Depending on how it is measured, China’s economy is now the world’s largest or second largest. It is also the world’s second-most intertwined in terms of trade relationships, after the European Union, and is a major investor and lender in the emerging world. Understanding where China is heading is important for the whole world. This […]
The growing footprint of nonbank financial institutions in corporate credit markets raises important – but often overlooked – questions about how monetary and macroprudential policies shape credit allocation to the real economy. Using global syndicated loan data, this column shows that nonbanks act as shock absorbers, shielding nonfinancial firms from tightening in both monetary and […]
Language policy is not merely symbolic – it shapes the direction of trade, the allocation of subsidies, and a country’s internal cohesion. Using new data on linguistic diversity across and within the US and Canada, this column examines how language affects trade patterns and economic welfare. The authors find that enforcing a single language without […]
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 […]
Many sovereign bonds trade at a premium for being safe assets that retain their value even in deep recessions. This premium, or ‘convenience yield’, allows governments to borrow cheaply. This column argues that sovereign bonds remain particularly valuable in comparison to other assets, such as stocks, only in disinflationary demand recessions. In inflationary supply recessions, […]
Every year on United Nations World Bicycle Day (June 3), we celebrate the transformative benefits of the bicycle. At the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington, DC, staff from across the institution gathered in the main atrium—as per a growing tradition—to recognize the tremendous contribution the bicycle can make to the World Bank’s mission of ending extreme […]
That was above the 6.7% expansion in gross domestic product forecast in a Reuters poll for the March quarter India’s economy grew 7.4% in the January-March quarter from the same period last year, its fastest in a year, and up from a revised 6.4% in the previous three months, data released on Friday showed. That […]
Investment banks and institutions generally expect the United States to avoid a recession this year and the global economy to keep growing For all the drama surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, the world economy is holding up better than many had expected. The latest data from the United States, China and, to a […]
The European Union is nearly on track to reach its main climate target for this decade, with countries’ existing CO2-cutting plans set to bring the bloc within one percentage point of the goal, the European Commission said on Wednesday. The EU is on course to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 54% by 2030, […]
President Trump’s 2025 tariffs mark the onset of the post-American leadership era. This column introduces The Great Trade Hack, a new CEPR Rapid Response book arguing that Trump’s trade policy, driven by a ‘Grievance Doctrine’, is emotionally coherent but economically incoherent. Despite their failure to deliver real solutions, tariffs persist as ‘policy placebos’ that deflect […]
