We are proud to present Volume 35, Issue 1 of Issues in Political Economy, the oldest international undergraduate research journal in economics.

This year’s issue is the product of a rigorous double-blind review process conducted entirely by undergraduate students. Since its founding, Issues in Political Economy has grown into one of only two international undergraduate economics journals, attracting submissions from around the world, with submissions representing a diverse collection of perspectives.

We would like to thank the faculty advisors at Elon University and the University of Mary Washington for their guidance throughout this process, as well as all of our associate editors and undergraduate referees whose evaluations made this issue possible. We also encourage future contributors to consider our annual conference in New York City, which presents undergraduate researchers with the opportunity to present and discuss their work.

This issue features seven papers that together demonstrate the breadth and quality of undergraduate economics research today:

Yusuke Fukase, of Keio University, uses a two-way fixed-effects difference-in-differences model to investigate how pre-pandemic nursing shortages shaped wages, working hours, and employment in Japan during COVID-19. By using the pandemic to test whether Japan’s nursing market exhibits monopsonistic features, Fukase finds that earnings per hour rose more sharply for concentrated labor markets in response to pre-pandemic shortages, consistent with signs of monopsonistic wage setting. Effects on working hours and employment were statistically insignificant, and the paper concludes with policy suggestions for Japan’s efforts to raise nursing wages.

Nathan Haas, of Belmont University, examines whether eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is associated with stronger financial development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a difference-in-differences framework with data from 1980 to 2021, Haas finds that AGOA eligible countries experienced statistically significant gains in overall financial development relative to non-eligible countries after the policy’s enactment in 2000. The results are stronger for financial institutions than for financial markets, suggesting that preferential trade access contributes primarily to domestic intermediation rather than capital market deepening.

Emma Leonard and Javohn Dyer-Smith examine how monetary policy shocks propagate through durable goods, nondurable goods, and services consumption using an instrumental variable vector autoregression framework. Drawing on externally identified monetary policy surprises and monthly data from 1988 to 2017, they find that durable goods exhibit the largest and most persistent response to monetary tightening, consistent with their interest rate sensitivity and discretionary nature. Inflation expectations respond sharply following shocks before gradually stabilizing, highlighting the importance of expectations as a critical component of monetary transmission.

Demi-Lee Carlisle, of Minnesota State University Moorhead, estimates the economic cost of loadshedding, which is South Africa’s system of scheduled power outages, between 2020 and 2024, to update prior estimates from 2007 to 2019. Using data from Eskom’s system operator and the South African Reserve Bank, Carlisle constructs a loadshedding variable as a share of total electricity sales and incorporates it into a linear regression model alongside standard GDP components. The results suggest that loadshedding cost the South African economy approximately R254 billion over the five-year period, which represents nearly a 6 percent reduction in GDP growth, with long-term risks including decreased investment and a shrinking customer base for Eskom as households turn to solar energy.

Ananya Kohli, of Mount Holyoke College, investigates how vegetation density, measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, affects household food security across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, holding rainfall constant to isolate the effect of vegetation. Through a two-step regression approach and LSMS-ISA survey data, Kohli finds that higher vegetation density is significantly associated with increased food production in most regions, but not in the conflict affected North East or the fishing dependent South South. The effect on food purchasing is generally weaker, attributed to market integration buffering local agricultural conditions in many areas.

Isabella Thomas, of the University of Connecticut, uses Penn World Tables data from 1954 to 2019 and the Solow Growth Model to examine the roles of capital accumulation, labor, and total factor productivity in an analysis of economic trajectories for Brazil and Venezuela. Trend analysis and regression results confirm a clear divergence: Brazil’s per capita GDP growth is strongly correlated with capital accumulation, while Venezuela’s regression yields a statistically insignificant and near zero coefficient, suggesting its economic collapse is driven by institutional failure rather than capital dynamics. The paper concludes with policy recommendations emphasizing institutional stability and productivity enhancement as prerequisites for sustainable growth.

Ngoc Nguyen, of The College of Wooster, investigated whether trade openness supported or undermined GDP growth in 30 Asian countries during the COVID-19 shock and early recovery period from 2019 to 2022. Using a panel fixed-effects regression with controls for capital formation, government spending, health expenditure, inflation, and population, Nguyen finds no significant relationship between trade openness and GDP growth during the period. The findings suggest that while trade integration benefits growth in the long run, global supply and demand disruptions may temporarily suspend that relationship, pointing to the importance of domestic stabilization policies during future crises.

We hope you find this issue as rewarding to read as it was to produce.

Sincerely,
Jin Kobes & Jay Cornell
2025-26 Issues in Political Economy Co-Editors