The transition from sail to steam power for cargo and passenger shipping to Australia lagged behind the North Atlantic by nearly two decades. This column explores how Brunel’s iconic ship, the SS Great Britain, succeeded where others failed, thanks to its size and innovative design that combined sail and steam power. The Great Britain made […]
Three forces have always shaped globalisation – technology, policies, and geopolitics. What distinguishes the current moment is that all three are accelerating simultaneously but in different directions. This column introduces a new eBook showing how this divergent acceleration creates transformation rather than retreat from globalisation. But it also generates acute tension between rapidly changing economic […]
The world is adjusting to President Trump’s second ‘first hundred days’ in office. This column introduces a new CEPR eBook in which over 50 experts explore how the new administration’s policies are reshaping the US economy and sending ripples across the global economic order. While the assessment is preliminary, in part due to the great […]
History is full of evidence that tariffs harm economic performance. This column assesses the two waves of globalisation in modern history and how they were interrupted by barriers to trade. The first wave started in the mid-19th century and lasted until WWI, while the second wave started after WWII and lasted until the Global Crisis […]
Recent evolutions in US attitudes and policies have raised questions about the future of the dollar’s role in the global economy. This column explores a hypothetical scenario in which the world is deprived of the dollar as its global safe asset. In such a world, interest rates would be higher and more volatile. Liquidity would […]
In many of the world’s most advanced economies, hyper-globalisation and technological shocks such as AI have made many people’s lives seem less secure. But the traditional way of monitoring pay via repeated one-off surveys has limited our understanding of the volatility of earnings, and thus insecurity. This column uses newly available data from Britain’s tax […]
