The Danes, the Dutch, the Swedes and the feasibility of walking away from pay-as-you-go pensions
Prefunded pensions in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden pair income security with fiscal sustainability, but other EU countries need a faster route. This paper examines
Cultural norms matter for macroeconomic development
Interest in the role of cultural norms, institutions, and development has resurfaced in recent years especially post the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. This column
Navigating geoeconomic risk in the US stock market
Geoeconomic risk has become a first-order concern for investors. This column shows that domestic US stocks expose investors to substantial geoeconomic risk through firms’ global
Global imbalances and the China challenge
China’s trade surplus is widening, its manufactured exports are surging, and the political backlash is intensifying. This column argues that the widening trade surplus reflects
Remunerating means of payment
Non-remuneration of digital money acts as a distortionary tax, making EU bans on interest for e-money and stablecoins hard to defend. Though banknotes cannot technically
Geopolitical risk is reshaping global finance, one bank loan at a time
Geopolitical tensions are increasingly reshaping the flow of trade, investment and capital flows. This column documents that the same process is also reshaping bank lending.
Capital inflows boost output, even after accounting for expectations
Emerging market economies that are expected to perform well may attract more foreign capital, making it difficult to establish the causal effects of capital inflows
The inflation rate fell but many workers’ pay cheques did not keep up
Inflation in the US has receded from its 2022 peak. This column uses payroll records from 2016 to 2025 to show that many workers have
When statistics lie: Using satellite data to track Russia’s wartime economy
Official Russian statistics report a mild recession in 2022 following the full-scale of Ukraine but suggest that Russia has since fully recovered. This column argues
Nine centuries of cultural change and the productivity of ideas
Economic historians have long placed culture at the centre of the rise of the West, but have lacked a measure of culture spanning the emergence
