Trade finance: A lifeline for jobs and businesses
When a farmer in Ghana can’t import fertilizer to grow maize or a pharmacy in Pakistan runs short of antibiotics, the barrier is rarely the
The unbearable lightness of promises
When reforms are judged by their plans rather than their impact, they risk drifting into the lightness of promises unmet. An “outcome reflex” mindset restores gravity—anchoring
This new dataset tracks urban emissions from space
Cities worldwide can now track their carbon and methane emissions from space, thanks to a new dataset from the World Bank that puts high-resolution, real-time
The impact of interest: How loan rates shape firm investment
Monetary policy moves aggregate investment, but the underlying drivers remain unclear. This column opens the black box with a German firm survey. A one percentage
Households’ inaction in the deposit market
The sharp rise in interest rates since 2021 has not been matched by equal increases in household savings rates in advanced economies. This column uses
What Germany’s medium-term fiscal plan means for Europe
EU leniency on Germany’s fiscal plan highlights rule rigidity and the need for reform to support investment. Germany’s July 2025 medium-term fiscal-structural plan exposes the
Confusopoly unveiled: How firms use complexity to raise prices
Can entire markets strategically confuse consumers to raise prices? This column tracks the prices of nearly all mobile phone tariffs and handsets in the UK
Speaking of debt: Framing, guilt, and economic choices
In many Germanic languages, the word for ‘debt’ also means ‘guilt’. This column explores whether the linguistic overlap leads to greater debt aversion in Germany,
Details matter: How loan pricing affects monetary policy transmission in the euro area
Classifying loans as fixed-rate or floating-rate fails to fully capture their distinct sensitivity to changes in ECB policy rates. This column analyses the maturity of
Sustained growth through creative destruction: Nobel laureates Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt
Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have been jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Joel Mokyr ‘for having explained innovation-driven economic growth’.
