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The COVID-19 pandemic deteriorated the economic situation and raised the issue of the quality of banks’ assets and, in particular, the growth of non-performing loans (NPLs). The study approaches a topical subject that is of interest to banks and society at large, as credit availability is likely to be reduced. Over the last 10 years, the Baltic countries’ banking sector has significantly improved its risk management policies and practices, increased capital ratios on its balance sheets, and created risk reserves. The current chapter examines the factors affecting NPLs in the Baltic States based on advanced econometric modelling applied to data extracted from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Eurostat. The study results show that credit risk management in the Baltic States has significantly improved compared to the period before the global financial crisis (GFC), the capitalisation of credit institutions is one of the highest in the European Union (EU), and banks are liquid and profitable. Lending recovered from the downturn in the first phase of the pandemic, and credit institutions have taken advantage of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) long-term funding programme ITRMO III to improve the liquidity outlook. Although the credit quality of commercial banks has not deteriorated, as the exposures of credit institutions in the most affected sectors are insignificant and governments have provided fiscal support to businesses and households, some challenges remain. The increase in credit risk is expected due to rising production prices as well as the rebuilding of disrupted supply chains. The findings allow conclusions to be drawn on the necessary actions to mitigate the credit risk of the banking sector.

The present effects of transnational corporations (TNCs) on social, health, and environmental aspects of local societies have a long history. The pre-conditions for the insertion of the types of economic initiatives now seen in the Global South, and driven by TNCs, were set through histories of colonialism and development schemes. These initiatives disrupted local economies and modified environments, delivering profound effects on livelihoods. These effects were experienced as structural violence, and have produced social suffering through the decades.

In this paper, we compare two African cases across time; the conjunction of development initiatives and structural adjustment in the Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe in the early 1990s and industrial plantation forestry in present-day Uganda. Each case presents a specific constellation of political and economic forces that has produced prejudicial effects on local populations in their time period of application and are, essentially, different versions of structural violence that produce social suffering. While each case depicts a specific type of violent encounter manifest at a particular historical moment, these are comparable in the domains of environmental impacts, disruptions to societies, co-opting of local economies, disordering of systems of meaning and social reproduction, and nefarious effects on well-being. We analyze the conjunction of these effects through a theoretical lens of structural violence and social suffering. Our analysis draws particular attention to the role of TNCs in driving this structural violence and its effects.

Mortgage delinquency has become a major crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored mortgage delinquency antecedents, focusing on two individual-level factors: financial literacy and personality traits.

Using a large sample of 2,511 consumers, we examined the direct effect of financial literacy and its interaction with personality traits to predict mortgage delinquency based on logistic regression analysis. We further provide several robustness tests to validate our findings.

We find that financially literate consumers are 6% less likely to delay their mortgage repayment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, personality traits such as neuroticism and extroversion positively and conscientiousness negatively moderate the given linkage between financial literacy and mortgage delinquency.

Banks and financial companies may devise relevant policies to reduce mortgage repayment by knowing the interplay between financial literacy and personality traits. Personality traits can be considered one of the parameters while sanctioning mortgages to prospective customers.

Our research examines the linkage between financial literacy, personality traits and mortgage delinquency based on a large nationally representative sample. Our findings suggest that personality traits moderate the effect of financial literacy on mortgage delinquency.

This paper aims to propose a new indicator of product differentiation in the mortgage market and use it to examine how the double crisis, local market competition and bank-specific characteristics have influenced the supply of non-conventional mortgages in Italy.

This paper uses a special Bank of Italy’s survey on 400 Italian banks over the period 2006–2013, to compute a new indicator for product differentiation in the mortgage market. This paper considers mortgage with non-conventional characteristics: loan-to-value ratio greater than 80%; duration longer than 30 years or with a flexible maturity. This paper estimates probit and ordinary least squares (OLS) models using panel data at bank-time level.

The findings suggest that during the double crisis that hit the Italian economy between 2008 and 2013, the diversification process in the Italian household mortgage market slowed down. Controlling for banks’ and local markets’ this study finds that larger, less risky banks and those that have adopted scoring systems are more likely to offer non-conventional mortgages; moreover, banks operating in more competitive markets and in markets where other banks offer non-conventional loans tend to diversify their supply more. Most of these indications are confirmed by analyzing the quantities actually granted. These results suggest that the structure of the local markets does matter, and that there could be a non-price competition effect among banks in providing differentiated mortgage contracts.

The indicator, computed using data at bank level drawn from a special Bank of Italy’s survey, goes beyond the standard approach on product differentiation followed in the empirical literature, mainly base on the dichotomy between fixed and variable lending rates. Furthermore, to best of the authors’ knowledge, so far there is no empirical evidence on the supply-side factors that influenced the diversification of mortgages’ contractual terms during the crisis; particularly, there is no evidence on the role of local market competition and bank-specific features. This paper contributes to fill this gap in the literature.

This paper aims to present an iterative approach to creating a collaborative design-and-play skatepark videogame for a children’s museum physics exhibit. Intended for children of 5-8 years old and accompanying adults, this interactive tabletop game encourages players to build a skatepark and then skate through it with a skater character. This case study describes the authors’ design perspective shift to make the game’s possibilities for tinkering more “perceptible.”

This paper presents a case-based design narrative that draws on the project’s iterative playability testing with parent–child dyads and reflections from the design team’s endeavors. This analysis draws on methodological elements adapted from agile game development processes and educational design-based research.

The initial game prototype inhibited the collaborative tinkering of parent–child dyads because it used interface abstractions such as menus, did not orient to the task of tinkering with skatepark design and did not help players understand why their skatepark designs failed. Subsequent game versions adopted blocks as a metaphor for interaction, gave players explicit design goals and models and provided players with more explicit feedback about their skater’s motion.

Museum games that provide tinkering experiences for children are an emerging medium. Central concerns for those designing such games are presenting multiple modes of play for different players and contexts and clearly and quickly communicating the possible activities and interactions. The design approach in this study offers players the opportunity to – at both short and long timescales – take up game-directed challenges or explore the skatepark physics through self-generated goals.

Previous research suggests that employees often make family-related career decisions (Greenhaus and Powell, 2012). The authors extend this idea and explore the concept of “home-to-career interference,” defined as the extent to which people perceive that their private life has constrained their career decisions to date. The authors expect that home-to-career interference has a negative impact on employees’ later career satisfaction via career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors collected quantitative data at three points in time, each six months apart in a Belgian telecommunications organization. Using the full information maximum likelihood path analysis approach, the authors performed analyses on a sample of dual-earner employees.

The results showed that employees’ home-to-career interference related negatively to their career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support, which were, in turn, positively related to their career satisfaction.

This study contributes to the work-family literature by introducing the concept of home-to-career interference, by clarifying the mechanisms through which home-to-career interference relates to career satisfaction and by testing these relationships using a three-wave longitudinal design.