Given perfectly competitive labor markets combined with the profit-maximizing behavior of firms, real wages should equal the marginal product of labor (MPL). However, there is ample evidence that this equality is distorted in various economies in terms of both levels and growth rates. Basing our analysis on a demand-driven distribution and growth model, we investigate the relationship between the wage-productivity gap (also called the Pigouvian exploitation rate in the early literature) and economic growth, and assess how the presence of an informal sector interacts with this relationship. Using annual cross-country unbalanced panel data from 160 countries in a time-series window from 1950 to 2017, we show that informality strongly interacts with this relationship. Specifically, we find that in countries with a larger informal sector (as percentage of GDP), productivity gains are not compensated for by wage increases. Therefore, a larger wage-productivity gap is associated with higher growth rate while the growth regime is more likely to be profit-led.

This paper conducts a bibliometric research in the literature on Fintech and Islamic finance. The data of this study consists of relevant articles obtained from the Scopus database as of February 2021. A keywords bundle related to Islamic finance and keyword has been used for the search, resulting in 89 publishments included in this research. Results show the stunning increase in the Islamic Fintech publishments after 2017, mainly in the fields of cryptocurrencies, micro-finance, impact investing, and SRI investing, and so on. The two main centers of Islamic Fintech research are Malaysia-Indonesia Region and the GCC area. The increasing number of Islamic Fintech publishments show the potential of the field for the industry’s future.

This essay analyzes the opportunities that Mexico could have, as a signatory of the “United States, Canada, Mexico Agreement” -USMCA-, within the arrival of Joseph Biden to the presidency of the United States. This change of baton unleashed singular expectations; first, by simply replacing Trump and proposing domestic social and economic policies of high social content and, second, by announcing the American return to the diplomatic forms exercised since the end of World War II. Whether it is domestic or foreign policy, it is clear and often explicit that the central motivation of the United States is the defense of the American national interest, which is to reduce inequality, ethnic discrimination and strengthen the economy. It is legitimate and necessary, therefore, for Mexico to identify its interests and opportunities to advance them within the framework of the reorientation of internal and external politics of the new Democratic administration, without forgetting that Biden is an expert politician with long experience, for whom “those own interests” express personal ambitions, partisan needs, national aspirations and personal desires.

The Optimal Currency Area (OCA) theory, which was suggested by R. Mundell in 1961, caused countries to participate in different economic mergers and to seek OPA as a result of increasing international commercial competition in the past-1980 period. In this context, on analysis of whether the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC), which Turkey is in, is an OPA or not, has been made in order to see whether Turkey can be in an OPA and what the consequences may be. In this study, Real Gross Domestic Product and CPI data between 1991-2019 were analyzed with the help of Structural Autoregressive Model (SVAR). The Ukraine and Armenia series were excluded from the analysis because they were not cointegrated. According to the result of analysis, a correlation was determined between the countries in the union except for Greece, Bulgarian and Romania in terms of the effects of supply and demand shoocks on output and inflation. In addition, it has been determined that Turkey, Georgia and Albania form a core grup within the union.