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hen the College of Cardinals gathers beneath Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the world is told that the Holy Spirit guides their hands. Yet, as the future Pope Benedict XVI once famously quipped, the Spirit’s role is likely "elastic"—preventing total ruin, but leaving plenty of room for human maneuvering.

A fascinating new paper, In the Network of the Conclave: Social Network Analysis and the Making of a Pope (Soda, Iorio, & Rizzo), takes this premise literally. By stripping away the incense and theology, the authors model the Vatican not as a divine hierarchy, but as a high-stakes social network. Their findings suggest that while bookmakers and pundits obsess over charisma and geography, the true path to the papacy is paved with "structural holes" and "eigenvector centrality."

The Invisible Scaffolding of Power

The central thesis of the paper is that traditional methods of predicting the Pope—analyzing betting markets, press mentions, or public speeches—are fundamentally flawed because they focus on attributes (who the person is) rather than relations (where the person sits).

The authors reconstructed the "relational architecture" of the Vatican using two distinct datasets:

• Co-Membership: A map of which cardinals sit on the same Vatican committees (dicasteries) together.
• Consecration Lines: A genealogy of who ordained whom, creating a web of spiritual debt and loyalty.

The resulting network reveals a "multiplex" system of influence. It is not enough to be popular; one must be connected to the right people (Status) and serve as a bridge between disconnected factions (Mediation Power).

The Prevost Paradox: Predicting the "Underdog"

The paper’s most striking case study revolves around Cardinal Robert F. Prevost. In the run-up to the 2025 Conclave, Prevost was a ghost in the machine of public opinion. Bookmakers gave him a measly 1% probability of election. He was a relative newcomer with little tenure in the College.

However, the algorithm told a different story. When the authors ran their structural metrics, Prevost jumped off the page:

• Status: He ranked #1 in eigenvector centrality, meaning he was connected to the most influential peers.
• Mediation: He ranked high in "betweenness," meaning he could bridge the gap between conservative and liberal blocs.
• Coalition Building: He had the highest capacity to mobilize votes across different communities.

While the world looked at the loud voices, the network identified the silent keystone. In the paper's analysis, Prevost’s structural dominance made him the de facto strongest candidate, a prediction validated by his selection as "Pope Leo XIV."

A Critique: The Limits of the Map

While In the Network of the Conclave is a triumph of structural analysis, it is not without its blind spots.

1. The "Dark Matter" of Informal Ties: The study relies entirely on formal, public records—who sits on a committee, who ordained whom. It cannot capture the "dark matter" of the Vatican: private dinners, whispered alliances in the hallways of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, or personal animosities. In closed elites, these informal ties often override formal ones.

2. Static vs. Dynamic: The paper presents a static snapshot of the network leading up to the vote. However, a conclave is a dynamic, evolving organism. Momentum shifts rapidly after the first ballot. A dynamic model that accounts for how "preference cascades" occur once voting starts would be a necessary evolution of this work.

3. The Role of Ideology: The paper touches on doctrinal orientation, but treats it secondary to structure. In reality, theological "red lines" can be insurmountable walls that no amount of "betweenness centrality" can bridge. If the Church is deeply polarized, a central broker might be rejected by both sides as being too compromised, rather than accepted as a unifier.

Soda, Iorio, and Rizzo have provided a compelling reminder that in the Vatican, as in corporate boardrooms, power is a function of position. By ignoring the noise of the media and focusing on the signal of the structure, they uncovered what human intuition missed. Future conclave watchers would do well to put down the betting slips and pick up a graph theory textbook.

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hile the global financial press remains fixated on Chinese infrastructure loans and Eurobond defaults, a more insidious structural shift is occurring within African capital markets. As highlighted in a recent briefing by The Economist ("The other debt crisis," Nov 22, 2025), the composition of African sovereign liabilities has undergone a "major transformation." Domestic borrowing has surged from $150bn in 2010 to nearly $500bn in 2024, now constituting roughly half of all government debt in sub-Saharan Africa.

This pivots the conversation from external vulnerability to internal fragility. This article summarizes the key arguments presented by The Economist and offers a critical econometric perspective on the implications for long-run growth.

The "Original Sin" Trade-off

Historically, emerging markets suffered from "original sin"—the inability to borrow abroad in their own currency. This exposed them to catastrophic currency mismatches when the dollar strengthened. Domestic borrowing theoretically solves this; liabilities are denominated in the same currency as tax revenues.

However, this safety comes at a steep price. The article notes that interest rates on domestic instruments are typically three to six percentage points higher than external concessional financing. Furthermore, maturities are dangerously short. This forces governments into a perpetual cycle of refinancing, diverting colossal sums from productive investment. In Kenya, for instance, one-third of financing needs are consumed by debt service, stifling public expenditure on health and education.

The Domestic "Doom Loop"

The most alarming structural risk identified is the symbiotic fragility between sovereigns and local banks. In many sub-Saharan nations, banks hold over 20% of their assets in government debt. This creates a "doom loop": if sovereign creditworthiness falters, bank balance sheets collapse; if banks falter, the government loses its primary creditor. This dynamic crowds out the private sector, as banks find it safer and more lucrative to lend to the state than to innovative SMEs, effectively strangling the engine of future growth.

Critical Perspective: A Necessary Evil?

Critically, The Economist perhaps underplays the structural drivers of this shift. The surge in domestic borrowing is not merely a policy error but a rational response to the drying up of international capital flows and the volatility of the Eurobond market. While the costs are high, the alternative—a return to dependency on conditional multilateral loans—carries its own political economy risks.

The path forward lies not in curbing domestic issuance, but in market deepening. As seen in Nigeria and Tanzania, extending the yield curve to longer maturities can mitigate rollover risk. The goal should be to transform this "crisis" into a catalyst for robust, liquid, and diverse African capital markets.

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o walk along the main road in Ruaka, on the outskirts of Nairobi, is to witness a dichotomy that defines modern African commerce. On the street, informal market stalls overflow with vegetables and charcoal. In the distance stands a gleaming mall housing a Carrefour franchise. But bridging this gap is Quickmart, a local Kenyan chain that has rapidly expanded to nearly 60 branches. It represents a quiet revolution: the rise of homegrown retailers filling the "missing middle" where international giants have often stumbled.

Historically, African retail has been bifurcated. Supermarkets catered to the affluent elite, while the vast majority of the population (purchasing over 70% of food and goods) relied on informal vendors. However, as noted in a recent analysis by The Economist, local chains like Quickmart (Kenya), Marketsquare (Nigeria), and Kazyon (Egypt) are proving that formal retail can successfully compete for the mass market.

The Failure of the "Cut-and-Paste" Model

The retreat of Shoprite from Nigeria in 2021 serves as a cautionary tale. The South African giant struggled with a business model that relied heavily on imported goods and leases priced in dollars. When the naira depreciated, their cost structure collapsed. Ebele Enunwa, CEO of Marketsquare, notes that international chains often sold products "that Nigerians did not know or care about."

In contrast, local challengers are agile. They locate stores in secondary cities and satellite towns rather than just prestige capitals. They understand that the African consumer is not merely "rising" in a linear fashion but is a strategic shopper navigating high inflation. Quickmart, for example, operates 24-hour branches to serve informal workers and stocks hot takeaways for Nairobi's young professionals.

Redefining the "Consumer Class"

Investors have long obsessed over the African "middle class," a term that often obscures more than it reveals. Analytics firm Fraym estimates a "consumer class" of 330 million people, yet purchasing power parity (PPP) data shows average incomes in sub-Saharan Africa remain a fraction of those in other emerging markets.

This reality has forced even e-commerce giants like Jumia to pivot. Moving away from the "Amazon of Africa" narrative targeting elites, Jumia is now delivering practical goods—weed-sprayers, shoes, and blenders—to customers in smaller towns ("up country"). This shift from aspirational luxury to practical utility is the new frontier of African retail.

The success of these local chains suggests that the future of African retail isn't about replacing the informal market entirely, but upgrading it. By offering safety, consistency, and localized products at competitive price points, they are building a uniquely African model of modernity.

O

n January 1, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared the independence of Haiti, marking the first time in history that a slave revolt led to the founding of a sovereign state. This event shattered the myth of white supremacy and sent shockwaves through the colonial powers of the Atlantic. However, as the Arte documentary "Quand l'histoire fait dates" vividly illustrates, this freedom came at an exorbitant price—a price that Haiti is, in many ways, still paying today.

While the video provides a compelling narrative of the revolution, a rigorous economic critique reveals that Haiti's underdevelopment was not merely a result of isolation, but of active, calculated financial extraction by France and the United States.

The Economic Strangulation: The "Double Debt"

The most critical economic event discussed is the indemnity of 1825. Under threat of war, France demanded 150 million gold francs—later reduced but still crushing—in exchange for diplomatic recognition. This was not aid; it was reverse reparations. Haiti was forced to compensate slaveholders for their lost "property" (human beings).

To pay this ransom, Haiti had to take out loans from French banks, creating a "double debt"—the indemnity itself and the interest on the loans to pay it. This siphoned off wealth for over a century. By 1900, 80% of Haiti's national budget was consumed by debt repayment. This capital flight prevented investment in infrastructure, education, or industrialization, effectively locking the nation into an agrarian trap.

The Trap of Monoculture

The documentary rightly points out the colonial legacy of the "Pearl of the Antilles." Saint-Domingue was the world's most profitable colony, producing 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of its sugar. However, this wealth was built on a fragile monoculture system dependent on forced labor.

Post-independence, Haitian leaders faced a dilemma: maintain the plantation system to generate export revenue (which required militarized labor, alienating the newly free peasantry) or break up the land into subsistence plots (which meant freedom but poverty). The lack of diversification and the reliance on volatile commodity markets left the economy vulnerable to external shocks.

A Critique of the Narrative

From an economic history perspective, the video could be critiqued for not emphasizing enough the role of the United States occupation (1915-1934). While it mentions isolation, the US actively seized Haiti's gold reserves and rewrote its constitution to allow foreign land ownership. This wasn't just "instability"; it was imperial resource extraction.

Furthermore, the "reparations" demanded by President Aristide in 2003 (estimated at $21 billion) were not charity, but a restitution of the capital stolen through the 1825 indemnity. The documentary touches on this, but the economic argument is stronger: without that initial capital drain, compound growth suggests Haiti's trajectory would have been radically different.