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Finance Banking Featured World

Belt, Road Summit concludes with nine deals, $1bln deals

Organizers highlighted that Hong Kongآ’s external trade with Belt and Road countries reached $276bln in 2024. The 10th Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong concluded on Thursday with the signing of nine memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and the conclusion of 36 business-to-business (B2B) deals worth close to USD one billion. The two-day summit, co-organized […]

Finance Banking Featured News World

Unpacking US tech valuations: An agnostic assessment

The recent performance of the largest US tech companies has raised concerns about the risk of a stock market bubble. Using a three-stage pricing model applied to the top ten US tech firms, this column finds that current market prices do not appear implausible given the underlying drivers of both recent and expected performance. The […]

Economy Featured Finance News World

How institutions interact with exchange rates after the 2024 US presidential election

Within minutes of the result of the 2024 US presidential election becoming clear, it triggered a global tremor in currency markets. This column investigates how institutional quality shaped currency responses to the election, using high-frequency exchange rate data for 73 countries. Virtually all currencies depreciated against the dollar immediately following the election result, which markets […]

Environment Climate Featured News World

Turning knowledge into action: Scaling solutions for disaster risk

Knowledge, especially practical, hands-on know-how, is essential for countries to tackle development challenges and to build resilience to disasters and shocks. One of the most effective ways to share this “how-to” knowledge is through peer-to-peer exchanges among policy makers and practitioners. The challenge: Closing the disaster insurance gap When natural disasters strike, many people and […]

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 […]

Business Featured News World

Laws, Data, and Empowerment: Insights from UNDP’s Women’s Empowerment Index and World Bank’s Women Business and Law Index

When it comes to improving economic outcomes for women and women’s empowerment, effective action requires reliable data. Yet, data capturing the full scope of women’s lives is often scarce, making it hard to identify what holds women—and entire economies and societies—back. Without solid evidence, the path to women enjoying the same opportunities as men is […]

Economy Banking Featured Finance

Global shocks, institutional development, and trade restrictions: Learning from crises and recoveries between 1990 and 2022

During the past 20 years, the world economy has suffered two major crises in the form of the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. This column identifies the turning points of recessions and expansions in 101 advanced and developing economies between 1990 and 2022 and analyses the drivers of economic recovery. Across the sample, […]

Finance Banking Business Featured World

Transmission of liquidity shocks through non-bank financial intermediaries: Evidence from the International Banking Research Network

The role of non-bank financial intermediaries in funding markets and financial crises has increased in recent decades. This column examines the rise of the sector and the roles these intermediaries play in liquidity shock transmission. The growth of the non-bank financial intermediation sector can be attributed to technological changes, demographic shifts, and tighter regulation of […]

Development Business Featured World

Measuring what matters for business: The new B-READY data in the World Development Indicators

What makes a country a great place to start and grow a business? Among low-income economies across the world, only 29% have a single centralized website dedicated to providing regulatory information pertaining to international trade. In high-income economies, the same number stands at 67% . The World Bank’s new Business Ready (B-READY) project shines a light on this […]

Finance Business Economy Featured

The post-pandemic disinflation: Low sacrifice, high prices

By some criteria, the post-pandemic disinflation was a triumph for central banks in advanced economies: inflation fell sharply from 40-year highs while unemployment rates remained low, the combination of which generated historically low sacrifice ratios (output losses per inflation reduction). These standard metrics for success, however, ignore adjustments in the price level, which rose by […]