Decarbonising the world economy will require workforces with the skills to support the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. The effects of reforming education systems can be slow to materialise, so progress towards climate goals will depend on improving the allocation of workers from ‘brown’ jobs to ‘green’ jobs. This column argues that most workers in brown […]
In recent years, banks have increasingly embraced net zero commitments as part of their strategy to address climate change. This column finds limited evidence to suggest that net zero commitments lead to significant reductions in financed emissions or substantial increases in financing for sustainable activities. It raises questions about the effectiveness of voluntary private-sector initiatives […]
To what extent high markups have shaped the recent inflation dynamics? This column presents evidence from the US on how markups affect the pass-through of global oil supply shocks. Higher markups are associated with a lower pass-through of shocks to producer prices only when the shocks are disinflationary. High-markup firms are more likely than low-markup […]
The proliferation of fake news poses a growing global threat, affecting politics, individual decision-making, and economic outcomes. This column discusses how informing individuals about their susceptibility to fake news affects their willingness to pay to protect themselves from misinformation. While people often overestimate their ability to discern fake news, raising awareness about their susceptibility affects […]
The growing interest in regulating the market power and influence of social media platforms has been accompanied by an explosion in academic research. This column synthesises the research on social media and finds that while it has made dramatic progress in the last decade, it mostly focuses on Facebook and Twitter. More research is needed […]
The power of monetary policy to affect interest rates and exchange rates depends on the downward slope of the demand function. This column uses the Chinese experiment with parallel currencies to study the impact of sudden increases in money supply. The authors find causal evidence that increases in money supply lead to currency depreciations, and […]
The effects of economic fracturing are intertwined with broader, longer-term shifts in trade, investment and global value chains. In many respects, the impact of these longer-term trends on foreign direct investment outweighs – at least for now – the impact of fracturing. This column highlights ten transformative trends in foreign direct investment spanning the two […]
Recent geopolitical tensions have been putting pressure on international supply chains. This column presents the findings from recent surveys conducted by central banks of the Eurosystem which suggest that firms’ exposure to critical inputs produced in China remains elevated, especially in Germany. Many companies are implementing de-risking strategies to reduce this dependency, mainly by substituting […]
When new general-purpose technologies like AI emerge, both techno-optimists and techno-pessimists predict that inequality will increase among the labour force. This column studies the rapid introduction of electricity in early 20th century Sweden and its effect on workers. The transformative technology benefitted those at the bottom of the income distribution, resulting in higher incomes, lower […]
Sanctions in response to the invasion of Ukraine led to a substantial decline in Russia’s crude oil revenues in 2022 and 2023. This column argues that the decline in revenue was due almost entirely to the embargo on Russian crude oil imports, which forced Russian oil exports to be redirected from Europe to more distant […]
