In 1962, Spain implemented significant banking law changes to boost competition. This study investigates their impact on provincial banking concentration from 1964 to 1975, utilising novel provincial-level private bank balance sheet data and including savings banks. Results show a substantial decline in concentration across most provinces. Panel data models identify the determinants of banking concentration: larger populations and higher gross domestic product per capita correlate with lower concentration, while agrarian-focused provinces exhibit higher concentration. The provincial financial sector's structure also matters, with a higher number of branches and headquarters per capita associated with reduced banking concentration. These findings refine existing literature and provide new insights into the intricate relationship between banking concentration and regional economies in Spain.

This paper examines the rise of monitoring schemes to coordinate supervisors and market authorities in addressing the cross-industry challenges posed by large language models’ deployment. As artificial intelligence (AI) intersects with the core mandate of market authorities dealing with financial stability, data protection, intellectual property, competition and telecommunications, effective oversight requires collaboration and information sharing. Using examples such as the Canadian Digital Regulator’s Forum, the UK’s Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum and the European Union’s AI Act implementation process, the paper illustrates how national and international institutional coordination can help operationalizing the high level principles on AI governance which are currently discussed in international fora. Ultimately, this approach aims to ensure responsible AI development while addressing risks and maximizing its societal benefits.

We explore gender attitudes towards competition in the United Arab Emirates—a traditionally patriarchal society which in recent times has adopted numerous policies to empower women and promote their role in the labor force. The experimental treatments vary whether individuals compete in single-sex or mixed-sex groups. In contrast to previous studies, women in our sample are not less willing to compete than men. In fact, once we control for individual performance, Emirati women are more likely to select into competition. Our analysis shows that neither women nor men shy away from competition, and both compete more than what would be optimal in monetary terms as the fraction of men in their group increases. We offer a detailed survey of the literature and discuss possible reasons for the lack of gender differences in our experiment.

When affirmative action policies target more than one disadvantaged group, they contain uncertainty as to whether an individual who belongs to one of these groups was actually favored. In a laboratory experiment, we study how this feature affects outcomes of affirmative action in the form of quotas, and compare it with two other conditions, namely affirmative action with a certain favored group and no affirmative action. We find that when a group is favored with certainty and the social identity that triggers affirmative action is made salient, affirmed individuals are wrongly perceived as less competent, both by themselves and by others. Consequently, their willingness to compete does not increase and they are selected less for teamwork post competition. Affirmative action with uncertain favored groups does not distort belief in competence, and thus does not induce such unintended consequences. In contrast, it increases competition entry of the affirmed groups and enhances their chances of being selected for teamwork.

Bagrada bug, Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), is an invasive pest of cole crops in the United States. Because it also feeds on widespread weeds and persists in natural habitats surrounding crop fields, conventional control strategies are often ineffective at providing long-term control. One egg parasitoid, Gryon aetherium Talamas (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae), is a promising biological control candidate because of its ability to parasitise B. hilaris buried eggs. Recently, adventive populations of G. aetherium were recovered from sentinel eggs in California along with a native egg parasitoid, Ooencyrtus californicus Girault (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae). A better understanding of these parasitoid species’ spatial preference for foraging and their possible competitive interactions will help evaluate their host suppression potential. We compared the foraging abilities of these two parasitoid species for eggs deposited below and above ground. We also investigated the effect of interspecific competition on host suppression and the ability of O. californicus to parasitise eggs previously parasitised by G. aetherium. G. aetherium parasitised naturally and manually buried eggs, whereas O. californicus did not. In another experiment, O. californicus parasitised eggs glued to cards, but not in the presence of sand. Results suggest that G. aetherium may be negatively affected by the presence of O. californicus, and there was a slight but significant reduction in total host mortality when the parasitoids were present together. However, the inability of O. californicus to forage in soil likely limits negative interactions between these two species, and the two parasitoids may ultimately complement each other.

Furrow-irrigated rice (Oryza sativa L.) hectares are increasing in the Midsouth. The lack of sustained flooding creates a favorable environment for weed emergence and persistence, which makes Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S. Watson) difficult to control throughout the growing season. The negative yield impacts associated with season-long A. palmeri interference in corn, cotton, and soybean have been evaluated. However, there is limited knowledge of the weed’s ability to influence rice grain yield. Research was initiated in 2022 and 2023 to determine the effect of A. palmeri time of emergence relative to rice on weed seed production and grain yield. Cotyledon stage A. palmeri plants were marked every seven days, beginning one week before rice emergence through four weeks after rice emergence. Amaranthus palmeri seed production decreased exponentially as emergence timing was delayed relative to rice, and seed production increased by 447 seed plant-1 for every one-gram increase in weed biomass. Without rice competition and from the earliest emergence timing, A.palmeri produced 540,000 seeds plant-1. Amaranthus palmeri that emerged one week before the crop had the greatest spatial influence on rice, with grain yield loss of 5% and 50% at a distance of 1.4 m and 0.40 m from the weed, respectively. As A. palmeri emergence was delayed, the area of influence decreased. However, A. palmeri plants emerging 3.5 weeks after rice emergence still negatively affected grain yield and produce sufficient seed to replenish the soil seedbank, potentially impacting long-term crop management decisions. These results show that the time of A. palmeri emergence is a crucial factor influencing rice grain yield and weed seed production, which can be used to determine the consequences of escapes in rice.

With the passage of the Climate Change Act, and to help meet its net zero obligations by 2060, Nigeria must transition from its dependence on fossil fuel energy sources to renewable energy. This will involve the procurement of large amounts of renewable energy by the government. In the past, procurement of power from the government-owned bulk trader has been chaotic, with no discernible strategy, and it is doubtful whether the government or Nigeria's citizens have derived value for money from the process. This article suggests a transition from the current, mostly unsolicited, proposal system to energy auctions, as the authors believe that this will help the country achieve low prices for renewable energy. The article also examines polices that have been implemented in other countries to drive energy auctions, with a view to applying relatable practices to the Nigerian exercise.

Cartels today are illegal and illegitimate across the globe. Yet until the end of World War II, cartels were legal, ubiquitous, and popular—especially in Europe. How, then, did cartels become bad, if they had been considered a positive force for capitalist stabilization and peace in the first half of the 20th century? That is the question this dissertation poses. By the 1930s, over 1,000 monopolistic agreements regulated nearly half of world trade. International cartels governed the interwar world economy, setting prices and output quotas, dividing world markets, regulating trade flows, and even controlling the transfer of patents across firms and sovereign state borders. I conceptualize this regime as “cartel capitalism.” Most cartels were headquartered in industrial Europe. First, I trace how a surprising consensus in interwar Europe—comprising national governments; international organizations like the League of Nations; industrialists, led by the International Chamber of Commerce; federalists; and even socialists—backed cartels as a panacea to the problems of reconstruction after 1918, namely the quest for peace and stable markets. However, in the wake of 1945, most countries in Western Europe—along with the new supranational European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, 1951) and European Economic Community (EEC)—started prohibiting cartels. My project illuminates the causes and consequences of this great reversal. Monopoly Menace reveals, for the first time, how Europe’s transnational reckoning with the shocks of the Great Depression, fascism, and total war produced a genuine anticartel revolution that rewrote the rules of the modern European and global economy. Monopoly Menace ends by illuminating how American, British, French, and West German postwar planners designed new national welfare states, the Bretton Woods Order, and the European Union on the neglected foundation of anti-cartel policies.

Competition and power imbalances in the food chain are under increased scrutiny from policy makers. We assess the competitive conditions in the EU food sector, using firm-level accounting data to examine firm size distributions and market concentration (for 10 countries), and production-function-derived markups (for 7 countries) for food manufacturing, retail, and wholesale industries. Key findings include the following: (i) most firms are small, but larger firms generate most turnover; (ii) concentration is notable in certain subsectors (25% of retail/wholesale and 50% manufacturing subsectors); (iii) the correlation between turnover size, markups, and concentration at subsector level is weak. We discuss the implications for the use of turnover-based classification in the EU policy initiative on unfair trading practices.

Field experiments were conducted at Clayton and Rocky Mount, NC, during summer 2020 to determine the growth and fecundity of Palmer amaranth plants that survived glufosinate with and without grass competition in cotton. Glufosinate (590 g ai ha−1) was applied to Palmer amaranth early postemergence (5 cm tall), mid-postemergence (7 to 10 cm tall), and late postemergence (>10 cm tall) and at orthogonal combinations of those timings. Nontreated Palmer amaranth was grown in weedy, weed-free in-crop (WFIC) and weed-free fallow (WFNC) conditions for comparisons. Palmer amaranth control decreased as larger plants were treated; no plants survived the sequential glufosinate applications in both experiments. The apical and circumferential growth of Palmer amaranth surviving glufosinate treatments was reduced by more than 44% compared to the WFIC and WFNC Palmer amaranth in both experiments. The biomass of Palmer amaranth plants surviving glufosinate was reduced by more than 62% when compared with the WFIC and WFNC in all experiments. The fecundity of Palmer amaranth surviving glufosinate treatments was reduced by more than 73% compared to WFNC Palmer amaranth in all experiments. Remarkably, the plants that survived glufosinate were fecund as WFIC plants only in the Grass Competition experiment. The results prove that despite decreased vegetative growth of Palmer amaranth surviving glufosinate treatment, plants remain fecund and can be fecund as nontreated plants in cotton. These results suggest that a glufosinate-treated grass weed may not have a significant interspecific competition effect on Palmer amaranth that survives glufosinate. Glufosinate should be applied to 5 to 7 cm Palmer amaranth to cease vegetative and reproductive capacities.

Japanese hop (Humulus japonicus Siebold & Zucc.) is an emerging invasive plant that has been observed to invade and spread throughout wetlands. As an annual vine, H. japonicus can smother native vegetation, forming dense stands and reducing biodiversity. At a restored floodplain forest in Joslin, IL, formerly used as an experimental site to test the effectiveness of different reforestation methods, H. japonicus has invaded stands of the previously dominant invasive, reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.). We conducted an observational field study to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of H. japonicus invasion relative to gradients in canopy cover and species composition. Ten transects, with half the transect extending into and half extending beyond H. japonicus patches, were established in October 2022. Seven quadrats per transect were surveyed for vegetation cover and canopy cover in October 2022, June 2023, and October 2023. Transects were evenly split between forested and open areas based on the reforestation treatments. Humulus japonicus cover significantly increased from October 2022 to October 2023, resulting in a slight decrease and replacement of P. arundinacea across the site. Shade reduced H. japonicus cover, indicating its preference for sunlit conditions. Species richness was higher in forested transects compared with open ones, most likely due to the absence of both P. arundinacea and H. japonicus in shaded transects. Along transects, quadrats that had been invaded by H. japonicus differed in species composition from quadrats that had not been invaded in both October 2022 and October 2023. Humulus japonicus cover was much lower in June than October, suggesting that temporal niche partitioning may allow P. arundinacea to persist, and indicating that monitoring for H. japonicus should occur late in the growing season. Both invasive species are shade intolerant, suggesting that planting fast-growing trees should be an effective long-term solution for controlling invasion.