Did you know? According to the latest estimates from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), 831 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3.00 per day. But how is this number derived? Where does the data come from? In this blog, we take you behind the scenes. To understand how the World […]
Rising geopolitical tensions now threaten the rules-based world order that has governed the functioning of the international monetary system since WWII with risks of geoeconomic fragmentation. The latest Geneva Report on the World Economy examines how these risks, which include a reversal in decades of financial integration, reduced international allocative efficiency, and an erosion of […]
A key debate surrounding export controls is whether they accelerate innovation in targeted rivals. This column studies this question using a set of US export controls, the 2007 ‘China Rule’, by comparing sanctioned goods with goods just excluded from the policy. It finds that the policy reduced Chinese imports of restricted goods. It also finds […]
Micron plans to stop supplying server chips to data centres in China after the business failed to recover from a 2023 government ban on its products in critical Chinese infrastructure, two people briefed on the decision said. Micron was the first U.S. chipmaker to be targeted by Beijing – a move that was seen as retaliatory […]
Global financial stocks slid on Friday as a rout in U.S. regional banking shares heightened concerns about credit quality and mounting risks in the sector. The banking sector’s exposure in two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on […]
Oil prices rose on Monday after hitting five-month lows in the previous session, as investors focused on potential talks between the presidents of the United States and China that could ease trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Brent crude futures rose 65 cents, or 1%, to $63.38 a barrel by 1313 GMT. U.S. […]
Europe’s reliance on US arms raises autonomy concerns, as security worsens and leaders aim to cut strategic and technological dependence. Worries about Europe’s dependence on the United States military industrial base have increased with the worsening security situation in Europe and the deterioration of the transatlantic relationship. With a new dataset covering all US foreign […]
Corporate climate risk disclosures are costly and often a mere box-ticking exercise. In November 2024, the Omnibus Environmental, Social and Governance Regulation was announced in Europe to consolidate and simplify the phasing-in of corporate sustainability reporting requirements while maintaining strong ESG commitments. This column discusses how leveraging pollution registers can provide an actionable picture of […]
According to the World Bank, one-third of the global population, roughly 2.6 billion people, live in “digital darkness,” meaning they lack access to the internet. Even European Union countries are facing a stark reality, as nearly half of all adults struggle to navigate the digital landscape. At the same time, job markets are evolving at breakneck speed—demanding advanced skills in […]
The increasing use of mobile phones is making a range of digital resources more widely available to people across the income spectrum. Eighty-four percent of adults in developing countries now have their own phone—a promising finding from the inaugural Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker. Yet, about one-in-four of these adults have a more affordable basic phone, […]
