Over three decades ago, economic researcher Martin Ravallion and his colleagues found a way to identify and quantify the world’s poorest people with an international poverty line that continues to guide policies to this day. Poverty has been with us since the dawn of civilization, but the measurement of global poverty is a relatively new […]
As the region recovers from the pandemic there is an opportunity to rethink how development is undertaken and to deploy mission-oriented approaches to policy making. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the worst global recession since World War II. Developing countries are planning for economic recovery and they also need to tackle the increasing risks from climate […]
The experience of the UK with the Liz Truss government and its ‘mini budget’ brought to the fore the importance of well-functioning political institutions for the economy to prosper (Acemoğlu and Robinson 2012, Alesina and Perotti 1994), and showed that the effect of political degradation on the economy can materialise quickly. The recent credit crunch […]
In 1979, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women set an agenda for expanding women’s rights around the world. Shortly after, the International Bill of Rights for Women was instituted by the UN General Assembly in 1981 and has been ratified by 189 member states since. Yet, the vision […]
The EU, the UK, and the US have sought in recent months to discourage Russia from sending military forces into Ukraine. Diplomatic missions have been complemented by promises of military support and training for the government in Kyiv. Whether these steps persuade the Russian government to stand down their troops down remains to be seen. […]
Women´s contributions to climate action are severely limited by systems that downplay women´s roles, capacity, and potential. Greater access to sustainable and gender-equitable green finance will help women be frontrunners in global efforts to address climate change. Women and girls are particularly affected by climate change, and they can aid and benefit from climate adaptation […]
While there is broad consensus that carbon pricing (i.e. a carbon tax) is an effective instrument for combatting climate change (Gollier 2021, Golosov et al. 2014, Stern 2015, Van der Ploeg 2022), the potential contribution of central banks is still debated (Hansen 2022, Boneva et al. 2021). Central banks around the world have explored various […]
Historically, despite being high in international comparison, European energy prices did not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to industrial expansion because of the exceptional energy efficiency of the local manufacturing sector (Rezessy et al. 2015). However, the recent developments in energy markets have driven an extreme wedge between prices in Europe and some other regions, as […]
We are living through a period of high inflation, driven by rising energy prices. Price hikes have an uneven impact on society, affecting low-income households in a particularly severe manner (Menyhert 2022). This, in turn, calls for mitigation policies that are at least partly targeted towards society’s most vulnerable groups, such as social tariffs or […]
Starting with the 2007-2009 crisis and continuing with the Covid-19 pandemic, financial markets have faced a series of adverse liquidity shocks. As a result, central banks expanded their policy frameworks as enhanced lenders of last resort and market makers of last resort. This column summarises the key features of these expanded policy toolkits and how […]
