Education is part of the enabling infrastructure required for jobs, social development, and future economic growth. Unfortunately, low- and middle-income countries face an urgent skills crisis with nearly 70% of children unable to read a simple text by age 10. In response, governments, households, and donors spend more than $5.8 trillion annually on financing education […]
China is on track to meet global green-tech demand but needs to pivot from manufacturing to infrastructure. China is crucial role to the world’s green transition for two contrasting reasons: it is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter – over 30 percent of the global total – and it is the world’s largest producer of […]
China’s growth model has continued to rely on expanding industrial capacity and exporting to the world, rather than on domestic consumption. This has lead to a significant increase in China’s global share of manufactured exports and has raised concerns about overcapacity (Figure 1; Xu, 2025). The imbalance arises because China’s expanding production capacity is outpacing […]
As the global economy continues to adapt to macroeconomic shifts, infrastructure investment remains a critical driver of job creation, long-term development opportunities and resilience. While recent interest rate hikes and inflationary pressures have reshaped return expectations and complicated financing conditions, infrastructure has stood firm as a preferred asset class. With relatively stable revenues and strong government […]
Imagine a truckload of fresh mangoes grown by smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka. The fruit is ripe, fragrant, and ready for export. But instead of heading straight to market, it sits at the border waiting for inspections, test results, and paper certifications. Hours turn into days. By the time the mangoes reach their destination, some […]
How states leverage sovereign debt to support their military endeavours has been examined thoroughly, but the relationship between private finance and armed conflict remains underexplored. Using data on loans by creditors to firms in 179 countries over 1989–2020, this column documents how foreign banks reduce overall lending relative to domestic banks during violent conflicts but […]
Economic research often treats tools such as tariffs, subsides, interest rates, monetary policy, and austerity measures as gender neutral. This column argues that when sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis are missing from models and policy decisions, the result is incomplete economic analysis and inequitable outcomes. What’s missing from economics isn’t just women’s voices, but women’s […]
How does generative AI affect real workplace productivity? This column reports results from an experiment at the National Bank of Slovakia, where staff were randomly assigned GPT-4o access while completing routine and non-routine tasks. The model improved output quality by up to 44% and cut completion time by 21%, with the largest gains on non-routine, […]
In their recent blog Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?, Andrew Dabalen and Chorching Goh rightly highlight Africa’s moment of opportunity: a convergence of global attention, demographic momentum, and natural resource wealth. But whether this century can truly be Africa’s depends on whether its cities are able to generate enough good jobs to employ its growing population. […]
Although the source and duration of the destruction differ, wars and natural disasters disrupt economies in similar ways. This column examines the effects of natural disasters and the impact of government rebuilding policies by focusing on the impacts of Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico in 2017. The findings underscore how the scale and design […]
