Digital Commons Network^™

Time And Money: Patterns Of Nonstandard Work Across The First Year Of Covid-19, Ellen M. Whitehead, Alison Winiarski, Emily Wornell, Justin Schupp

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic had a well-documented impact on the formal economy, with the extent of these consequences varying across industries and sociodemographic groups. Less attention has been paid to whether the nonstandard economy, including informal and gig work, mirrored this broader economic fallout. We draw on 2019 and 2020 data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking to assess participation in, time spent on, and money earned from nonstandard work across the first year of the pandemic. We find evidence of an overall decline in participation in nonstandard work during this time. However, our results indicate heterogeneous experiences across …

George C. Roberts Award Recipients

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Volume 29, Issue 1 Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

The Survival Of Sugar In Post-Emancipation British Guiana: East Indian Indentured Immigration And The Cheapening Of Labor, Wazir Mohamed

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This Paper revisits the post-emancipation changes in the labor market of British Guiana. British Guiana, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, and several other locations were spaces where East Indian Indentured Immigrants from Idia became pivotal in the economy.[1] In the decade after emancipation (1838-1848), the rise of global free trade in sugar spurred by the equalization of duties in sugar factored in the search for a cheaper and the importation of a more pliable labor force to keep the wheels of sugar turning in British Guiana. With this background in mind this paper focuses on indentured immigration of East …

Editorial History

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Eating Disorders & Meat Consumption: A Meta-Analytic Review, Urska Dobersek, Laurel Standiford-Reyes, Tyler Robinson, Alex Antony Edwin, Sarah Siebers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In this meta-analytic review, we examined the current evidence on eating disorders in relation to meat consumption and meat abstention. We systematically searched six online databases in December 2025 for primary research on eating disorder-related variables in meat consumers and meat abstainers. Fifty-one studies with 55,984 participants (n_{meat consumers} = 44,282, n_{meat abstainers} = 9,751) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The outcomes were eating disorders and orthorexia nervosa. Meat consumption was associated with lower eating disorder (g = 0.20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.32], p = .001) and orthorexia nervosa symptomology (g = 0.47, 95% CI [0.33, …

Why Publish With Mssj?

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Learning By Doing To Teach Research Skills In Econometrics, Christie Byun

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This paper examines a revision in an introductory econometrics course at an undergraduate liberal arts college. The instructors have incorporated extensive use of data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from the Current Population Survey (IPUMS-CPS), with applied examples that demonstrate econometric theory. The key element is a short empirical paper assignment in which all students work on a common research question, but with different data sets. The paper assignment includes a series of scaffolding assignments using IPUMS-CPS data. This approach has several benefits, including ease of implementation into any course that has an empirical paper component, significantly streamlined …

Call For Papers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Measuring Financial Responsibility Of Private Higher Education Institutions, Jack Hansen

Mark A. Israel '91 Endowed Summer Research Fund in Economics

The U.S. Department of Education’s Financial Responsibility Composite Score aggregates three accounting ratios to assess the financial health of private higher education institutions, yet its predetermined weights lack a formal statistical foundation. This paper argues that a data-driven alternative better summarizes institutional financial condition. Using Principal Component Analysis on the Primary Reserve Ratio, Equity Ratio, and Net Income Ratio calculated from 2025 audited statements for 30 private nonprofit bachelor’s institutions in the greater Chicago regional market, we derive empirically-determined weights. The resulting PCA-based score correlates positively with the official FRCS but produces meaningfully different institutional rankings. Relative to our composite …

Artificial Intelligence, Economic Governance And Financial Stability In Nigeria: Emerging Risks And Policy Opportunities, Suleiman Usman Yusuf

Bullion

This paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping economic governance and financial stability in Nigeria between 2024 and 2026. Using qualitative analysis of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regulations, national AI policy documents, reports of international standard-setters, and recent empirical studies, it finds that AI strengthens fraud detection, economic nowcasting and oversight of public expenditure. However, it also introduces risks, including cybersecurity threats, market concentration, algorithmic bias, herding behaviour, and explainability risks, which gaps in regulatory capacity, data, and infrastructure magnify. The paper concludes that Nigeria needs a risk-proportionate AI supervisory framework, mandatory algorithmic audits and phased institutional capacity …

Monetary Policy Transmission And Real-Sector Growth In Nigeria: A Critical Review Of Channels, Constraints And Enterprise Implications, Olusegun Timothy Odesola Dr., Oluwatoyin A. Kayode‑Akeremale

Bullion

This article critically reviews monetary policy transmission in Nigeria and its implications for real-sector growth and enterprise performance. It demonstrates that the credit channel dominates, while the interest rate channel remains weak due to structural rigidities, low pass-through, and supply-side constraints. The exchange rate and expectations channels play contingent roles but are undermined by heavy central bank intervention and fiscal dominance. Transmission effectiveness is constrained by shallow financial intermediation (private credit <20% of GDP), financial dualism (large informal finance sector), fiscal dominance (CBN financing of government deficits), underdeveloped capital markets, and institutional weaknesses (weak contract enforcement, information asymmetries). These constraints impose asymmetric burdens on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which are disproportionately harmed by monetary tightening due to limited access to alternative finance and higher information opacity. The paper proposes a novel conceptual framework integrating transmission channels, structural constraints, and enterprise heterogeneity. It identifies critical research gaps firm-level micro-mechanisms, non-bank intermediaries, comparative African perspectives, targeted policy instruments, digital finance, nonlinearities, expectations, and spatial dimensions and outlines a forward-looking research agenda. Key recommendations include strengthening banking competition, addressing fiscal dominance via statutory limits on ways and means, scaling credit guarantee schemes for SMEs, deepening capital markets, enhancing monetary-fiscal coordination, and developing a coherent digital finance regulatory framework.

Inflation, Food Affordability And Consumer Adaptation In Nigeria: Evidence From The Akara And Kuli Kuli Social Media Debate, Godwin Okatahi Oniwon Dr

Bullion

Nigeria's persistent inflation has made food affordability and purchasing power prominent concerns in public discourse. This study examines social media discourse surrounding the Akara and Kuli Kuli debate in Nigeria, focusing on how users framed food affordability, purchasing power, household coping and wider economic hardship. using quantitative content analysis complemented by qualitative interpretation, the study analysed 1,200 publicly accessible posts from X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Threads. Findings show that rising food prices and food affordability dominated the discourse, alongside purchasing pov,'er decline, perceived household coping and consumer adaptation. The study shows how social media provides insight into public interpretations …

Effect Of Forensic Accounting Techniques On Financial Statement Fraud In Microfinance Banks In Nigeria, Ajewole Oluwasola Dada, Professor Adeoye A. Afolabi

Bullion

Financial statement fraud threatens confidence in Nigeria's microfinance banking sector. Anchored on the fraud diamond theory, this study examined the effects of anonymous communication, ratio analysis, inspection and observation, and fraud risk assessment. A cross-sectional survey of 225 professionals across Nigeria's six geopolitical zones yielded 222 usable responses. Regression results showed a significant inverse relationship between the techniques and fraud (Ra = .583; adjusted = .575; p < .001). The study concludes that forensic accounting techniques materially constrain fraudulent reporting and recommends their formal integration into microfinance banks' enterprise-risk, audit, and supervisory frameworks.

Dynamic Forecasting Of Sovereign Wealth Fund Effects On State-Owned Firm Stocks Using Hybrid Arima–Garch Models, Ananta Hagabean Nasution, Teguh Yudo Wicaksono, Donny Oktavian Syah, Randhy Nugroho

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

This study examines the forecasting dynamics of Indonesia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, DANANTARA, on the BUMN-20 Index using a hybrid ARIMA-GARCH model. The establishment of DANANTARA in February 2025 generated mixed reactions among capital market participants, with the Indonesian Stock Exchange suspended trading after share prices declined by more than five percent. Using daily time-series data from June 2018 to August 2026, this study employs a hybrid ARIMA(1,1,3)-GARCH(1,1) framework processed through E-Views 12. The results indicate that the BUMN-20 Index is predominantly driven by broader market movements, as evidenced by the highly significant IHSG return coefficient (β =1.237, p < 0.001). In the mean equation, the DANANTARA announcement and launch events do not produce statistically significant shifts in average returns. However, in the variance equation, the announcement significantly elevated conditional volatility (γ = 0.025, p = 0.009), suggesting heightened market uncertainty. The volatility persistence measure (α + β = 0.952) indicates that shocks to the BUMN-20 Index decay slowly, with a half-life of approximately 14 trading days. The forecasting results suggest a gradually declining trajectory for the index, though this does not imply a causal relationship with DANANTARA. These findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating that the primary channel through which a nascent SWF affects domestic equity markets is volatility rather than returns. The policy implications highlight the importance of for transparent governance and consistent communication in mitigating market uncertainty surrounding DANANTARA's operations.

An Evaluation Of Southern Nevada’S Pediatric Care Ecosystem, David Damore, Tina Quigley, Nick Fiore

Policy Briefs and Reports

In 2024, The Lincy Institute and the Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation released a report prepared by the consulting firm Tripp Umbach detailing the case for a stand-alone children’s hospital in Southern Nevada. Shortly thereafter, Intermountain Health announced it would build Nevada’s first such facility in Las Vegas, expected to open in 2030. To complement the hospital’s development, The Lincy Institute undertook an independent evaluation of the regional pediatric care landscape. The analysis draws on secondary data and discussions with advocates, health system administrators, practitioners, and providers. The report examines:

• Fiscal, resource, and workforce challenges underlying Nevada’s poor population-level pediatric …

Intimate Partner Violence And Child Wasting Across Countries: An Ecological Cross-Sectional Study, Wanri Lumbanraja, I Ketut Kasta Arya Wijaya, Ruben Cornelius Siagian

Journal of Indonesian Health Policy and Administration

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health issue that can affect the well-being of women, their families, and the child-rearing environment. Meanwhile, wasting in under-five children reflects acute malnutrition linked to food insecurity, infectious diseases, poverty, and access to healthcare services. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the prevalence of IPV among women in the past 12 months and the prevalence of wasting in children under the age of five at the national level. This study addresses the gap in cross-national research, which remains limited in linking IPV as an indicator of social vulnerability with wasting as …

The Lingering Effects On Junk Bond Spreads Of The Fed’S 2020 Corporate Bond Backstop Facilities, John V. Duca, An Nguyen

Journal of Financial Crises

The US corporate bond market is typically disrupted during financial crises, when uncertainty and risk premiums are high and bond issuance is depressed. During the COVID-19 recession, the Federal Reserve introduced two unprecedented interventions: the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility. These backstop facilities stood ready to purchase corporate bonds when corporate bond spreads were wide. While existing literature highlights their effects on investment-grade bonds, the implications for high-yield (junk) bonds remain less well understood. We track uncertainty using the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX; Jurado, Ludvigson, and Ng’s measures of macroeconomic uncertainty; and other …

A Framework For Understanding The Vulnerabilities Of New Money-Like Products, Kenechukwu Anadu, Patrick Mccabe, J.P. Perez-Sangimino, Nathan Swem

Journal of Financial Crises

New money-like products, such as tokenized money market funds (MMFs), money market exchange-traded funds, and stablecoins, could be transformative for finance. These products may offer significant benefits, but like other money-like assets, they also have certain vulnerabilities. We introduce a framework to analyze the vulnerabilities of new products by comparing their features to those that contribute to vulnerabilities in MMFs. Specifically, we examine the extent to which each product engages in liquidity transformation, is subject to threshold effects, serves as a money-like asset, poses contagion risks, and has reactive investors. Our framework is useful for assessing the potential effects of …

The Heterogeneous Impacts Of The Residential Component Of A Training Program: A Semi-Parametric Analysis, Jun Cai, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Xintong Wang

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Several training programs worldwide are residential, bringing enrollees to live in facilities and thus increasing program costs. In the U.S., the Job Corps (JC) program for disadvantaged youth includes a residential component. Despite extensive literature evaluating JC, the impact of the residential component has received limited attention. We develop and employ a semi-parametric model to estimate the average causal effects of this residential component, accounting for selection into both the program and the residential feature. Our findings indicate that, for JC enrollees, the residential component boosts earnings, employment, and educational degree attainment among adolescents. For other subgroups, the residential component …

Examining The Nexus Of Economic Complexity With Energy Transition And Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review, Neharika Singh, Meenakshi Gupta

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Economic complexity captures the diversity and sophistication of productive knowledge and capabilities embedded in an economy. Research on the relationship between economic complexity, energy transition, and environmental quality is growing rapidly. However, their findings differ across countries, development levels, and different energy and environmental indicators. As a result, the conditions under which economic complexity contributes to energy transition and environmental sustainability remain unclear across different contexts. To address this gap, this study conducts a systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines and applies the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology (TCCM) framework to synthesize evidence on economic complexity, energy transition, and environmental sustainability. The studies were …

Enviromental Burden And Financial Performance Of Manufacturing Companies On Borsa Istanbul: An Exploratory Circular-Economy-Aligned Assessment Using The Aroman Method, Sibel Fettahoglu, Ejder Ayçin, Büşra Karslı Günay

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Türkiye's 2053 net-zero emissions target and the critical role of the manufacturing sector in this process necessitate an urgent examination of the financial impacts of circular economy (CE) practices. This study provides an exploratory analysis of the relationship between environmental burden and financial performance using 2023 data from 26 manufacturing companies in Borsa Istanbul. Given the difficulty of measuring holistic circularity at the company level, this study operationalizes the environmental dimension of circular economy performance using selected environmental burden indicators, including energy and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste generation. The study uses the alternative ranking order method accounting …

Evolution Of Economic Geography’S Focus On Resource Studies: Historical Trajectory, Research Progress, And Emerging Trends, Yanxiang Fan, Canfei He

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Amid the intertwined contexts of global climate change, the reshaping of the geopolitical landscape, and China’s economic transformation, complex issues in the resource sector have increasingly come to the fore, highlighting the urgent need for systematic research from the perspective of economic geography. This study constructs an interactive analysis framework of core–extended dimensions to systematically review the developments and trends in resource research from an economic geography perspective. This study establishes a two-layer theoretical analysis framework of core and extended dimensions. The core dimension includes four aspects: resource elements in regional economic development, resource flows in global trade networks, resource …

Refereed Research - Indispensable Yet Not Fully Legitimate: Street Markets As Invisible Subsistence Infrastructure, Raji Srinivasan, Maria C. Merino

Subsistence Marketplaces

Street markets are key provisioning systems across the Global South, supplying fresh food, employment, and retail access absent formal infrastructure. Yet despite street markets’ functional indispensability to millions of low-income consumers, their legitimacy is chronically contested, affirmed by vendors and communities yet challenged by planners, developers, and state authorities who apply formal-economy criteria in evaluating them. We theorize this as a legitimacy paradox and ask what structural mechanisms sustain it? Using composite vignettes grounded in fieldwork, we theorize three mechanisms. First, visibility without recognition: street markets are hyper-visible yet excluded from cognitive templates of legitimate, formal retail. Second, asymmetric essentiality: …

Crisis, Reform, And Remittances: A Corridor Level Mixed Methods Examination Of Gcc–Nepal–Sri Lanka (2019–2024), Rubhesh Jha, Aloma Jayasundera

Arab Economic and Business Journal

This study examines how institutions in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Nepal, and Sri Lanka affect migrant earnings, remittance stability, the choice of transfer channels, and the use of remittances for development. This study uses a mixed‑methods approach that integrates institutional mapping, policy tracing, comparative case studies, and quantitative analysis of remittance flows (2019–2024). Migration corridors with stronger institutions are associated with fewer wage disruptions, more stable remittances, and greater use of formal transfer channels, conditional on the observed macroeconomic factors. This study introduces a corridor-level three-pillar institutional framework linking destination wage protection systems (WPS), origin recruitment/welfare, and financial infrastructure …