challenge over the coming decades in these countries will be to increase agricultural production and productivity while at the same time managing natural resources sustainably. Findings can guide policymakers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector to identify pathways towards sustaining agriculture in the SNP.