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Bitcoin is designed as a peer-to-peer cash system. To work as a currency, it must be stable or be backed by a government. In this paper, we show that the volatility of Bitcoin prices is extreme and almost 10 times higher than the volatility of major exchange rates (US dollar against the euro and the yen). The excess volatility even adversely affects its potential role in portfolios. Our analysis implies that Bitcoin cannot function as a medium of exchange and has only limited use as a risk-diversifier. In contrast, we use the deflationary design of Bitcoin as a theoretical basis and demonstrate that Bitcoin displays store of value characteristics over long horizons.

We are facing an unprecedented time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures have been taken to reduce the spread of the virus, including school closures and widespread lockdowns. Physical isolation combined with economic instability, fear of infection, and uncertainty for the future has had a profound impact on global mental health. For adolescents, the effects of this stress may be heightened due to important developmental characteristics. Canadian adolescents (n = 1,054; Mage = 16.68, SD = 0.78) completed online surveys and responded to questions on stress surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, feelings of loneliness and depression, as well as time spent with family, virtually with friends, doing schoolwork, using social media, and engaging in physical activity. Results showed that adolescents are very concerned about the COVID-19 crisis and are particularly worried about schooling and peer relationships. COVID-19 stress was related to more loneliness and more depression, especially for adolescents who spend more time on social media. Beyond COVID-19 stress, more time connecting to friends virtually during the pandemic was related to greater depression, but family time and schoolwork was related to less depression. For adolescents with depressive symptoms, it may be important to monitor the supportiveness of online relationships. Results show promising avenues to stave off loneliness, as time with family, time connecting to friends, as well as physical activity were related to lower loneliness, beyond COVID-19 stress. These results shed light on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for adolescents and document possible pathways to ameliorate negative effects. Nous nous trouvons, avec la pandémie de COVID-19, dans une situation sans précédent. Des mesures ont été prises pour réduire la propagation du virus, notamment des fermetures d'établissements scolaires et des confinements à grande échelle. L'isolement physique, combiné à l'instabilité économique, à la crainte de l'infection et à l'incertitude quant à l'avenir, a eu de profondes répercussions sur la santé mentale globale. Chez les adolescents, les effets de ce stress peuvent être exacerbés en raison des caractéristiques importantes du développement. Des adolescents canadiens (n = 1 054; Mage = 16,68, écart-type = 0,78) ont répondu à un sondage en ligne comportant des questions sur le stress dû à la crise de la COVID-19, le sentiment de solitude et de dépression, ainsi que le temps passé avec la famille ou les amis (virtuellement), ainsi que le temps consacré aux devoirs, aux médias sociaux et à l'activité physique. Les résultats ont démontré que les adolescents sont très préoccupés par la crise de la COVID-19, et qu'ils sont particulièrement inquiets par rapport à leurs études et aux relations avec leurs pairs. Le stress dû à la COVID-19 était lié à une plus grande solitude et à la hausse des cas de dépression, en particulier chez les adolescents qui passent plus de temps sur les médias sociaux. Outre le stress dû à la COVID-19, le fait de passer plus de temps en contact virtuel avec ses amis durant la pandémie était lié à une hausse des cas de dépression, tandis que le temps passé en famille ou consacré aux devoirs était lié à une incidence moindre de la dépression. Dans le cas des adolescents souffrant de symptômes de dépression, il pourrait être important de surveiller le niveau de soutien fourni par les relations en ligne. Les résultats laissent entrevoir des pistes prometteuses pour prévenir la solitude. Notamment, le temps en famille, le temps consacré aux contacts avec les amis, ainsi que l'activité physique étaient liés à une diminution de la solitude dans le contexte du stress lié à la COVID-19. Ces résultats permettent de mieux comprendre les répercussions de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les adolescents et font état de possibles voies d'intervention pour atténuer les conséquences négatives. Public Significance Statement Adolescents are concerned about the COVID-19 crisis and their pandemic stress is related to heightened depression and loneliness. However, time with family, time connecting virtually to friends, as well as physical activity were related to less loneliness during the initial COVID-19 crisis. On the contrary, although more time on social media and virtually connecting to friends was related to more reported depression, time engaging with family was related to less reported depression.

Objective To examine psychological health as a mechanism linking economic pressure and marital instability in the early middle years to poor physical health in later life. Background Although previous research suggests that sustained stressful marital experience may lead to mental and physical health problems, little is known about how contextual factors, such as economic pressure, impact marital outcomes, and how changes in marital attributes influence health outcomes in a longitudinal and dyadic context. Method Utilizing an actor‐partner interdependence model within a latent growth curve approach and prospective data from couples in enduring marriages, we examined the associations between family economic pressure, marital instability, and mental health over their early middle years (1989–1994) and subsequent physical health in later adulthood (2015). Analyses assessed a couple‐level pathway and an individual pathway involving within‐spouse and between‐spouse effects. Results During the middle years, family financial difficulties were linked to reduced marital stability, which was associated with increased mental health challenges. The findings also reinforced the salient role of psychological distress for subsequent physical health outcomes as husbands' and wives' anxiety symptoms over their early middle years contributed to declines in their physical health outcomes in later adulthood. A partner effect was noted between husbands' anxiety and wives' physical health. Conclusion For couples, experiences of financial and marital stress in their early middle years can have long‐lasting detrimental impacts on their physical health in later adulthood.

Financial development may affect poverty directly and indirectly through its impact on income inequality, economic growth, and financial instability. Previous studies do not consider all these channels simultaneously. To proxy financial development, we use the ratio of private credit to GDP or an IMF composite measure. Our preferred measure for poverty is the poverty gap, i.e. the shortfall from the poverty line. Our fixed effects estimation results for an unbalanced panel of 84 countries over the 1975–2014 period suggest that financial development does not have a direct effect on the poverty gap. However, as financial development leads to greater inequality, which, in turn, results in more poverty, financial development has an indirect effect on poverty through this transmission channel. Only if we use poverty lines of $3.20 or $5.50 (instead of $1.90 a day as in our baseline model) to define the poverty gap, we find that economic growth reduces poverty. This implies that in those cases the overall effect of financial development on poverty may be positive or negative, depending on which indirect effect, i.e. that of income inequality or growth, is stronger. Financial instability does not seem to affect the poverty gap. These results are consistent across various robustness checks.

Introduction. Economic inequality, political instability and globalization have contributed to the constant growth of the migration phenomenon in recent years. In particular, a total of 4.2 million people migrated to Europe during 2019 and most of them settled in Germany, France and Italy. Objectives. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review of studies analyzing the oral health condition among migrants from middle- and low-income countries to Europe and assessing the eventual association between their sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics and oral health status. Materials and Methods. A systematic review was conducted in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus and Science Direct databases. After titles, abstracts and full-text examination, only 27 articles were selected on the basis of inclusion criteria and consequently included for quality assessments and data extraction. Results. Most of the studies reported a higher prevalence of caries experience, a poorer periodontal health and more difficulties in accessing dentalcare services among migrant groups compared with the non-migrant population. Inequalities were mostly associated with ethnic background, economic condition and social grade. Conclusion. Our review demonstrates the lack of dental health among migrants, underlining that their cultural beliefs and their social and economic living conditions could influence their oral health.

Introduction: Children are widely recognized as a vulnerable population during disasters and emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic, like a natural disaster, brought uncertainties and instability to the economic development of the society and social distancing, which might lead to child maltreatment. This study aims to investigate whether job loss, income reduction and parenting affect child maltreatment. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of 600 randomly sampled parents aged 18 years or older who had and lived with a child under 10 years old in Hong Kong between 29 May to 16 June 2020. Participants were recruited from a random list of mobile phone numbers of a panel of parents. Of 779 recruited target parents, 600 parents completed the survey successfully via a web-based system after obtaining their online consent for participating in the survey. Results: Income reduction was found significantly associated with severe (OR = 3.29, 95% CI = 1.06, 10.25) and very severe physical assaults (OR = 7.69, 95% CI = 2.24, 26.41) towards children. Job loss or large income reduction were also significantly associated with severe (OR= 3.68, 95% CI = 1.33, 10.19) and very severe physical assaults (OR = 4.05, 95% CI = 1.17, 14.08) towards children. However, income reduction (OR = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.15, 0.53) and job loss (OR = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.28, 0.76) were significantly associated with less psychological aggression. Exposure to intimate partner violence between parents is a very strong and significant factor associated with all types of child maltreatment. Having higher levels of difficulty in discussing COVID-19 with children was significantly associated with more corporal punishment (OR = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.05, 1.34), whereas having higher level of confidence in managing preventive COVID-19 behaviors with children was negatively associated with corporal punishment (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.76, 0.99) and very severe physical assaults (OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.58, 0.93). Conclusions: Income instability such as income reduction and job loss amplified the risk of severe and very severe child physical assaults but protected children from psychological aggression. Also, confidence in teaching COVID-19 and managing preventive COVID-19 behaviors with children was significantly negatively associated with corporal punishment during pandemic.

Entanglement is a key concept in contemporary anthropology and science and technology studies. By tracing the contingent and uncertain relations that endow objects with seemingly stable boundaries, entanglement allows us to see how such boundaries restrict our ability to know the world better. This article examines the concept of entanglement in the context of contemporary life in a working-class Mexico City neighborhood, Colonia Periférico, and a longitudinal environmental health project that studies the neighborhood’s residents. While entanglement has its uses, the entanglement of working-class bodies with globalizing processes like NAFTA and the ongoing War on Drugs shows that the concept has its limits. For working-class residents, life is already deeply entangled with chronic economic and political instability shaped through the violent ravages of transnational capital. Instead, I trace how residents in Colonia Periférico secure stability through toxic boundaries that protectively keep out the disruptive effects of police and public health surveillance. Colonia Periférico’s boundaries, which include a sewage-filled dam, cement dust, and freeway exhaust, are clearly entangled with residents’bodies. They get inside. These entanglements are the price paid for a remarkable stability, in which children can play on the streets and attentive care for drug-addicted and disabled residents is part of everyday life. With the goal of knowing the world better, then, we might complicate celebratory calls for the uncertainty of entanglement by taking into account both the practices that make boundaries and what boundaries have to offer.

This paper studies how informality reshapes real–financial feedback and the emergence of endogenous macroeconomic instability in developing economies. We develop a parsimonious nonlinear model that combines (i) an underwriting-based liquidity–solvency mechanism in which funding conditions in the financially integrated segment depend on discounted expectations of liquidity, and (ii) a demand-driven real block with bounded output adjustment in a dual economy where informal activity is more cash-flow based and has lower short-run adjustment capacity. In the baseline map, effective formality governs a trade-off: greater financial integration and productive capacity raise average activity, but also strengthen belief-sensitive financing conditions and move the economy closer to instability. Local analysis characterizes Flip (period-doubling) and Neimark–Sacker bifurcation routes. We then endogenize belief composition and effective formal participation via performance-based (logit) updating interpreted as cyclical variation in reliance on formal instruments. Stochastic simulations and Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis show that volatility is driven mainly by the intensity of cyclical reallocation between formal and informal margins.

The COVID—19 pandemic and related quarantine has created additional problems for survivors of interpersonal violence. The purpose of this study is to gain a preliminary understanding of the health, safety, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people that are experiencing or have previously experienced violence, stalking, threats, and/or abuse. An online survey, open from April to June 2020, was taken by people with safety concerns from interpersonal violence. Participants were recruited from IPV and sexual assault-focused agencies, state coalitions, and social media. Quantitative data were summarized using descriptive methods in SPSS and coding methods from thematic and content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data from open-ended questions. A total of 53 participants were recruited for the survey. Individuals with safety concerns have experienced increased challenges with health and work concerns, stress from economic instability, difficulties staying safe, and access resources and support. Over 40% of participants reported safety had decreased. Use of social media and avoidance strategies were the most common safety approaches used. Participants reported mixed experiences with virtual services. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing structural concerns for survivors of violence like IPV and sexual assault. Increased support and economic resource access, coupled with modified safety planning and improved virtual approaches, would better help meet survivor needs.