The gender pay gap is well-documented, yet its source remains debated. This column uses data from Portuguese firms to analyse the role of professional networks in explaining the gender pay gap among top executives. The component of the pay gap which is unexplained by age, tenure, or education has remained persistently large over the period 1986 to 2017, reflecting a gender bias which can be partly explained by networks. Both female and male managers benefit most from connections to managers of their own gender.

It seems obvious that lowering the cost of communication among innovators would facilitate scientific and technological progress. Yet, few studies examine this relationship. This column explores the introduction of the first modern postal system in Britain in 1840 and its effect on the number of citations between pairs of scientists and on patenting. The gradient with which citations declined with distance-based postage costs fell and patenting increased in locations that experienced more significant improvements in letter market access due to the reform.

The relationship between trade and volatility depends on a complex interaction between sectoral shocks, sectoral specialisation, and geographic diversification. This column uses a multi-country, multi-sector framework to study the main sources of risk for open economies and how trade determines the exposure to those risks through specialisation and diversification of sales. It shows that diversification reduces volatility, particularly in countries with higher output volatility.

Evidence suggests that sovereign debt markets are taking climate effects into account in pricing, creating the potential for a climate-debt doom loop. However, climate risks to fiscal stability do not attract the same attention as climate risks to financial stability. This column discusses how integrated assessment models can be linked with stochastic debt sustainability analysis to inform our understanding of climate risks to sovereign debt.