Gendered dimensions of commercial agriculture and subjective wellbeing in rural Nepal by Matthys, M.-L., Liebe, U. & Camfield, L. in: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

Using gender-disaggregated analysis of 791 smallholders in rural Nepal, the study finds that commercial cardamom farming is robustly associated with higher life satisfaction for both women and men, highlighting the importance of integrating subjective wellbeing measures into gender-sensitive assessments of agricultural commercialisation.

Behind the Veil of Cultural Persistence: Marriage and Divorce in a Migrant Community. by Guirkinger, C., Platteau, J.-P. & Wahhaj, Z The Economic Journal

Exploiting Belgium’s 2007 no-fault divorce reform, the study finds that easier divorce reduced arranged marriages (and divorce rates) more among second-generation Turkish men than women, highlighting how legal context shapes gendered marriage negotiations in migrant communities.

Introductory essay for special issue: future of work and welfare in India’s halting structural transition Kumar, S., Mishra, S. & Tillin, L., in: World Development. 

The introductory essay frames a special issue examining the challenges facing labour markets and welfare systems amid India’s incomplete structural transformation.

The absolute and relative facets of the economic gradient in educational attainment: Large-scale evidence from Brazil. European Journal of Development Research (E-pub ahead of print) by Villaseñor, A., Esposito, L., Kumar, S. & Macedo, S

Using data from nearly 8 million Brazilian secondary students, the study shows that both household income and relative deprivation independently predict exam performance, highlighting the dual material and psychosocial dimensions of economic inequality in education.

Home-country effects of outward foreign direct investment: A systematic review of empirical and policy evidence Knoerich, J. & Benson, D., in: International Business Review.

Based on a systematic review of 130 studies, the article finds that outward FDI is generally associated with positive home-country effects, though evidence remains uneven and key impacts—particularly the role of government support measures—require further investigation.

Rolling the dice: Capitalism, trafficking and speculation across the western Mediterranean Ciro Martínez, J., in: Economy and Society.

Drawing on the lives of two hashish traffickers operating across the Strait of Gibraltar, the article argues that their speculative navigation of risk and illegality offers a refracted lens on the uncertainty and speculative logics at the heart of contemporary capitalism.

Non-state legitimation as practice: the multiplicit making of public authority in Afro-Chinese engagements Dodworth, K. & Honke, J.in Globalizations. 

Developing a post-Weberian framework of “the non/state,” the article examines how NGOs and companies legitimate public authority in African contexts, using Chinese organisations’ engagements to advance a more pluralist understanding of global China.

Institutionalised Indigeneity, State Formation and Crisis: Lessons from the Indio Institucionalizado in Evo Morales’ Bolivia, by Ikemura Amaral, A. & McNelly, A. In: Bulletin of Latin American Research (E-pub ahead of print). The article analyses how the Morales government institutionalised indigeneity as part of the MAS’s state-building project, arguing that this “indio institucionalizado” both consolidated hegemony and contributed to the political crisis that marked the end of Morales’s presidency.