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Economy Business Featured trade

Crude realities: Shaky balance in oil’s supply and demand shifts

The first four months of the year have been turbulent for oil markets. Brent crude oil plunged by more than $12 per barrel ($/bbl) in the four trading days following April 2. This marked the 11th-worst four-trading-day price performance since 1990 and was accompanied by a 50 percent surge in anticipated oil price volatility. Brent […]

Finance Banking Economy Featured

The Commodity Markets Outlook in eight charts

The views expressed in the Let’s Talk Development blog are solely those of the author(s). Commodity prices are projected to decline in 2025, driven by improved supplies, policy uncertainty, and an expected slowdown in global economic growth. Energy prices are expected to see the steepest drop, with the World Bank’s energy price index forecast to fall […]

Economy Featured News World

Agreed and disagreed uncertainty: Rethinking the macroeconomic impact of uncertainty

The conventional wisdom is that uncertainty leads to economic contractions, but recent evidence challenges this assumption. This column introduces two novel concepts of uncertainty – agreed and disagreed uncertainty. It shows that when uncertainty is accompanied by widespread consumer disagreement about economic conditions (disagreed uncertainty), the economy remains stable despite the elevated uncertainty. In contrast, […]

Economy Featured Social Security World

When illusions of wealth shape the economy: Understanding pseudo-wealth, macroeconomic volatility, and social welfare

Pseudo-wealth is a perception of wealth that is not backed by real economic resources. When people have widely different beliefs, they create ‘wealth’ through betting. This column describes how this perceived wealth can rapidly inflate or deflate without changing real economic fundamentals, leading to volatility in spending and potential economic instability. It raises the question […]

World Economy Featured trade

Exchange rate uncertainty, tariff hikes, and adjustment costs

The recent shift in trade policy by the new US administration is impacting global trade and creating volatility in financial markets. This column quantifies the economic impact of the 2nd April tariffs on Europe, discusses the financial market response to the announcement, and looks at the role of the exchange rate response for the transmission […]

Finance Banking Featured media World

Big news missing the big picture: Stock market performance in the news

The performance of stock markets often appears worse in the daily news than it actually is. This column argues that this negative news bias arises from two factors: (1) journalists tend to focus on major events, and (2) the daily performance of stock market indices is negatively skewed. It shows that about half of the […]

Economy Banking Featured Finance

Dollar slips, Taiwan dollar surge draws eyes

The U.S. dollar slipped again on Monday as a meteoric surge in its Taiwanese counterpart stoked speculation some Asian countries were prepared to engineer revaluations of their currencies to win U.S. trade concessions. Asia-Pacific currencies were the major developed-market beneficiaries of the fallout from that, and the dollar was down 0.7% on the Japanese yen […]

Featured Banking Economy Finance

Gold rises as Fed flags economic uncertainty; Sino-US trade talks in focus

Gold climbed on Thursday after the Federal Reserve warned of rising inflation and labor market risks fuelling economic uncertainty, while investors awaited the outcome of the U.S.-China trade talks this weekend. Spot gold rose 1.4% to $3,409.76 an ounce, as of 0223 GMT. U.S. gold futures firmed 0.7% to $3,416.70. “I think it’s mostly a […]