Andrés Riquelme

The rapid shift to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated mental health risks for students, particularly those experiencing multidimensional poverty—a potential contributor to psychological distress in digital learning environments. This study examines how poverty-driven techno-distress (technology-related stress) impacts university students’ mental health, focusing on 202 Chilean learners engaged in remote classes. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), we analyzed multidimensional poverty and its association with techno-distress, measured through validated scales. The results suggest that poverty conditions are associated with 32.5% of technostress variance (R² = 0.325), while techno-distress may indirectly relate to 18.7% of students’ dissatisfaction with academic life—a proxy for emerging mental health risks. Importance–performance map analysis (IPMA) identified housing habitability (e.g., overcrowding, inadequate study spaces) and healthcare access as priority intervention targets, surpassing purely digital factors. These findings indicate that techno-distress in online education may function as a systemic stressor, potentially amplifying pre-existing inequities linked to poverty. For educators and policymakers, this highlights the urgency of early interventions addressing students’ physical environments alongside pedagogical strategies. By framing techno-distress as a public health challenge rooted in socioeconomic disparities, this work advances preventive approaches to safeguard student well-being in increasingly hybrid educational landscapes.

This paper assesses the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) for forest product prices (i.e., sawnwood, logs) by applying a two-regime Self-Exciting Threshold Autoregressive (SETAR) model. We incorporate autoregressive second-order dynamics in the regime equations. This leads to better forecasts, as integrating more lags helps capture the cumulative effects of the price dynamics. We examine sawnwood and log products traded in the United States, Malaysia (Southeast Asia) and Cameroon (West Africa). Our results illustrate the importance of applying the two-regime SETAR-type models to analyze the non-linear exchange rate pass-through for forest product markets. The impulse response analysis of each price pair supports the changing behavior of price ratios in various regimes. This may be regarded as another justification to apply models accounting for structural changes to investigate the exchange rate pass-through in a non-linear fashion. The aftershock adjustment process is similar, but the amplitude of the impact differs among markets. The results reveal potential arbitrage opportunities in the forestry industry.