Developing countries invest about $1 billion annually to train millions of aspiring and existing entrepreneurs. While significant, this investment doesn’t fully address the shortage of expertise needed to better support micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) or to design programs to improve their access to finance, markets, and technology. So, what is limiting MSMEs from […]
U.S. investor and entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano announced on Monday the creation of a new bitcoin treasury company that would hold up to $1 billion of the world’s largest cryptocurrency on its balance sheet. Pompliano said in a statement that his financial services firm ProCap BTC would merge with Columbus Circle Capital I, a special purpose […]
Despite its small size, Lebanon’s chronic crises send financial shockwaves across the Middle East and North Africa. This column uses a Twitter-based index of economic policy uncertainty to track Lebanon’s instability and shows that it transmits financial shocks to seven MENA economies, with spillovers are strongest for Egypt, Jordan, and smaller Gulf states. Real-time policy […]
The unprecedented wave of state aid to firms across the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about who benefited and how effective these interventions were. This column uses firm-level data from Spain and Italy – two of the countries worst affected by the pandemic – to evaluate the economic impact of aid. Targeted support […]
Tariffs affect both supply and demand, possibly with contrasting effects on prices. This column shows that renewed US-China tensions could redirect Chinese exports to the euro area, boosting supply and lowering prices. Using detailed trade and inflation data, it estimates that such diversion could cut core euro area inflation by 0.3 percentage points over two […]
The World Bank has revised its estimates of global poverty to reflect new data on prices and national poverty lines from more than 160 countries in the world. The revisions to the global poverty estimates suggest that more people have escaped extreme poverty over the last decades, yet the world is poorer than we thought. […]
Thailand’s coastal and marine resources are vital engines of growth. From pristine beaches that attract millions of tourists each year to the Eastern Economic Corridor that supports production and trade, the country’s “blue economy” involving 23 coastal provinces is estimated to contribute around 30 percent of Thailand’s GDP and one-fourth of the nation’s employment. As Thailand […]
History is full of evidence that tariffs harm economic performance. This column assesses the two waves of globalisation in modern history and how they were interrupted by barriers to trade. The first wave started in the mid-19th century and lasted until WWI, while the second wave started after WWII and lasted until the Global Crisis […]
The goods trade gap contracted 46.0% to $87.6 billion last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Friday The U.S. trade deficit in goods narrowed sharply in April as the boost from the front-running of imports ahead of tariffs faded. The goods trade gap contracted 46.0% to $87.6 billion last month, the Commerce Department’s […]
Although Chinese banks have remained the top lenders to emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), their growth has slowed and their lending patterns have changed since the pandemic. This column shows that while cross-border lending by Chinese banks to their EMDE borrowers was highly correlated with bilateral trade flows between both countries prior to the […]
