Personal interviews remain at the centre of most recruitment processes. This column examines the impact of ‘contrast effects’ – whereby people evaluate a current choice option relative to the previous one instead of evaluating it individually – in interviews. The authors find that individual admission and hiring recommendations strongly react to the quality of the […]
The energy transition will require large quantities of the critical raw materials mined and processed in countries that are geopolitically distant from the EU. This column documents the ownership interests in extractive companies, information essential for accurately assessing the EU’s strategic dependencies. Investors from outside the EU control a significant share of the capital of […]
The EU recently settled on a revision of its fiscal rules, replacing a system increasingly perceived as ‘one size fits all’ with bespoke guidance based on a state-of-the-art debt sustainability analysis. This column argues that a debt sustainability analysis-based approach makes a lot of sense, yet comes with an inevitable drawback in the form of […]
An extended period of benign funding conditions has changed corporate bond markets globally. This column shows how the investment grade segment has become dominated by the lowest-rated (BBB) issuers, and these issuers have become more leveraged over time. Given the large stock of BBB-rated bonds, even relatively low transition rates – downgrades from investment grade […]
China is experiencing high credit growth in its manufacturing sector, the prices of its exports are falling, and its global export share in goods has significantly increased. This column assesses potential spillovers from China to the US and the euro area. In the scenario of a credit-fuelled manufacturing boom, higher Chinese demand and commodity prices […]
Overweight and obesity have risen dramatically in recent decades in both developed and developing countries. Numerous policies have been developed to help curb this increase. The success of many of these policies depends heavily on correctly identifying the factors that hinder a healthy diet. This column documents an intervention that nudged customers of a supermarket […]
One-fifth of all cyberattacks target the financial sector, a share that is widely expected to rise. As cyberattacks become more frequent, the quantification and measurement of cyber risk and uncertainty will become pressing issues for policymakers. This column discusses the benefits of ‘bug bounty’ programmes, in which external agents are invited to search for a […]
The Covid-19 lockdowns and other anti-pandemic measures triggered a surge in layoffs and discharges. This column investigates the impact of these layoffs on the post-pandemic surge in inflation. Workers unemployed due to a layoff are more likely to retire than employed workers. Pandemic-induced layoffs led to early retirements, which decreased labour supply, increased labour market […]
Episodes of high financial stress have occurred both globally and in specific countries over the past six decades. This column introduces a new quarterly financial stress index for 110 countries, constructed using country reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit. This index has wider coverage than existing measures and can also capture the severity of financial […]
Central banks engaged in large-scale asset purchase programmes during and after the global financial crisis as well as during the COVID-18 pandemic, significantly increasing the size of their balance sheets. This column develops a framework for understanding the medium- and long-run implications of the losses arising from these large-scale asset purchases, and argues that they […]
