Escalating geopolitical tensions, trade wars, and volatile policy shifts are reshaping the rules of global commerce and finance and bringing the dominance of the US dollar into question. This column argues that Europe has a historic opportunity to elevate the euro into a trusted global anchor of stability and thus rebalance a global monetary order […]
Inflation targeting has emerged as the dominant monetary policy framework in advanced and emerging market economies. This column discusses three main challenges faced by inflation-targeting central banks: the recent high-inflation episode and increasingly frequent supply-side disruptions; expanding central bank balance sheets since the Global Crisis; and risks to central bank independence. The authors argue that […]
The number of people fleeing war and persecution worldwide has nearly tripled since the early 2010s, challenging European policymakers to ensure swift integration of asylum seekers into the labour market. This column assesses a pilot programme in Italy that provides early, personalised labour market support to asylum seekers. Even in resource-constrained settings, the early targeted […]
According to the UNDP’s Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), the Republic of Chad has a poverty score of 0.517. But what does this number mean? Is it a good score or a bad one? If you have no clue, you aren’t alone. While the concept of poverty is easy to grasp, quantifying it is actually pretty hard. […]
Traditional insurance for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is prohibitively expensive. Serving rural and remote areas requires costly on-site visits to assess risks and verify losses. In addition, the information available to insurers about farmers’ practices, and what they are exposed to, is limited, which drives the insurance cost up due to […]
As the world continues to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, countries face new and unexpected challenges. Elevated debt levels, persistent inflation, and weakened growth prospects have created a perfect storm of financial pressure. For many nations, this has meant shrinking the budgets in vital sectors like health, education, and the environment. In […]
The last coal mine in Wałbrzych, Poland closed in the 1990s, leaving a region that had long relied on mining facing severe economic disruption. Unemployment soared, local businesses suffered, and an entire way of life built around the coal industry seemed to disappear overnight. By 2000, only one-tenth of the jobs lost in the mining […]
There is growing recognition that the specific characteristics of services sectors and services trade have important environmental implications. For example, services trade can foster technological advancements and solutions that reduce the environmental footprint of economic activities. This column presents empirical evidence that reducing policy restrictions on imported services inputs lowers the emissions intensity of downstream […]
President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement triggered a discussion of whether import tariffs can reduce trade deficits or boost certain industries. This column develops a model, calibrated to the US economy, which illustrates how a uniform import tariff generates both expansionary effects upstream and contractionary effects downstream and is highly inflationary, reflecting its hybrid nature as […]
Central bank digital currencies are gaining traction as a potential innovation in central banking, with numerous countries considering their implementation. However, given the limited real-world experience with such currencies, researchers and policymakers depend on theoretical analysis to assess their potential. This column presents a new macroeconomic model that reveals significant welfare gains from introducing central […]
