• Loading stock data...
Finance Banking Education Featured World

Unlocking SME growth: Key lessons from Ecuador’s loan program

Governments and development institutions spend billions to help small businesses access financing, hoping this will create jobs and support inclusive economic growth. But we don’t really know if these programs reach the firms that need help most and help them grow. In a recent paper, we evaluate a loan program in Ecuador implemented by the state […]

Economy Development Featured News World

Attrition in surveys in developed country field experiments

One of the remarkable things about many field experiments done by development economists is the low attrition rates that have been achieved in many surveys. In an era of increasing suspicion about scams, and distrust in strangers, the fact that people are willing to repeatedly answer often lengthy questionnaires is amazing. It can take a […]

World Innovation News Productivity

Detecting potentially harmful workplace practice

Businesses use checklists to exercise managerial control and ensure quality, but excessive bureaucracy can frustrate skilled workers and reduce morale. This column presents a randomised control trial in a German bakery chain that removed two time-consuming, non-essential checklists in selected stores. After abolishing the checklists, sales rose by 2.7%, customer ratings improved, and qualified workers […]

Climate Economy Environment Featured News World

Race cars and hydromet systems: What do they have in common?

Professional race cars and hydromet (weather, water, and climate forecasting) systems may seem worlds apart, but they have more in common than we realize. Both perform at high levels, requiring purpose-built designs and constant technological advancement, and for both, there are no off-the-shelf solutions. Every part needs to be acquired with overall compatibility and connectivity […]

Finance Banking Featured News World

Chat Bankman-Fried: An experiment on LLM ethics in finance

As large language models gain traction, it is important to ensure that decisions delegated to them comply with ethical and legal principles. This column reports on an experiment in which state-of-the-art large language models were prompted to impersonate the CEO of a fictitious financial firm needing to repay corporate debt urgently with no funds available […]

Banking Featured Finance News World

Recent patterns in global risk behaviour in financial markets

Following the US tariff announcements in early April, the US dollar strongly depreciated while US Treasury yields rose. This column zooms in on the April episode, analysing the co-movement of asset prices with an estimated market ‘safe-haven factor’. It shows that the co-movement of the US dollar with the ‘safe-haven factor’ changed in April, and […]

Technology Energy Featured Finance World

Britain’s AI hopes face harsh reality of high electricity costs

 Britain’s ambition to rev up its economy and tap the AI revolution faces the harsh reality that the abundant, clean and reliable electricity supply this requires is unlikely to materialise any time soon. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has laid out several major industrial policies aimed at reviving Britain’s sluggish economy, including by pouring investment into the artificial […]

Technology Business Energy Featured News World

Europe’s old power plants to get digital makeover driven by AI boom

 Some of Europe’s ageing coal and gas fired power plants can look forward to a more high-tech future as big tech players, such as Microsoft and Amazon, seek to repurpose them as data centres, with ready-made access to power and water. Companies such as France’s Engie , Germany’s RWE, and Italy’s Enel are looking to benefit from […]

trade Business Featured Finance

Navigating debt and trade: Data show persistent debt challenges for developing countries amid uncertain trade prospects

Low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) have rebounded strongly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Gross national income (GNI) among these countries was resilient in 2023, at $36 trillion — and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that economic growth of developing economies will hold steady at about 4 percent over the next two years. Yet LMICs face […]