Wealth disparities among hunter-gatherers and farmers in Neolithic western Eurasia (11,700 to 5,300 years ago) were less substantial than the inequalities of the past five millennia, owing to a culture of ‘aggressive egalitarianism’ that thwarted the emergence of enduring wealth inequality. This column argues that the Late Neolithic introduction of the ox-drawn plough raised the […]
Geoeconomic fragmentation may have major implications for the global economy. This column uses using a multi-country New Keynesian model to analyse the effects of various fragmentation sources, including tariffs on goods and commodities, as well as taxes on capital flows. Results indicate that the economic impact of fragmentation differs by region. Countries belonging to a […]
Unanticipated debt increases hinder growth and drive inflation in emerging markets. Fiscal frameworks and buffers, consolidation strategies, and coordinated policies can mitigate these challenges and bolster resilience. The accumulation of debt in emerging market economies increased markedly in the decade after the global financial crisis of 2007-08 due to lower global interest rates during that […]
The rapid growth and regulation of peer-to-peer online lending in the People’s Republic of China highlight its impact on financial stability and monetary policy transmission. This offers critical lessons for economies with expanding fintech sectors, emphasizing the need for balanced innovation and oversight. The financial system plays an integral role in transmitting monetary policy to […]
Performance audits play a crucial role in improving the management and use of public funds, resulting in more effective and efficient government operations. Enhancing the capacity of supreme audit institutions to perform these audits is critical for improving public accountability and achieving development goals. Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific undertake ambitious public spending […]
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) includes interoperability requirements for messaging services but not for personal social networking platforms. These gatekeeper platforms have seen little increase in competition under the DMA. Interoperability requirements – meaning different services should be able to communicate with one another – should be expanded to cover social networks, enabling entry by […]
This paper offers a comprehensive study of the long-term care (LTC) systems in Germany, France, Slovenia, Italy and Denmark. In many EU countries, the demand for LTC services already exceeds supply. Without major reforms, this ‘care gap’ is likely to widen further because of population ageing. This paper highlights a number of recent reforms to […]
The United States under the outgoing Biden administration has supported the transatlantic relationship, both through NATO and by providing support to Ukraine. At the same time, the Biden administration has generally positioned itself against European attempts to reduce reliance on foreign arms. For example, the US ambassador to NATO criticised the EU’s aim of buying […]
The economics of biodiversity are still little understood and the loss of nature, which provides pollination, clean water and other ecosystem services, is often considered to have primarily local economic impact. But nature has an intrinsic value and also has extrinsic value to many parts of the economy. Destruction of nature has global costs because […]
By increasing the cost of using fossil fuels, carbon taxes should incentivise substitution toward cleaner energy. In practice, firms may shift production and emissions across borders, a problem known as carbon leakage. This column studies carbon leakage in the context of the EU Emissions Trading System using firm-level import data. Following the introduction of the […]
